Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

I've been using DFA a1 for a while. It's probably the best thing I've seen outside of lactate testing for giving me feedback data on a workout.

I've been using sirpoc's book, to pitch the workout for a target pace and then taking into account the day at hand. DFA a1 isn't going to help you pitch the workout, but it can help shape things a bit at the end of each rep, or as you move through. This has been the perfect combo.

Probably overkill for most, but I often start as per books suggestions, which is going to be building into a workout on the first of the reps. But, then using DFA a1 to decide where I go from there. Sometimes it can be up, sometimes just hold, sometimes by the last rep I'm hovering close to threshold even if maybe HR doesn't indicate it, so I might ease off.

It takes feel off the table, which I can lie about to myself quite a lot. I don't know if I am the only one who does this. I see intensity control really as taking feel off the table, at least until you are experienced thousands and thousands of subthreshold reps and actually know what it feels like. I don't think I am there myself yet. Sometimes I know it's too hard in the past, but convince myself HR is fine even though the session feels a decent amount harder. I think that is when I started to realise HR in the isolation of a session was a poor marker. But lactate testing was expensive so this is a nice alternative.

You could argue this is unnecessary, but it's really only how people are using a lactate meter to control a session and spot check and this is much cheaper and more convenient. When I started on my NSM journey I was an experienced runner but intensity control on this level was alien to me. I've managed to go from a 3:15 marathoner lifetime to 2:50. Quite open to the fact learning about all this is a lot of effort, for what to some I'm sure are quite modest and slow running still, but it's all relative.

Great to see sirpoc talk about this in what seems in his never ending quest to experiment on behalf of the thread. It shows he also takes feedback or is open minded here as it's been mentioned before. Maybe people haven't heard much about this, so it's good he could perhaps bring this into use for runners. It's a nice tool. Again, something much more common place in cycling and perhaps some of those guys prefer to use it over even trusting power, which obviously isn't as universal an option in running.....power/Stryd doesn't work for me either.

Anyway just thought I would finally contribute to something I could. This method has been incredible for me and totally changed how i view running.

How well does DFA a1 correspond with lactate, compared to using HR?

I ran a race yesterday that took me around 30 min. Any info I can use from that to determine lactate threshold? Avg hr was 177. Thought I read you can calculate a % like 95 or 92%

Average of the last 20 minutes theoretically. Race HR might be different from training though.

From my understanding, the thought process is it serves as a more "direct" measurement of the heart's response to intensity. Heart rate variability is typically used as a measurement of overall health at rest, with higher variability indicating higher CV health. Lower variability equals, typically lower health. That's because at rest, the higher the heart rate, the less of a "chance" there is for variance because the bpm is higher.

Makes sense then, similarly, that it can separate intensity zones more accurately than just heart rate. The less variability in beat timing, the more beats are happening, so the "higher" the intensity. Similarly, there is more "noise" at higher thresholds.

I would argue that it is a measurement that comes with less "lag" than HR. HR, while a great proxy, is a bit delayed as the heart responds to intensity demands at a delay, which is why often after a sub-T rep HR continues to climb for a little bit before coming down.

The thought is that DFA a1 is a more accurate measurement of blood lactate levels than HR, which is a response seen a bit "later" timing wise in the body's autonomic regulatory system.

“Overall health” and “autonomic regulatory system” pointing to the ways you can get a more accurate measurement of the combination of training stress and other life stress, I believe, but correct me if I’m wrong. And that allows for a truer picture of the stress and recovery cycle than you’d get simply monitoring something like HR or lactate during training.

Ran a 54:14 ten miles at the end of April and two weeks later a new PB of 2:31:32 at the Copenhagen marathon. Weekly mileage over the last 12 weeks between 70 and 100km per week (44 - 62 miles).

I usually jog around 10:15-10:45 minute miles while adhering to sub 70% Max HR. I'm approximately capable of a low 90 minute half / 19 minute 5k right now.

