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.
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?
Ya it's more of a guessing game. I start around 15k pace for the first few like he mentions, to get a feel for pace, exertion in the safe zone, then get down to 10k, then 5k, maybe 3k pace the last 5 after the 2 min jog break if I'm doing progressive.
I check my HR & pace around the 30 sec mark to compare things. Then the rep pace after each rep, though I've found Garmin isn't very accurate with these (rounds.) It's a workout where you probably have to rely more on feel than tech if you want to keep it subt.
I view these as my X session workout where Bakken indicates it's ok to get above threshold a bit using the progressive 45/15s or hills workout (like Jakob does) or race pace workouts. (If I'm understanding the book correct in my late night reading.) With the progressive 45/15 I likely did lactate pretty high compared to vanilla, but I'm fine with that. I've been doing mostly vanilla for 14 1/2 months & plateaued pretty quick so I'm hungry for a change & ready for a little risk.
Even if you do go nuts I think it'd be hard to get the lactate really high unless you're tough as hell because that 15 sec rest is more like 10 sec by the time you come to a full stop & then do a jogging start to get up to speed quicker.
Ya it's more of a guessing game. I start around 15k pace for the first few like he mentions, to get a feel for pace, exertion in the safe zone, then get down to 10k, then 5k, maybe 3k pace the last 5 after the 2 min jog break if I'm doing progressive.
I check my HR & pace around the 30 sec mark to compare things. Then the rep pace after each rep, though I've found Garmin isn't very accurate with these (rounds.) It's a workout where you probably have to rely more on feel than tech if you want to keep it subt.
I view these as my X session workout where Bakken indicates it's ok to get above threshold a bit using the progressive 45/15s or hills workout (like Jakob does) or race pace workouts. (If I'm understanding the book correct in my late night reading.) With the progressive 45/15 I likely did lactate pretty high compared to vanilla, but I'm fine with that. I've been doing mostly vanilla for 14 1/2 months & plateaued pretty quick so I'm hungry for a change & ready for a little risk.
Even if you do go nuts I think it'd be hard to get the lactate really high unless you're tough as hell because that 15 sec rest is more like 10 sec by the time you come to a full stop & then do a jogging start to get up to speed quicker.
You are absolutely right, it's 100% an x factor workout. Tbh, a lot of what Bakken has said is confusing and there's a lot of contradictions. I've tried this a couple of times now, he's all about no risk and intensity control but unlike the rest we are talking about here, outside of a lactate meter there's very, very tricky to control this. Which takes it way outside of regular hobby runners, 99% of which aren't going to have a meter.
Also, I don't mind if my lactate is through the roof, it's how my legs feel. No doubt like the other guys mentioned in the previous page, it's significantly harder for the legs to recover.
What do you do when cadence and mechanical force into the ground starts to “feel” too fast like your subconsciously sabotaging yourself. my paces are getting faster and my heart rate is still comfortably sub T, but I can feel my legs moving faster and it kind of freaks me out like I don’t believe I can sustain it. how do I deal with this?
Good to see our resident professor is clueless is getting owned by the same “hill uphill runner” book he preached several weeks ago, that aerobically underdeveloped or rather aerobic deficiently syndrome is a thing and has been known for decades despite arguing there is no such thing.
Shows how NSM is undoes the problems caused by general inactivity and those coming to the sport in their late twenties onward.
does the mountain of evidence, we have another source from coach Scott Johnson.
Yeah it is fascinating! In 2020, I ran a 1 mile time trial after four straight marathon build ups including a DNF at the Olympic Trials. I was coached by Tinman at the time and I only did 1 "mile specific" session of 2x8x30sec @ mile effort on 1 min jog between reps and 4 minutes between sets. Interestingly, I was only 2-seconds off my college PB!
Tinman includes 30-sec hill reps year round similar to the Norwegian X-session. If you do these often, you may need less than 6-8 weeks in my experience.
