Ofcourse its not novel, not even the name of the method is novel - it is a play on "norwegian doubles". The person most associated with the double threshold (if we disregard the Ingebrigtsens), Marius Bakken, has even written the foreword of the NSM book. Its not a big secret.
Speaking of, in the fifth sentence of the preface of the book we can read:
"I didn’t invent a new way of training. All I did was explain why I thought that a validated cycling training technique may work for running".
I think you have constructed an image of what people in this thread are like, and cant stop fighting against that image. But you are going against windmills.
No, in pointing out the lack of novelty I'm just responding to actual posts here, in which people act as if "NSM" represents some revolutionary breakthrough. They may, in fact, be in the minority, but their not in the minority of actual posters.
Can someone explain what LT1 is? I’m very confused. It’s used to describe below 70% of max heart rate and the hard limit for easy run pace in the book, but the Norwegian doubles method describes LT1 as like 2.5 hour race pace and not that much slower than LT2. These seem like very different things to me. If I test my lactate and find LT1 am I going to find something around my easy run pace or something slightly easier than the NSM sub threshold sessions? Does LT1 refer to two different things?
Not an exercise physiologist or anything, but I think LT1 is the intensity at which blood lactate becomes elevated noticeably above baseline levels.
Several of the terms in that definition can be fuzzily interpreted, but I think this pretty much coincides with the upper bound of the popular "zone 2" notion.
Obviously this will vary from person to person depending on their physiology and fitness attributes, but it's said that this often does occur somewhere around what might be 2.5 hour or 3 hour or 4 hour race pace.
Can someone explain what LT1 is? I’m very confused. It’s used to describe below 70% of max heart rate and the hard limit for easy run pace in the book, but the Norwegian doubles method describes LT1 as like 2.5 hour race pace and not that much slower than LT2. These seem like very different things to me. If I test my lactate and find LT1 am I going to find something around my easy run pace or something slightly easier than the NSM sub threshold sessions? Does LT1 refer to two different things?
I think you need to reread. It absolutely does not describe what easy pace is in the book. In fact, easy pace is deliberately designed to be significantly below Lt1 for everyone, even for those with a low turning point it's still so easy, it's almost certainly for 99.99% of people going to be below Lt1 on an easy day. What you probably have misunderstood is that LT1 has such a broad range for folks, so it's hard to guestimate. Lt1 could easily be 72% MHR or 84%. There's no real way to tell. Whereas when without a lactate meter, it's reasonably easy to run LT2 - or just below for our purposes in this thread - because it's certainly (compared to LT1) a much less broad range.
Lt1 is probably around 3.5-4 hour race pace. For fast marathoners, obviously marathon pace is faster than LT1. For slower runners, well you can see LT1 might be marathon pace or even quite a bit below.
I confirm I upvoted this post. Having spoken to him for a bit, turns out lexel is a really nice guy.
The other 8 are me and my bot farm
I roll out the red carpet. Unbelievable you are back out of the bushes :)
A question to you:
How can A. Maders lactate model be used to explain changes in running performance in Sirpocs training concept? What parameters change short (6 weeks) or long term (half a year)?
Paper: A. Mader, 2003, Glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation as a function of cytosolic phosphorylation state and power output of the muscle cell
Prescribing the frequency, duration, or volume of training is simple as these factors can be altered by manipulating the number of exercise sessions per week, the duration of each session, or the total work performed in a giv...
I am still confused because if you search "zone 2" it says it's 60-70% of max heart rate. 2.5-4 hour race pace is marathon pace, and people in NSA do their easy runs at 70% max heart rate. I don't think people in NSA are doing their easy runs at marathon pace.
I am still confused because if you search "zone 2" it says it's 60-70% of max heart rate. 2.5-4 hour race pace is marathon pace, and people in NSA do their easy runs at 70% max heart rate. I don't think people in NSA are doing their easy runs at marathon pace.
No one (I think) is defining LT1 as 70% MHR or lower in fir endurance runners. No one using this type of training is proposing running "easy" runs at ~LT1.