Today, I ran with a friend who is a lot slower than me (her goal is a 2 hour half). She dictated the pace. After running with this plan, it is amusing seeing such a strong desire to NOT run easy. She went a solid 30 seconds per mile faster than I would have preferred.

What is interesting is that my HR during today's run was almost identical to my usual pace, but my legs felt so much more tired. Today kind of sold for me that there is no reason to run faster than what I have been doing on my easy days.

It feels damn weird to be jogging around at nearly 11:00 minute miles though, but I've really started to enjoy it. It's so nice not being tired. I still do feel some fatigue after the Sub T workouts though. But that's probably because I am so bad at sleeping and recovering in general lol.

So you're saying that HR isn't a very good indicator of intensity?

That's really the only conclusion can be drawn from the fact that your pace was quicker and you felt more fatigued but your HR was the same. Even if it was a one-off.

My 12 year old son just finished his 7th grade track season. We trained pretty much exclusively with this method with the exception of a couple of harder sessions.

He set a new 1600 PR of 5:32, a new 800 PR of 2:35, and dropped a 65 400 on a 4X4 relay leg. We live at altitude so the 5:32 is probably equivalent to a 5:26 or so.

He never approached any of those paces in workouts outside of maybe one or two, and certainly not a 65 second 400. His easy runs were all done north of 9:30 pace. I can't think of any work that he did faster than 6:30 pace other than some strides, and most of his workouts were slower than 7 minutes per mile.

Certainly some of his improvement has come from being a year older, but the biggest reason IMO is that he's not killing himself in training, is fresh for the races, and has confidence that what we're doing works.

He's set a goal of breaking 5 minutes next year during 8th grade, that remains to be seen, but he went from 6:06 to 5:32 this season so never say never.

I've been converted to the idea that you can race fast without training fast with the exception of a few targeted sessions.

Its funny to see how everyone is so different. I could easily push it to 5:30ks while maintaining an HR of 68% from max (below 125 if curious), while also only having a low 19 5k PB. Therefore I am running all my easy at like 62-65% of max HR at 6:00ish pace. People have told me that I am most likely not pushing hard enough in the races but I feel like my legs are simply not able to run any quicker.

HR is as good a starting point as we have I still think. Especially for easy running and pitching them. For workouts, obviously it can be pretty variable, this is what DFA a1 might be very useful. I use the word might, as I'm still not convinced or have enough data.

But even for easy running, DFA a1 could maybe tell you something HR itself doesn't.

Take my two runs yesterday, this is a very basic example. The morning felt like a slog, felt tired, it gave me a training readiness of about -15 (this is bad). HR wasn't sky high, but reasonably slow for the effort. DFA a1 was under 1.0 average for the run. That's low for me. But the key being DFA still sat on a plateau, it didn't drop, it was just lower. So it indicates fatigue, but intensity was still controlled and it was definitely still an easy run, nowhere near any marker to worry about.

The evening run was opposite, I felt great. HR was a bit higher by a couple of beats, but felt so much easier. DFA a1 was back to being north of 1.1, which is what I'm usually seeing on my easy runs. Pace (not that this matters) was also significantly faster. Again, DFA after stabilising after the first 10 mins sat on a plateau which indicates intensity was controlled and the higher number more likely just representing there was clearly less peripheral fatigue.

This is just a very very basic example of something HR might not be able to tell you, but DFA a1 can if you have consistent markers.

What can I do with that information? Not a lot. I would have completed both runs almost exactly the same anyway. Maybe yesterday when I got a -15 RA on the alert panel I could have slowed down more? But the run I did was still incredibly easy in the grand scheme. If yesterday evening it was still in the same situation as the morning? Maybe when I hop on the bike in a minute I could really dial back the session.

I don't know. It remains to be seen for me how I could use or apply it going forward, but certainly has the potential to be very useful on paper.

Muscle tone? If you did a workout the day before, the sluggish morning run would lower it which you felt by the evening. Maybe DFA a1 is picking up the extra relative effort to overcome and lower high tone. