Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Many thanks for the detailed explanation, it brings a lot of confidence. The thing on warmups particularly. Some questions and comments:

Do you warmup like that only for middle distance?

How do you perform your mechanical activation the week before short races? Do you use spikes?

I'm training according to the cross training schedule proposed in sirpoc's book since October last year (was lovely to see myself and him both got to the same formula, as the book came out a bit later), and my first subT session the Tuesday after races is always on the bike for added safety. I also consider myself rather injury prone (although I'm 29 and I've been running since I was 18...) and I had given up on shorter distances because of that. Always injured as a teenager and in my early 20s due to classical middle distance training.

Lovely to see this thread still able to provide meaningful discussions at times!

After reading Bakken's book, it seems like he would prefer strides after a sub threshold day rather than on an easy day due to muscle tone. He loves his 45/15 session! Anyone try this yet? I have not but feel like it could be useful for those focusing on 5k and shorter distances. Perhaps this could brige the gap between longer sub t reps and shorter race paces?

Regarding how much "specific" anaerobic work you need for the mile... I appreciated Bakkens description of the "two horses" and that "speed doesn't matter much if you're 200m behind!"

As someone else said, swapping 1-2 sub t reps on Saturday for a few race pace reps is probably all you need. Alternatively, I wonder how effective it would be to go in and out such as 1k sub t - 2x300 @ mile - 1k sub t - 2x300 @ mile - 1k sub t? The real question becomes how many weeks do you need these types of sessions to turn on the anaerobic system without making it dominant? Probably variable for each person.

When I had shorter distance track stuff come up, I'd usually tack on 2x200m + 2x100m builds up to race pace and a little faster towards the end in spikes on the sub-T session prior to race day. I'd just remove a rep as per usual with 5k races, and take long, walking rests in between "speed" reps back to the start. This was a good "reminder" for my legs and not enough volume to totally rip up my lower extremities before race day.

An example session was as follows:

3x2000m sub-T w/ 1:45 rest (rest to change spikes)

2x200m @ 3200m ->1600m pace

2x100m @ 1600m -> 1kish pace

However, I do have plyos + strength training in my program 1-2x a week, so my achilles + calf complex are a bit more resistant to stress. If you haven't worn spikes in a while and are angling a track race, I'd be careful with intensity on the shorter "mechanically tuning" reps. Make sure you really don't push more than you need to.

^

The last mile race I did I ran 4:52. Much like cheetodust, I used to be a big time VO2 guy in college, with a pretty good kick. But I dragged myself along aerobically and always felt miserable in the middle 2 laps.

This time, it felt different. I was able to slowly squeeze the race out, winning my heat and closing in about 33s in the last 200m (indoor race). Splits were 75-73-75-69. Never really had the springy-ness like cheetodust also mentioned, but felt so strong aerobically. Leading into this, all I did was vanilla sub-T. Literally nothing else besides the "tuneup" strides the workout prior to the race.

Cheetodust with a Lactate Meter and implementing cross training is a worth F ing adversary...the man in the black pajamas....

1. If you're coming from NSM and really want to peak for a particular mid distance race, most people would benefit from a brief period of anaerobic endurance training. Especially for the 800m, I can't imagine this isn't the case. The reason being there is some low-hanging fruit or "newb gains" to be made in the anaerobic pathway - both in anaerobic power and in anaerobic capacity - after doing NSM for so long. You can briefly maintain aerobic ability while developing anaerobic ability (as well as mental fortitude for enduring this pain) and it should be a short-term net gain. Google the recent Keeley Hodgkinson training video to see the joy you're in for.

2. Having said that, I wouldn't consider copying the pros for the 1500m. As has been emphasized before in this thread, there's a difference between championship racing and time trial racing. 1500m is a tactical race and most championships come down to a kick, not even pacing. For us, anaerobic capacity (the size of your anaerobic tank that you gradually drain because you're running above vo2max) still plays a role but anaerobic power (the rate at which you can tap into anaerobic energy for a short, max effort kick) is essentially useless. Furthermore, the sheer time difference between a 3:30 effort (elite 1500m runner) and a hobbyjogger running a 4:00+ or 4:30+ or 5:00+ effort starts to make a significant difference in how much anaerobic capacity is required.