You are absolutely right, it's 100% an x factor workout. Tbh, a lot of what Bakken has said is confusing and there's a lot of contradictions. I've tried this a couple of times now, he's all about no risk and intensity control but unlike the rest we are talking about here, outside of a lactate meter there's very, very tricky to control this. Which takes it way outside of regular hobby runners, 99% of which aren't going to have a meter.
Also, I don't mind if my lactate is through the roof, it's how my legs feel. No doubt like the other guys mentioned in the previous page, it's significantly harder for the legs to recover.
Yes if you do the 45/15s properly, it finishes mechanically quite hard. It's certainly not something to do weekly if your only goal is stacking fitness blocks. I agree Bakken is quite vague about how often to do it. A lot of the Reddit guys doing it aren't doing it hard enough, or finishing where you need to be and claiming it's easy. That's because they didn't run fast enough and did judt half a regular sub threshold session.
For anyone who wants to do faster stuff, go back to the thread and maybe 20-25x400 on a bit or Tri weekly rotation. That really is plenty fast enough. Even then a lot of people felt the stress, the small niggles people were getting, even from low lactate in line with the 3-6&10. Cheetodust knows what he's doing and doesn't even run the 1ks which I find striking.
There's certainly still a mad craze of hobby joggers obsessing over the need to train fast, to race fast. For real, people genuinely believe it I think. Why that is, I do not know but they seem to genuinely believe it.
You are absolutely right, it's 100% an x factor workout. Tbh, a lot of what Bakken has said is confusing and there's a lot of contradictions. I've tried this a couple of times now, he's all about no risk and intensity control but unlike the rest we are talking about here, outside of a lactate meter there's very, very tricky to control this. Which takes it way outside of regular hobby runners, 99% of which aren't going to have a meter.
Also, I don't mind if my lactate is through the roof, it's how my legs feel. No doubt like the other guys mentioned in the previous page, it's significantly harder for the legs to recover.
Yes if you do the 45/15s properly, it finishes mechanically quite hard. It's certainly not something to do weekly if your only goal is stacking fitness blocks. I agree Bakken is quite vague about how often to do it. A lot of the Reddit guys doing it aren't doing it hard enough, or finishing where you need to be and claiming it's easy. That's because they didn't run fast enough and did judt half a regular sub threshold session.
For anyone who wants to do faster stuff, go back to the thread and maybe 20-25x400 on a bit or Tri weekly rotation. That really is plenty fast enough. Even then a lot of people felt the stress, the small niggles people were getting, even from low lactate in line with the 3-6&10. Cheetodust knows what he's doing and doesn't even run the 1ks which I find striking.
There's certainly still a mad craze of hobby joggers obsessing over the need to train fast, to race fast. For real, people genuinely believe it I think. Why that is, I do not know but they seem to genuinely believe it.
Bakken suggests lots of variations for 45/15 - it seems to be more of a framework for him than a specific session. Treating it as an X-factor session, doing it progressively, doing a slower pure sub-T, 3x10 min+10x45/15, long run+10x45/10 directly afterwards are some variations. So doing it properly would depends on context.
Yes. It's really nice. By the way, before learning all things Norwegian, one of my staples was 24 x [40sec faster, 40sec easier] on trails. So not too different, just bringing back the intensity a bit.
I highly recommend trying it on a treadmill, if you use a gym. Warmup and build up to your sub-t pace. He recommends starting at 10k pace, and adding 0.2 km/h for each rep. So you keep the treadmill running, step off onto the rails, and bump the speed up. 20 reps took me from 10k pace to near my 1500 pace, but HR ended in the same area as a sub-T workout. It FELT like a speed workout on the track, but without the oxygen debt. Which I guess is the point - plenty of practice at moving faster, with less stress.
I could have stopped accelerating at 3k pace, and done a few more reps there, and that probably would have been better than speeding up to 1500 pace. It definitely tired the legs more than sub-t work, because it was moving at paces I hadn't touched all winter.
Yeah, people are just incapable of reading once again.
You can do 45/15 as a regular subT session where you mostly stick to a single pace, probably about 10k pace for most people -- that's not much different from 400/30 or 60/30 and, at least for me, actually easier on the legs for some reason.
