Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

The last part is important. Think about sirpoc's progress. Over years it was remarkable, over weeks and months less so. At times, he actually got worse or stalled for periods in terms of race performance, which is especially interesting as until he almost broke 16 he only ever ran the same parkrun course. But I guess he was confident still in the long term it would work out.

Imagine if he had just picked arbitrary periods where he "increased" paces based on expected progress in a training block? He'd have cooked himself.

Obviously over time, the more he did the fitter he got. But that's stretched out over years. Some of these influencers or coaches try to speed this up to just weeks. I find that particularly crazy.

It's not actually necessary to litter this otherwise great thread with dumb stuff about Steve Magness. If you read what he's written, he's been saying, repeatedly, for over a decade, that there are multiple ways to progress a workout and tons of variables to play with, and that pace is only one option. People should be allowed to use a basic example in a short podcast without being accused of trying to establish a universal rule.

And Magness is not some "NCAA system" boogeyman. He first coached high school, where you get to work with whatever kids show up. When he did coach college athletes, it was at a sprint-focused school with zero distance scholarships. So no, he did not start off each year with a ton of talented kids on his roster. His cross country and distance runners were whoever he could convince to participate in return for no money, and then he had to develop them however he could.

Similar experience with big name coaches. When is this mf gonna just hang up his plastering trowel and do this full time?

I have a slightly different situation from sirpoc in that I
only seriously road race once or twice per year and otherwise do trail races or hybrid
races. As a result, I came up with this hybrid pace/HR monitoring plan that
seems to work reasonably well. I start each rep based on pace and move into HR
later in the rep and later in the workout.

For 3x10: 1st rep the first 7 minutes are based
on pace, the last 3 minutes on HR. For the next 2 reps the first 3 minutes are
based on pace and the last 7 minutes on HR:
For 5X6: 1st rep is entirely based on pace. 2nd
rep is based on pace for the first 4 minutes and based on HR for the next 2
minutes. Subsequent reps are based on pace for the first 3 minutes and based on
HR for the next 3 minutes.
For 8X3:45: 1st 2 reps are entirely based on
pace. Subsequent reps are based on pace for the first 3 minutes and based on HR
for the remaining 45 seconds.
I use the paces from the HR portions of the workouts over
the past month to calculate the pace portions of future workouts.
HR target is 9-4 beats below threshold.

Thoughts? Does this belong in this thread? I also have
thoughts about HR in the heat that could be discussed later.

Seeing sirpoc play around with dfa-alpha1, has anyone experimented with that?

I'd love to make it work but there seems to be virtually no consistency for me -- some days I can run 4x10 at 160 bpm and hit 0.5, other days I can often do 4x10 at up to 177 bpm and stay around 0.8, which makes no sense to me. And even during the 4x10 intervals I see massive, apparently random shifts of dfa-a1.

Consistency seems improve a bit if I run in the PM instead of the AM but that's all I've really managed to find out so far.

DFA a1 has come up here before. I'm not really training for anything specific at the moment so I thought it would be a good opportunity to experiment with it and also rope my usual victims as guinea pigs. This will help us get some good data via people who know their own lactate profiles and see if it's a good proxy, or even if it's just useful. Or even if it just ends up like Tymewear or running power, where it's useful for some individuals and seems to play nicely, or for others ends up in the bin.

Firstly, if anyone is doing this make sure you use the right equipment. I've tried it with a few monitors. Basically unless you have a Polar H10 I would say it's probably not worth bothering. I've tried with a Garmin HRM-Pro, a Coospo chest strap, all of which gave me two weeks of crap data back, so I gave up and bought the H10 a couple months ago. That was the first thing I did correctly. Also, wear a tight strap. When I didn't, I got noticeably more artifacts.

The second thing is to ignore the default values in the Garmin AlphaHRV app, especially for running. My cycling DFA a1 values are probably quite near to what the default values are, whether that's because a lot of the data and studies have come from cycling, I don't know. But running mine are significantly lower. If you have a different LTHR on the bike compared to running, like I do (mine is significantly higher running than on the bike), then it makes sense that your DFA a1 values will probably be different too since it's also based on heart rate data and the way you're moving around can affect the values. It was reasonably easy to work this out with the wealth of data I already have with regards to my LT1 and LT2.

The raw numbers themselves I don't see as important, but a bit like power it's whether they are consistent across a range of situations. So far, yes. I can run or ride to DFA a1. It remains pretty consistent to the goal of the run and then slightly drops off as I start to fatigue. This is where it can/could be useful. Important note: DFA a1 is not directly identical to lactate, but the cardiac/autonomic stress it reflects can still be a helpful proxy here. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out over the warmer summer and whether the data remains useful when HR starts to decouple for the same effort.

Overall I don't really see this as massively useful. I can probably just go and run at LT1 (although LT1 is probably the hardest for me to pitch, it's a smaller bullseye zone which is important if you are going to double than classic NSM runs which have a big target range), do a classic sub-threshold workout, or a full threshold/race workout just from feel and get there most of the time. But if it consistently works, it could be a really useful safeguard. Even at MLSS, it might indicate fatigue is setting in and that it's time to call it good for the day. It does on paper seem most useful for subthreshold or sweetspot reps that are runs or on the bike.

