Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

I'd agree mostly.

There's lot to be said about the Bakken book. I for one am not entirely sold on the superiority of lactate based intensity even if I have played with a meter.

And sure, it discusses the doubles, the X sessions and the 45/15s. Maybe one can interpret it as giving an excuse for over eager hobbyists.

Yet if one is not enamored or triggered by these fancy things, but looks at the big picture, the operative concept is being conservative. Why? In order to be able to accumulate load over extended periods.

So I 'd say this aligns with the philosophy contained in sirpoc's book to a t. That book is more hands on "how", while Bakken elaborates more directly on the whys. If anything they reinforce one another.

I pretty much agree. Put Bakken and sirpoc in the same room together and they will likely be as closely aligned as any two people in the training sphere can be, albeit coming at it from different perspectives but with similar outcomes. I like to think they would have a beer together.

Not a criticism, but an observation. If some people are too dumb to follow even NSM , giving them stuff like muscle tone to think about is a problem. When guys can't even have the discipline to stick to 4x easy and 3x sub threshold, then giving them a bunch of other stuff or options is a recipe for disaster. That's my view.

The beauty of this thread is for the average runner goes practical and easy it is to fit into regular life. Obviously the success of so many people speaks for itself. We went from does it work, to of course if works for a large percentage, more of a question of 'why?".

It's a bit crazy how so many are jumping at it. Skimming the chapter that discusses doubling at low volume and thinking "Bakken said it's okay, I can run doubles as a 45-min 10K'er!!"

How about max out potential on singles first, then gently test out whether you can even manage doubles logistically never mind physiologically? Experiment with splitting an easy day into two runs, or adding a bit of easy in the PM of a hard day, or an AM run+PM crosstrain (or vice versa).

I'm reading the Bakken book with great interest, but I plan on riding the NSM train for about 2.5-3 years and building ridiculously gradually to 65' total in each single+105' in the easy LR before doubling even becomes a consideration.

If you run decades without injury, you were just lucky or so bulletproof none of this type of thing likely applies to you. Running is hard. Anyone doing a marathon training with a goal in mind has a good chance of getting injured. That's just life. However you train.

The thread is very long, so its time to repeat some stuff.

If you train each day per week, as a perfomance oriented hobby athlete, it is just a matter of time when you break down. The injury/burnout is programmed by default. Specially with running. So zero surprise for me about the NSM injuries.

So i do strongly recommend, for a perfomance oriented hobby athlete, do have at least one rest day per week! Advising anything different, over a longer period is untrustworthy. Period.

What are you basing this on? I've trained for decades. Honestly, I've never ran 7 days before and never not been injured consistently. The last couple of years on NSM I've managed to run everyday AND not be injured over the longest stretch.

I was just about to reply as well then I saw you for a +1. Never been injured in 18 months of NSM and having also suffered massively in the past. 7 days seems easier than 5-6 of any other training I've done before. When I have actually had a rest day because life gets in the way, I generally feel worse the next running day. No idea why but that's consistently the case.

Does this include all the racing distances or is it specific to the marathon? I ask, because the only injury reports I've seen in this thread are related to the marathon.

Marathon is quite an interesting distance. The longest run most plans suggest is 30 km. One of the relatively recent studies found a link between injury risk and the length of your longest run in the past 30 days. There they suggest that the injury risk greatly increases when you increase the long run by more than 10 %. For the marathon race you basically increase it by 40 % (going from 30 km to 42 km). So if that study is correct, the marathon is by itself very injury prone to just about anyone.

Also, re: muscle tone more specifically. Maybe it is as important and behaves as Bakken writes, or maybe not. Or maybe the version for my pay grade is just that less fatigue, more spring, as RAC put it.

However, and less than half jokingly: if the net effect of the discussion of it in the book is that those who are prone to obsess over everything slow down on the easy runs since they now have a rationale ("optimise muscle tone"), is this such a bad thing in the grand scheme of things.

Another +1 here. I wouldn't say I feel bulletproof running 7 days on NSM but as close as I've ever felt. Used to take rest days and no doubt feel better on NSM than ever with rest days. This is pretty common here, Reddit, anywhere. Even guys who have said like me 7 days is impossible, have found not only it is but it's probably optimal. Another case of lexel not really looking through the lens of what is going on with real people here.

We are talking marathon. I think sirpoc did his best to try and explain to risk for the marathon exponentially goes up. That's, well just the marathon.

This is a fair point. Easy running and keeping intensity control is the heart of any good training.

I just can't help but think muscle tone is all a little vague and probably in retrospect it's in there "to offer something different". But it's all quite hard to follow and some of it does seem contradictory. I've read it twice. I'm going to start again tonight.

I'm just not sure it really needs to be made into the centre piece of everything, when it's something so open to interpretation and doesn't have a huge amount of basis. I feel this is quite negative and nit picky even writing it.

Next thing you know y'all will be talking about the importance of "souplesse". Then you will have proved that modern runners are as clueless as old skool cyclists.

If only there were a way of measuring this nebulous "muscle tone" . . .

Rofl

Are you on drugs?

Why ROT(F)L?

If something is real, it should be measurable.

If it is something make-believe, it won't be.

Have you never heard of "souplesse"? Never heard a European cyclist or coach going on and on about "the sensations" in the legs? Runners aren't the only ones who have historically been subjected to coaching double-speak.

• Training 1 easy endurance run 45-60 minutes

• Training 2 threshold training 6-10×3 minutes, 1 minute break

• Training 3 easy endurance run 45-60 minutes

• Training 4 2x (6-10x 30 seconds), rest 30 seconds, set rest 2 minutes

• Training 5 easy endurance run 45-60 minutes

• Training 6 subthreshold training 3-5×6 minutes, break 2 minutes

• Training 7 easy endurance run 45-60 minutes