Or you can do it as an X-factor, start around 10k and finish around 3k pace, which probably is fairly close to a parkrun in terms of load.
SubT + 5-10x45/15 he mostly suggests for FT people, which makes sense to me, and long plus 5-10x45/15 to mimick the feel of a marathon, which is more or less a regular fast finish run.
As a regular subT session it doesn't feel all that interesting to me but it probably gives you a slightly better bang for the buck then, say, an 8x3 session, if you're really struggling for time, as it keeps HR high throughout. If you look at HR afterwards it almost looks a bit like a progression run or an incredibly long subT interval where always hovers right below LT2HR for the last 10 minutes or so.
As a fast X-factor session it's a lot of fun and definitely feels better than a 6x1k at 5k pace or something along those lines.
Hobbs Kessler actually talked about how when he dropped to 60 minutes of threshold a week for racing season he started to feel worse in the 1500 and is now making sure he keeps 90 minutes as his minimum.
I know for myself I don't need much anerobic work to be ready for a 1500, but do need some neuromuscular prep which can be accomplished purely with just a few 100m and maybe 200m strides, either at the end of a threshold session or an easy day.
With a solid warmup (800-1k of threshold and strides) my aerobic system is so primed that a 1500/mile race doesn't feel anaerobically limited (as long as I don't go out too hard)
Thank you. I agree. Also the warmup I think is vastly underrated for 1500 and Marius Bakken said he used to run a 2k at subT before races (even 5k I guess).
I think strides and rhythm 100s and 200s will get you there mechanically. Question is how many, how often and whether it's better to do them after an easy session or after a subtT session. In the muscle tone framework, I think after subT is better in theory. Searched for this in Bakken's book but I didn't find clear answers. I just skimmed through BTW.
Longer fast reps after shortened subT sessions could be useful but way more risky, and there is the fact that although minimally you are eating into subT volume. I'd say they make more sense psychologically than physiologically.
The overarching idea for middle distance on NSM could be once again: minimal effective dose of stimuli, minimal risk, sustainability and flat load. So you do your 3x subT + 3x easy + 1x easy long and add rhythm 100s and/or 200s somewhere. How many, how often and whether on easy or subT days still TBD
Great posts and interesting discussion so far. I honestly do think that Hobbs Kessler is the perfect blueprint for any true mid distance runners with good natural speed who want to race 800 / 1500 off of a NSM based framework and also have the range to step up to 3k-5k as well.
I do remember him saying something along the lines in a podcast about his training being "stupidly simple: threshold, hill sprints, weights year round long".
Personally, no gym (just bodyweight exercises to address imbalances that would pop up here and there) and a few controlled strides 3x a week was enough to go sub 2:00 / 4:00 - I suspect most people will be largely the same.
This post was edited 29 seconds after it was posted.
Even if you do go nuts I think it'd be hard to get the lactate really high unless you're tough as hell because that 15 sec rest is more like 10 sec by the time you come to a full stop & then do a jogging start to get up to speed quicker.
Bakken did that 45/15 workout on treadmill...for the 15s only stepped sideways from the belt,then jumped in again. That is way easier for the legs,than doing it outside.
Yeah, people are just incapable of reading once again.
You can do 45/15 as a regular subT session where you mostly stick to a single pace, probably about 10k pace for most people -- that's not much different from 400/30 or 60/30 and, at least for me, actually easier on the legs for some reason.
Or you can do it as an X-factor, start around 10k and finish around 3k pace, which probably is fairly close to a parkrun in terms of load.
SubT + 5-10x45/15 he mostly suggests for FT people, which makes sense to me, and long plus 5-10x45/15 to mimick the feel of a marathon, which is more or less a regular fast finish run.
As a regular subT session it doesn't feel all that interesting to me but it probably gives you a slightly better bang for the buck then, say, an 8x3 session, if you're really struggling for time, as it keeps HR high throughout. If you look at HR afterwards it almost looks a bit like a progression run or an incredibly long subT interval where always hovers right below LT2HR for the last 10 minutes or so.