The flip side being that for short reps it's as useless as a warm Carling on a warm day. The first 60+ seconds of the reps there is a lag, so I just crop the laps in intervals to take out the initial part and keep the latter portions. Run 400s and just don't even bother. There's not enough clean data. Even for 800-1km repeats there's not a ton to work with.

RR data is also interesting on it. With the H10, smart recording and collecting HRV data enabled on the Garmin, the IQ AlphaHRV app can record RR. This seems much more sensible and accurate than Garmin native RR. I've even managed to roughly pitch where LT1 and LT2 are just using RR via the AlphaHRV app. You can see how different it is, as when you load up Garmin Connect after, it'll give you the usual Garmin RR graph but a second one in the Garmin IQ section that will look a lot less noisy. This is also the one that'll default and upload to intervals usually, about 90% of the time. Sometimes it hasn't. I don't know why. Anyway, as I mentioned above I just crop the laps and then see how DFA a1 and RR match up with what I would expect, given the intensity of the workout and the numbers being displayed. So far, pretty decent.

I've actually done a couple of runs now and a couple of rides, just using DFA a1 and RR on the screen, and the workouts ended up exactly at the pace or power I expected. However, as I mentioned before, I could have done this without all of that probably quite easily 90% of the time. But it's interesting to learn, play around, or even just gain some knowledge that might help others.

I know a couple of people, the usual suspects, already doing really clever things like building apps, but for me, as a simpleton, all I want to know is whether it's any good as a proxy for controlling intensity, or at least letting you know when that intensity is becoming too much.

The end ha ha

Thanks for the info!

Got an H10, artifacts don't seem to be a problem for me, and, yeah, I'm mostly interested in it for summer running because HR is already starting to be all over the place.

If I get clean data, it's for the 6-10 minutes intervals, although I wondered whether dfa-a1 could act as proxy for bLa on shorter intervals, too. Maybe not to adjust pace during a run but if I do 30x45/15 or 30x60/30 and stay in the 0.75 to 0.5 range by the end that might tell me pace was fine and I kept lactate in check, which might help me inform the next workout. But I'd need reliable data first and a new batch of lactate strips second to really test that.

Not sure it's worth the hassle, but when I get decent dfa-a1 data it seems to reflect RPE better than HR or pace -- first few minute of the first interval dfa-a1 usually crashes for me, for example, which matches what I feel initially.

KI looking good so far after 30k, might manage 2:30. And you guys actually managed to get into his head before the race. :(

2:29:32 for Kristoffer

It's a good result, about what you'd expect. I think he got paced most of the way? Someone who was on the course mentioned seeing him being paced.

It's solid, but I'm surprised he can't get nearer 2:20 than dipping under 2:30? Especially as his marathon build seemed pretty big, with having the luxury of a training camp thrown in there as well. This isn't a knock, I'm just curious given probably the genetics in the family as wel as the coaching and tools he has available.

Pretty solid. I thought he might get closer to 2:25 given a really good build on the face of it but you can only go on what he was sharing. At least he dipped under a significant marker.

I mean, his HM PR is 1:12:30 or something, last HM was 1:15, I think. 2:29 seems good.

I don't think, based on hearing him talk and his comments on Strava, that he has the "hunger" to really put in a shift in a race.

I could be totally wrong but that's my feeling

KI is the OG hobbyjogger and the reason this thread exist

He just did a sub 2:30 marathon :)

What is not to like?

Don't disagree with the last bit, but to get to sub 2:30 he's had to go beyond 9-5 hobby jogger (I don't live in a world where I can just go on training camps, for instance, I doubt any of us do). 2:30 is great for him though.

He spent a single week in Spain. Half of his runs were on a dreadmill after work and taking care of his kids and whatnot. You guys are crazy.

I don't disagree. But 180km week is big, big mileage even in isolation and another week of 140km. I'm more curious that he couldn't do more, not to take away from his achievement. Maybe this is just his ability. But it was an excellent build and I thought he might get close to the likes or sirpoc or Wigglewaffle from the thread but still quite a way off.

Like someone said, maybe he just doesn't care? He does come across that way, which is odd as he really dug deep and put some serious training for this one. You'd have to care somewhat to do training camps or squeeze in other big weeks when you are back home.

I do think it's interesting he has dialed back a notch on the easy runs. I think most people who have pointed to that felt he was just going too hard on them. He even said before "it was too boring to run that slow". Which again is perfectly fine, but I always found very strange if you are going to put significant hours in and have a goal in mind.

He runs his easy runs too fast, so It does not count.

Fod who is faster than him in 10k and half, running 2:35 is much more impressive.

Dude was on vacation for 6 days after running as a pacer in a local HM.

His 2:29 marathon is probably slightly stronger than his half and 10k PRs and yet people still crap on him.