3. For neuromuscular benefits, I personally endorse alactic sprints. These are ~8s efforts at most and the idea is to use PCr for energy, not anaerobic glycolysis. Recovery is long so PCr can recharge. Doing longer (15s+ reps) like Jakob's hill workout is at odds with aerobic development. Good for him but doesn't make sense for us. We don't want those pathways activated; we don't want those adaptations. So if you want to work on muscle fiber recruitment and top speed, your strength training and sprint training ought to be very few reps, very short duration, with max effort and full recovery. Of course, this presents an injury risk so everyone needs to find their own way to do this safely. You can do some kind of training in this vein once a week, starting as light as you like, and consider it a very long-term project, just like NSM is for aerobic development. Eventually it's perfectly safe to do a handful of these sprints once a week and they don't interfere with aerobic development at all. They don't even have to take extra time because you can recharge PCr while jogging, so simply insert a few sprints into an easy run.

Read Bakken's book when it came out in Norwegian. I made it 3 weeks of doing 45/15. Maybe I'm just weak but it felt too hard. Aerobically, not really an issue. The mechanical stress on the legs in a training situation are too much for me. An added layer of risk really it doesn't make sense for me to get involved with, especially as I've been improving anyway. It's one of those situations for me where there zero value in something when I'm safely progressing anyway.

1. I agree with the 800m training and the listed reasoning. After all, its nearly 50/50 anaerobic and aerobic, so of course there are more specific components needed in specificity of training. I personally would be a little out of my depth in terms of changes to NSM and balancing load specifically there.

2. Definetly don't copy pros. I agree. They train for the ability to change gears and cover moves fast. Lots of quickness + reactive stuff done with short acceleration stuff and lifting. Anaerobic power, in your defintion listed, or genearlly known as within the Phosphagen system. I agree that us hobby joggers have no need and close the gap much faster with aerobic work.

3. I would agree with you about shorter sprints (40-80m) with long recovery. Same concept goes for implementing cross training in the gym and training this system: training a quick transfer of force through lower extremity tendons. Injury risk is definetly higher though, hills are probably the best way to go to minimize force output stress on the lower limbs as time to contact will be shorter (same concept of alactic time duration should be applied).

But as far as getting a "feel" for mile pace prior to a race, I think slightly longer reps are good in practice if loaded properly. After all, specificity for the discipline. Good for neuromuscular "reminders" and just mental confidence moving into something speedier. Sure, alactic work will prime the neuromuscular system in the same way, but anecdotally I think just experiencing the pace prior helps to not totally shock the system on race day. Especially if breaking in spikes, hard sprints might overwhelm the muscular system a bit leading into a race.

I'm generally a fan of alactic sprints (stuff like 6x8s uphill w/ 3min rest) but have had compatibility issues with NSM when experimenting. General protocol is to add these sprints/strides after easy runs but I found that even with a very gradual introduction they would eat into the quality of my sub-T days.

A possible explanation would be muscle tone (something I still don't fully understand) which according to Bakken, is lowered through easy running. The addition of alactic sprints on the easy days would interfere with this process and just spike it again.

Maybe a solution would be to add it before the saturday sub-T session or make it a double day (AM sprints PM sub-T). Obviously not necessary for most of us and perhaps even an unnecessary risk for some (hamstring issues anyone?) but maybe worth looking into if you're younger (for developmental reasons) or more middle-distance oriented.

I've done the 45/15 workout a few times & really like it. I might do it weekly if allowed (haven't gotten to that part in the book yet, but in another chapter he gives an example of doing 45/15s 2x a week.)

Workout feels refreshing, invigorating to me. Load I got for each was 6 less than standard vanilla workouts on interval.icu, with a longer cool down needed to get to my usual mileage I run on subt days. Legs felt roughly the same the next day from what I recall.