LT1 would be the upper bound of Zone 2 and for most fairly fit distance runners 70% MHR would sit at maximum around lower Zone 2 and for many upper Zone 1.
As with most of these model landmarks, the zone 1/2 boundary is not well defined, but it usually gets placed around there.
LT1 is also approximately the lower bound for "sub-threshold" work in the training style most of the people here are practicing. Pretty much all of the work in "vanilla" is a decent step above LT1, but that's probably a pretty good rough idea.
So easy runs (<70% MHR) all occur unmistakably below LT1, and all sub-threshold work sessions occur unmistakably above LT1. So even if you don't have a super precise estimation of LT1, it's still pretty handy and useful as a concept and you can just have a nice buffer around that for most of your types of running.
Some folks also do work sessions that are like those long runs with work bouts embedded which occur a little slower than LT1. I think the "uphill athlete" crowd likes to use those, and it was a pillar of Hadd's phase 1. Even those are unmistakably faster and substantially more work than thanaany easy runs.
I find Zone 2 is defined differently sometimes which is confusing. 70% of max HR is just an estimate that sirpoc thought a wide range of runners can run at to stay below LT1. To know your true easy run pace per the norwegian protocol you would need to have a lactate curve plotted and run at the pace below LT1 as well as regularly test blood lactate to make sure you are below LT1. The average hobby jogger isn't going to deal with this so below 70% was just slapped on as a blanket guideline.
Easy running should feel easy. I would say if walking is a 0 then easy running is a 1-2. Running at MP is not easy and no one doing NSA is running easy runs at MP.
For those of you who have had success with this training (and generally felt simultaneously fresh and fit throughout the process), what form range did you see it under the intervals calculation?
I can tell that sitting around the -20 is too much... I've had to slow down my easy days even more to keep my HR under 70%.
Well, my bad for posting here. I searched the subreddit. A lot of people have advocated for staying in the grey zone.
Seems like I have been chronically overreaching. oops.
Yeah if your zones are set up accurately and you are hitting -20 then you are probably way overreaching. I’ve slipped into double digit form a few times and I was knackered. I didnt have enough energy to click the downvote button on a runnersareclueless post.
Hear hear. Just looking back on my Intervals graph for 2024/25, the only time I hit double digits was when the Hanson method progressed to GMP-10s/mi intervals on Tuesday and 7-10M continuous GMP every Thursday. Huge PB but ended up in the medical tent and needed a month to get myself out of the hole.
Hear hear. Just looking back on my Intervals graph for 2024/25, the only time I hit double digits was when the Hanson method progressed to GMP-10s/mi intervals on Tuesday and 7-10M continuous GMP every Thursday. Huge PB but ended up in the medical tent and needed a month to get myself out of the hole.
I've just done the same - looking back 2.5 years of training where I did London Apr 24 and a different marathon April 25 - both training blocks I seemed to have spent a good proportion of time in the green zone. I was definitely knackered with several weeks to go ahead of my marathon last year.
The peaks and troughs over this time period are also really clear. Since starting NSM then my chart is much more stable and you can see the slower increments of fitness but overall at a higher level.
Training plan for London was based off something I found online - but was pretty much 21km on a wednesday and a long run including parkrun on a Saturday (up to 20miles or so) with the rest of the week running at a not-so-easy pace.
My other marathon was using Runna which prescribed everything but was way way too hard/high intensity - loads of random interval work at paces much beyond the Sub-threshold range set out with NSM. Looking back at what I know now - it doesn't make much sense but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Interestingly - the paces I am now running for Sub threshold sessions are now similar to those Runna prescibed paces for shorter work - it's just taken a year of this style of training to be able to manage those speeds and not die.
It's the ability to train without big breaks that makes progress so good. If the risk for small injuries is lower, this method may seem somewhat magical.
I had a coach for a half year into a half marathon. It was a bit harder than NSM but I kept a high (for me) volume over a longer period than ever before. I went from 1:36 to 1:26 in that period.
