Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

NSM mentioned on Coffeeclub this week. 🙂 It’s in the “Norwegian Neuromuscular…” section, around ~38 minutes in.

I double 2 easy days a week. 40 min before lunch and 40 min in the afternoon/evening. Ive done it a lot when I used to be in my office. For my part it feels about the same as 60 min easy when the day is done. Mentaly it feels much better to double. I sit with my computer all day at work so doing 2 runs instead of 1 feels much better. Double threshold works fine when Ive tried that as well.
My problem is, and always has been the long run. If there is something I have to be careful about is that one. All my small injuries over the years can be linked to long runs.

So would you say that 3k runs don't offer that much stimulus and it's better to go for longer doubles? It's just that I feel like it'd be mentally easier to know I just need to shuffle for 15 minutes in the morning as soon as I wake up before my actual workout in the evening, instead of running 35 min+ twice a day. But I guess it's mostly just laziness and I'll have to get used to it if I'm ever going to do big boy mileage

3k doubles probably offer plenty of stimulus for someone new to doubling. Just keep everything else basically the same and add in those doubles. Just turning on the motor, even if it's not for very long and never revved up much, is such a powerful thing.

Give it a try for about a month and you'll probably never look back.

First London after NSA book release, you would have to be blind to not see it.

A few weeks now sirpoc has been doing bike/run sessions on Tue and Thu. Regular Sub-T. The third running session on Sat he's going slower. Longer reps (4x 10' ; 3x15' ; 5x6') as well compared to Tue/Thu were he's been doing 800m.

He's targeting LT1 on this right? Or just being a bit cautious given he's been doing more quality on the bike?

Just curious about it.

Wild stuff in London.

Can't speak for sirpoc himself, but going on a couple of replies on Strava and Reddit, seems he is using the Saturday to use the treadmill to play around with dialling in LT1 range based on Dfa Alpha 1. It'll probably take a while to do this.

The 800s he replied to someone asking, there's nothing in this. He just said his usual 1km stretch has roadworks on the path and without running over exposed tree roots or crossing roads, 800m is all he has within 10 min range warmup of his house. So, I wouldn't read much into this lol

Also, he interestingly said his HR is consistently lower on the treadmill, for the same effort and that he has re-bought lactate strips to confirm that out of curiosity.

I get the impression he's playing around with something in mind.

Makes sense. Perhaps the variability on the structure of Sat session mean he's collecting data.

For sure. Always seems to experiment with a clear intent behind.

On the note of HR variation on surfaces: when work and life allow it i go to a track on Sat. I have now done enough sessions in it that i have to conclude i am slower on the track compared to the road (industrial road with a couple small hills). Just the most recent example:

On the 18th of this month: 4:25/km avg. - 166 HR average - 181 max

Yesterday: 4:16/km avg. - 153 HR average - 174 max

Note that when using the track, running occurs 1 hour later than my usual schedule. Heat is a variable as we approach summer, also because the track has much more sun exposure. Still, the differences seem wild to me.

See what?

Has he spoken about starting with the cross-training double 1x a week to start? I struggle to double during the week due to my work starting early. But have some time on Sat, so could do a LT1 bike in the AM / run in the PM - at least to start.

Unbelievable. Goal was sub 2:50 today for a pb, breezed past that with KMs to spare.

7th marathon. Kind of in shock. Just felt so good today with a year of this training behind me. Never could have believed this would work so well.

Great to see FOD runner with a huge PB as well.

If anyone was on the fence like was, just take the plunge.

basically like a standard double threshold:

am bike around lt1

pm run sub t

60 plus minutes of quality chopped up a little different but he’s killing the bike/run split

2 doubles a week is quite a step and itll be interesting to see his lactate numbers when he swaps some pints for some strips

That Sawe only broke the 2h barrier because he was doing vanilla NSM after reading Sirpoc's book

I ran a 2:25 at London yesterday. Want to add another anecdote praising the method and showing my appreciation to sirpoc and all the discussion in this thread (well, maybe not all the discussion).

Unlike a few of the other posters that have had success I am not someone who struggled to run high mileage. Genetically I seem to have lucked out in that respect and don't really get injured. Running for around 10 years now, slowly building up mileage and seeing the race times come down (did my first half in just under 2 hours).

Last year I ran a 2:28 at London, but was averaging 100 mile weeks in the months leading up to it and did a final block of 170+km weeks in the build up with some massive sessions. I was regularly running 13 hours a week, with my peak being 172km and 14 hours. I was absolutely destroyed during the build up and felt like I just about made it to the start line. Although I had a great race, it was the first time I didn't actually enjoy the training and thought if that's what it takes to get faster then I don't care enough. I discovered this thread shortly after and decided if this keeps me in good enough shape and healthy I'm happy with that.

Started in June of last year. Had a 3 week block of hardly any running in Autumn due to holidays and sickness but apart from that have just plugged away with the standard plan (4E + 3ST) averaging 8-8.5 hours a week. Easy runs are also super easy - I'm rarely breaking 5:00/km on easy days and am often a chunk slower than that.

Felt great throughout the standard training and then started the marathon block. Continued feeling good, with the only bit of noticeable fatigue being during the "special block" at the end. Weeks were pretty flat, but peak was 113km and 8 hours 40. It was basically the polar opposite to my previous build. On race day felt great and managed to pb by over 2 minutes, even with some slightly overly aggressive pacing.

Never dreading a sessions and avoiding constant fatigue has been such a game changer. I feel like I'm now a life-long sub-t convert. Even if/when I plateau, it keeps me in great shape and is highly enjoyable.

Imagine how fast you could have run if you had followed the gay swedish wizard method though. Probably sub 2.

Absolute BS this story. Thread is full of it. Now way you ran 2:25.

This is the type of stuff I wish people here would share at somewhere like advancedrunning on Reddit. As they are still super convinced you HAVE to kill yourself going into a marathon. It would be great for other faster runners to share their stuff there as I think there's an impression this is just got 3+ hour average hobby joggers there. But hopefully the narrative is shifting on the bigger spaces.

The giveaway here is claiming to run 2:25 and easy running at 5:00/km lol

Apart from sirpoc himself I believe nobody has even broke 2:35 in the marathon. #failingsystem