As a fast X-factor session it's a lot of fun and definitely feels better than a 6x1k at 5k pace or something along those lines.
It's very hard to keep lactate sensible even in the sub threshold version of this session. Me and a training partner have tried it. I would guess about 8k pace is the cut off point for 45/15 before you just can't keep it sub threshold anymore. Both of us when we got near 5k pace, the rests are just too short to control lactate. HR being a guide in these sessions is useless, you aren't going to learn a thing from it. That's another advantage of longer reps, even 3 minutes. You can use HR as some sort of safeguard if you don't have a meter. We are around 16:30 guys for reference
Obviously, the big problem is again pace over a time effort. For slower runners, 1500-5k pace is wildly different, as is it for runners much faster than me. This is what sirpoc fixed in his book with time, rather than distance.
I would advise it as an x factor session only and get down to full mile pace. Anyone who probably thinks this can replace a sub threshold session weekly I don't think has probably never tested lactate.
Obviously even when we both got down to 5k pace and HR hadn't peaked past LTHR, the giveaway of course is lactate was well beyond normal ranges. It goes without saying the legs took a pounding as well. Even the "sub threshold" version rather than down to mile pace, feels much more like a traditional speed session.
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?
For me I find that doing them progressively helps a lot. Getting in to it during the session, and capping off when I feel they are to hard (f.ex that the pauses feel way to short and I dread the next one). But I think it is beneficial to increase the intensity of the session as a whole over time as well. Get used to them, learn how they feel - keep a larger buffer sone to make sure you don't to them too hard.
If you do 30-45 of them too hard off the first rep you will be cooked. But if you do 20 where you hit an okay intensity after 10 that you keep through the session, feeling you could have done more you will be fine.
Why can't you use HR as a guide? Works fine for me
HR when you get to the pretty fast end of 45/15 never really comes down hugely, nor doesn't have tork to rise. I've done a few of these myself. Lactate was completely out of whack with HR, even more than it can normally be. Even if you are hitting HR well below LTHR, lactate can be well beyond.
I've also found things like RR line up a lot better than HR for this. I don't think anyone is really doing these weekly. It's probably a recipe for too much. I think it's a good sharpening session, if you deem them necessary.
I tend to agree with others, it's a very hard session to control by all the usual parameters and it's definitely strange that Bakken likes this one so much as it's certainly not cautious, although clearly it's not anything ridiculous. There's a lot of people who have posted useful information about what this session really is or going on under the hood. The TLDR here is HR is almost certainly useless for the majority of people for this one.
HR when you get to the pretty fast end of 45/15 never really comes down hugely, nor doesn't have tork to rise. I've done a few of these myself. Lactate was completely out of whack with HR, even more than it can normally be. Even if you are hitting HR well below LTHR, lactate can be well beyond.
I've also found things like RR line up a lot better than HR for this. I don't think anyone is really doing these weekly. It's probably a recipe for too much. I think it's a good sharpening session, if you deem them necessary.
I tend to agree with others, it's a very hard session to control by all the usual parameters and it's definitely strange that Bakken likes this one so much as it's certainly not cautious, although clearly it's not anything ridiculous. There's a lot of people who have posted useful information about what this session really is or going on under the hood. The TLDR here is HR is almost certainly useless for the majority of people for this one.
DFA a1 is quite good at telling me 45/15 is very hard at the faster end of the paces described. I can survive to about what 5k pace might be and even though HR might be fine, but DFA as metric alone tells me it's time to pull the plug.
Some people are suddenly jumping on this 45/15 as if it's the magic pill session. If you run it right, it's just another Subthreshold session with some practice at running a slightly faster turnover. If you run it wrong, it's just a hard workout where you overcooked a bit. Unless you have a reliable way of intensity control, the risk v reward factor is severely tipped into the risk category.
I'm a big Bakken fan, but it's probably not helped by mixed messages in the book from time to time, it definitely can get confusing. There's also no understanding as well of time as a concept, over hitting 5k pace as an example. I know someone touched upon this bit it's another problem with prescription of this.