Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

the one way its good is if you jump right on the bike after running, but any more than a few minutes between the run to the bike has not felt that great

obviously im trying to experiment and cheat a great deal with cycling back to running with limited days available but this was definitely one of counterintuitive things that was pretty cool to see work out

The latest Training Science Podcast, is with the founder of Tymewear on the future of training with breathing data. May interest some, after Sirpocs experiments with this.

I finally googled this.

"Spring snabbera" / "Run faster" ... Also a lot cheaper than the Bakken book btw

Des like a manual on how to train and remain injury free for the masses.

I guess I'd pick that up too just out of curiosity :)

Valencia - the build and the race - was a total dog's dinner. Less said the better.

Anyway, Strava has been throwing my disgraceful initial attempts at NSA at me via the "this time last year" feature and I remembered posting in here almost a year ago.

I cringe to see how hard I went on everything, both the sub-T sessions and the easy jogs. Too eager, no patience, rationalising and deluding myself. I clung on to my precious strides...

I also did the workouts by distance because KI and Sirpoc were doing it and Lactrace has it in its UI, but I didn't account for how much more time I'd be in a sub-T (more like supra-T, even V02) state. While they were clocking a comfy 28-32 minutes of SubT in a session, I was slogging out 34-40+ minutes three times a week with 8-10x1K/4-5x2K/3x3K.

Easy runs were more like steady or even tempo, probably breaching LT1 (not that I measure lactate). It's a miracle I made it from May to September before burnout set in and my hamstring snapped and fell out of my hole in a race. Despair, physio, panic build to scrape something out of Valencia. Should've DNS'd, then should've DNF'd on the way past my hotel, but stubbornly death-marched it in and tried to enjoy the holiday.

2026 has been a total reset. Built up gradually to 7.5 hours. 3x10'/5x6'/10x3' like clockwork. All else true easy at 70% cap, and that meant, yes, as slow as >7:00/km some days. I track the "can easy be too easy" debate with immense interest but I fall on the pragmatic side of "it's what I needed to do to stay healthy." However, this has now fallen to 6:12-20 after 3 months or so of mind-numbing frustration and boredom. I keep thinking I must be subconsciously pushing the pace, but no, the HR is still <70%.

Workout paces too over those months:

~4:30's down to low 4:10's/high 4:00's for 3x10'

~4:20's down to mid-to-low 4:00's for 5x6'

~4:10's down to low 4:00's/mid 3:50's for 10x3'

I'm hopeful that everything is coming up Milhouse. No big race results yet, just sub-40 and low-19 benchmarks set at the beginning of the year to check what shape I was in post-injury, post-marathon recovery, and pre-NSA vanilla reset. Fitness on intervals-icu has gone from 42 to 51. When I set my 5K PB last year it was 53.

Might post here again when the PB's come but also think it'd be more fun to return every year, like throwing a time capsule into a sea of s**te.

Remember to eat your Snickers bars vein-to-tongue, folks.

Great progress this year.

Regarding time on feet from January till now, how did you go about increasing it?And how much time were you spending last year?

I started a reset myself this week. Am seating on about the same times as you in January. Starting from the 6.5h framework laid down by James.

I think moving to easy doubles was hindering progress.

Keep at it!

Remarkably similar story to me. I just cashed in on NSM at Manchester last week for a lifetime pb. Pitfz ruined me in my previous attempt at a marathon on the continent in Berlin, it was just far too much for me to handle.

Absolute disaster, like you I should never have started and probably should have stopped like sirpoc did in Seville and just gone to the pub. I plugged away and kept going and it cost me 4 weeks out. Ridiculous decision. I was so overcooked going in I don't know why I even flew out either, other than it was paid for. It was always going to end badly!

NSM marathon build for Manchester, I would say nothing spectacular happened other than it felt easier (a lot easier) and after I did a big ish 5x15 workout, I realised there was some serious fitness there. The only think I didn't do was a proper HM tune up, I did a trail run with friends that weekend instead. The race itself just felt incredible easy. The pacing guide in the book helped a lot at this and a 10k I did back in march.

Hopefully you cash in like I have at some point. It's quite refreshing to see people be so open and honest and reflective about their training in the past. I have cringed at my year ago today labeled "easy" runs a few times. Most likely Lt1+ as well.

Jan to Apr 2025 was the highest load I have ever tracked. This was in the lead up to a spring marathon. 8-10 hour weeks with 5-6 hour deloaders. 6 days running and one full rest. V02, threshold, midweek med-long tempos, every "easy" run actually tippytop of zone 2. Monster long run workouts and, if a long run was to be easy-paced, then I made it hilly. Pulling on every lever like the guys who play those big old-fashioned organs that can play madcap cartoon soundtracks from the '30s. PB'd in everything, of course, but I was as likely to end up in the back of a hearse as I was to cross a finish line. Intervals fitness 68 before the taper.

As for resetting and increasing to 7h30m this year: conservative enough but didn't hang about either. Started at three 18' sessions: 2x9', 3x6', 6x3'. Wanted to stay on 20% volume, so 54x5=4h30m total. Next week upped the sessions to 21' each, 5h15m weekly total. 24' (6h), 27' (6h45m), 30' (7h30m), and hold the line. Honestly, I just enjoy the regularity and tidiness of an hour a day plus 90' Sunday.

