Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Congrats to your PB! If you would plateau in the future and have been doing 13+ h weeks in the past, you could probably gradually extend it to doubles at 9-9.5 h without too much troubles?

Lol Wigglewaffle has run sub 2:30 twice on the exact same plan as sirpoc, improving the second time to 2:23.

Guy in the Strava group yesterday ran 2:30:xx.

Sirpoc's mate posted here, ran 2:32 in Seville coming down from ironman and improved his PB by a good chunk.

Other people have posted here who have ran in the 2:3x range.

FOD incredibly close to breaking 2:35, but also a big lifetime pb.

Some of the nonsense posted here sometimes is unbelievable.

Thanks. Yeah when I was doing high mileage I was doubling 5-6 days a week, so pretty confident I could handle easy doubles for a bump in training load. But I've been really enjoying the simplicity and time-efficient nature of the standard approach and am in no rush, so will stick with it for the time being. I'll plateau at some point, but I may add in the odd easy bike commute.

Tbh, given my training before I started I didn't expect to actually improve with NSM. If anything I thought I'd get a bit slower and then find a steady-state of fitness. But given the last year, I realised my previous training load was definitely more than I could absorb. I think the "perpetual build" concept of this training paired with fully absorbing all of it has meant I eventually managed to get slightly fitter, even though on paper my training before was far "better".

I think some of this comes back to sirpoc talking about the impact of load. Not just that it's the load you generate, but how that also impacts on fatigue and how fresh you are to make use of it.

It's something I have found myself, I'm probably training less but my readiness and freshness to train in races means I can actually make use of what I'm doing more than I did before.

I think this is often forgotten. This is why ramp rate and fatigue are carefully controlled deliberately in NSM, so all the load you generate can be put back into the performance. One of the problems with boom and bust is not only having to dig yourself back out after the inevitable down time needed, it's that even at the peak fatigue is often too high to really make use the training you've done.

I also think this is why people who have have real long term success (6-9+ months) is because they have so gradually increased load, it's all being impactful to fitness.

The guy here in question probably went past the diminished returns talked about in the NSM book and on top of that was cooked cooked last year for good measure.

Long time lurker here and finally giving this a serious go after seeing success stories and reading both James’ and Bakken’s books. Most of my PB’s came from 5-7 years ago on higher mileage (90-100+ miles per week) which produced 14:20’s 5k and all equivalent performances up to a 2:18 marathon. Nowhere near those now after battles with injuries and fueling issues. Eating enough to fuel 100mpw is a full time job in itself! I like the concept of maximizing training load on relatively moderate mileage. Excited to see if I can at least get close to my prior performance levels on 7.5-8.5 hours and gently increasing Sub T volume. I seem to be responding well after 3-4 weeks so far and will look for a 5k fitness check in May! My legs feel good every day.

Shoe question for the group… I am looking for a sub t shoe that is also comfortable enough for warm ups and cool downs. The challenge is that I have Haglund’s deformities in both heels (bony growth bumps from tight achilles) so I need a shoe with a super flexible and soft heel counter! Anybody have recommendations? I know the Chinese shoes are popular here but hard to tell what their heel counters are like from reviews. Thanks!

'Probably training less than before' .That you don't know makes me suspicious.

I'm trying to dip my toes into this, but I've got an issue that you guys have probably faced. I raced a 10k on Saturday in 46°F/7°C and got 42:14

When I was doing easy runs trying to stay below 70% of MHR (tested at 197), I was only able to run an average of 11:38/mi or 7:13/km (felt like I was deliberately messing up my stride to go slow enough, and running 9:30 per mi by VDOT feels relaxed)

As I get into summer, it's going to be normal for training runs to happen at 85°+/29°+

What do you do when VDOT and heart rate diverge from each other so much? If I run by pace, my heart rate goes way above LTHR, but if I run by HR, my pace falls way below target interval paces. Going by pace is also going to be very difficult when it's forty degrees warmer than it was on race day

What do?

What happens if I run continuous instead of reps?

Nothing really.

But why would you? The whole idea of NSM is intensity control. It's ridiculously easy to control the output and fatigue of a workout running reps versus continuous and it's probably not even marginal.

To be honest, it's one of the things I will include myself in at first, in terms of not really understanding.

There's a really good and simple explanation in the book (sorry I can't remember which page), but it's a simple graph with an example that illustrates lactate control in terms of intervals versus continuous of the benefits of one versus the other.

I think almost everyone new to this method wonders the same thing at first. What will likely happen is that you can get away with it in the short term but sooner or later you're going to feel the effects of cumulative fatigue and will not be able to keep it up over the long term.

Also, I think over time you realize that these breaks also help prevent screw ups (ie running too fast). If one rep was run too hard, it's far easier to adjust on the next one as opposed to trying to figure this out in the middle of a continuous tempo run.

The intensity control gets much more difficult, since it becomes harder to control that the lactate doesn't raise above LT2. Sirpoc has a graph about that on page 47, and Bakken has lots of discussions why interval training beats continuous tempo runs for most distances on pages 58-62. The rests between intervals also allows you to train at a faster pace than during a continuous tempo runs.

I have been using intervals.icu recently and would like some help working out potential load and how load is worked out.

Unsure if I'm inputting my workouts correct but I was given the same "potential" load for a 3 x 10 mins NSM session as if I ran 30 mins continually. Surely the load would be higher if running continuously?

Load is not the same as fatigue or cost. NSM is about reaching a high load but with low fatigue/cost. Different training intensities have different ratios of load and fatigue.

If the interval rests are considered to have no load, 3x10 mins should have the identical load as 30 mins continuously, if the training intensity is the same. That's the same as having a 30 mins easy in the morning+30 mins easy in the afternoon gets the same load as one session with 60 mins easy.

The load is as good as identical, for practical purposes. The benefit as others have pointed out is the fatigue cost and recovery is going to be quicker. Hence, you can do the next session again in a shorter timeframe. This is the whole idea, for the most part of this training. The accumulation of as much load as you can, without really ever needing to deload.

It's why it works so well. You are continually stacking bricks, albeit slowly. Over time, you outrun most other known hobby jogger methods. This is shown as an example well in sirpoc's book on page 31.