The following weeks the regular subt workouts felt a little easier to hit the same paces. I have to be more cautious now because it feels like a ceiling was lifted & it requires less effort to get up to & right past threshold HR if I'm not paying closer attention. This could be placebo or it could be the 45/15 workouts are a good fit for where I’m at.

Regarding specificity, Bakken is definitely for it as well as periodization & devotes a decent amount of the book to these topics. He gives race pace workouts & a drip load theory to use without activating too much of the anaerobic processes you want to avoid.

Could the timing be part of the issue here? In the Norwegian method they have speed development on Mondays before double threshold on Tuesdays. So it's

Monday: raise muscle tension a little in the morning, lower in the night

Tuesday: raises muscle tension in morning and night

Wednesday: lowers in morning, lowers in night

Thursday: raises muscle tension in morning and night

Friday: Lowers in morning, lowers in night

Saturday: raises a ton in morning, lowers slightly in night

Sunday: lowers a ton in morning

So when they do speed development on Monday's muscle tension is the lowest it will be all week, and raising it slightly doesn't have as much of a negative effect as it would on Wednesday where muscle tension would be rising for 3 days in a row

I'm also not sure how much removing a sub threshold session and replacing it with hill sprints reduces the aerobic benefits from this method. The tss lost by replacing 30 minutes of sub threshold with easy running can be made up with like 16 minutes of easy running. In reality, it's probably more, but even in a vacuum where the aerobic strength from the third sub T session is just lost, there's a point in mid distance running top speed is a limiting factor. I run 2:03 in the 800 and I want to run a sub 2 800 but I can't break 56 in the 400. I probably will benefit more from a speed day than a third threshold session.

Timing definitely plays a role. But it's not as simple as hard workout->raises tone->go to sleep->wake up with lower tone. The effect appears to be somewhat delayed according to Bakken so muscle tone would actually peak the day afterwards. This is why double threshold works so well, because you take advantage of the "receptive window" where muscle tone hasn't spiked yet from the AM session. Saturday works well since you'd get the 2 easy days afterwards to actively lower muscle tone and be ready for the next week.

As a distance runner with little to no previous speed exposure there's a lot of gains to be had from sprints when approaching the 800m (31% anaerobic contribution according to Sirpoc's book btw). I remember back in my junior year of high school my progress had largely stalled (we just did moderate runs before spamming intervals in race season) in the 1600m and 5k but I still managed to improve my 800m from 2:04 to 1:58, an improvement I largely attributed to the addition of alactic hill sprints.

If your primary race is the 800m then it's definitely worth adding in. Just note that you only need small doses of this kind of work for it to be effective. For anything 1500m+ it can still be helpful but not compromising your sub-T work/volume should remain your priority (at least outside of your specific/competition phase but we don't talk about that here...)

Lydiard said 6-8weeks, variable for each person (quick responder vs slow responder).

How do you assure to not overcook the 45/15 session? Only by the pace? According to the book, the breathing and HR should elevate compared to longer sub-T sessions, but the lactate stays low despite of this. But that would also mean that triangulation isn't possible to safeguard the session?

It's very hard to control. Like another user posted, my legs on sirpoc's basic LFS have been at it's highest since trying 45/15.

I won't be keeping it in. You really need a lactate meter to control this. The whole reason I got into NSM and had great success and the appeal most of the benefits of lactate testing, without lactate.

It's exponentially harder to control than just spamming the safer vanilla subthreshold sessions. That doesn't mean don't do it, but it's obvious it comes with double risk when you add in the lack of specific control and also the extra muscular damage in the coming days.

This is almost exactly how not only I felt post 45/15, but also in agreement in that it's much harder to control.

There's basically not safeguards or external metrics you can check on during and the damage is felt after.

This doesn't mean it's going to kill you. But the risk is so much higher and I'm doubtful there's any extra benefit. As I'm moving into my late 30s I'm starting to realise minimal risk but consistency can outweigh almost anything else.

In a trained athlete the "crossover" point is about 70 seconds.