My total training load in 2025, with that enormous peak for spring mara and even bigger trough after, followed by the too-hard/aborted NSA attempt, was around ~19,000. Weekly average works out ~365.

3x30' ST sessions and 7h30 total running netted me 360ish at the start of the year and now, getting faster, it's coming in at 380ish. When I race and update my threshold that'll settle again I'm sure.

Crazy stuff. Am your twin in disaster. Spring marathon with Pfitz landing over 10h most weeks. 20k+ 5am midweek runs followed by 5k reps the next day. Fitness peaked at 69. 57 at the moment.

Seeing how you progressed from 4:30 at the start of the year is making me consider maybe i could have dropped a bit a more. Was on 8:40 before.

Are you going to hold on to the 7:30 for a bit?

The Pfitz plans I've seen legitimately frighten me so fair play for surviving it.

Only reason I started so low was the fear of re-injury and knowing that I might still be fried from Valencia, even if I felt subjectively okay to go. Glad I did because I remember being like Marty McFly to my legs after the first 9' rep. "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet."

Definitely planning on holding onto 7.5. Might even keep it going for the rest of the year with the only load progression being faster paces.

I ran a massive PR today in cool autumn conditions. I thought I'd share my 5K progress over the last year. Nothing fancy, just vanilla NSM starting at 50km / week and built up slowly to 65km / week. Thanks James Copeland. Onwards to my lifetime goal of sub 3.

April 25, 2026: 3:42 /km - 18:46
December 13, 2025: 3:53 /km - 19:27
November 22, 2025: 3:58 /km - 19:47
September 13, 2025: 3:59 /km - 19:56
May 31, 2025: 4:06 /km - 20:35
May 3, 2025: 4:11 /km - 20:47

Enjoy following your progress on this post. I'm around 4:40-4:50 per km for the 3x9/3x10 reps...haven't seen my intervals.icu go up much but I've kept my mileage steady between 38-43. I don't like doing the 10x3 due to mechanical load, etc. but I'll do 6x5 or 5x6 if I have to.

I am being conservative and getting my body used to 38-43 mpw consistently, no down weeks or time off, but 2-3 workouts of NSM and nothing else. TT on the track once in awhile but it's nice NOT doing hero workouts. I will eventually do the Columbus 10k this summer, maybe the Grandview 13.1 in August.

“Of course”? I don’t know if I’ve talked to anyone who’d been at least a few years in who wound up with solid PBs after mostly redlining any cycle like that. Going hard with appropriate versions of grueling Daniel’s/Pfitzinger-style plans? Sure. But “pulling on every lever” the way you describe leaves lots of runner underperforming or otherwise cooked or injured, full stop — as opposed to “of course” PBing and then bouncing through boom and bust.

but for the way you talk about tracking load generally and learning from mistakes, I hope this method helps a lot of people, because there have been lots of posts on the boards here and on Reddit from guys wondering how their goal race went sideways, and then post their training — and in so many cases, you see where they were mostly training well (even if not great), had really good improvements, got excited… and got greedy and pressed. Looking over data, you can see where they started digging the hole.

NSM seems to offer better guardrails for that, but it probably still comes down to runners giving themselves reality checks and hanpving some discipline if they find themselves thinking, “well, my easy runs aren’t that much faster than recommended …”

Southern hemisphere mfs be writing upside down

Don't be a tw*t, Jan.

It's no surprise there are a lot of posts lately about it's success. The book has been out a decent amount of time now. Whilst a lot of the information was out there, in the book there are extra guardrails, other pieces of the puzzle and the extras such as race pacing guides that all helps performance come together.

Can't wait to read your book and for that to be floating around the running best seller lists on amazon. Will be interesting reading as to what magic actually is and how you lay it out.

It'll likely take a while for another training system to come around that is so much of a logical starting point for the average hobby jogger. So it's hardly a suprise that when people stick to it that it's working great most folks, despite it triggering people like Jan, or others who seemingly want to over complicate training or insist certainly intensities are a must.

The guy from NZ you are disgracefully calling a liar, is the classic candidate for NSM. Good but not great runner, probably can increase mileage over a period of time if they find consistency and understands there is no "magic" quick fix. That's what NSM can do.

Because you don't understand the power of consistency, or even having sacrifice more classic workouts or periodization, doesn't mean it's not a great way to train. If anything, your posts here have exposed how little you understand about what makes a runner fitter when they go from A to B. Don't feel bad Jan, you aren't the only one.

No, p*ss back off to your corner of the internet, Jan. Remember that time you forgot to log out of your main account and replied to yourself? Yeah we all do as well.

The consistency and ability to repeat is the key. I'm only doing 3 easy and 2 subthreshold adaption, but still it's managed to get me to run way more in the last 6 months and stay healthy than ever before.

Huge PB this morning at parkrun.

I don't know if anyone has followed the twin sisters, but they are insanely consistent and are both around 17 flat which is quite incredible, also on 3+2 over five days.

I plan going to 6 days if I can, then eventually 7, but am in no huge rush. It's crazy how I see people wanting to jump straight to doubles or even doubles + X-factor. Maybe I'm just weak minded but I think it's truly best to build slow and work up that resistance and consistency.

Also, surely it's time Jan was banned for good? Especially now we have concrete proof he replies to himself. It's funny that he is so stupid he forgets which device he logged in on though lol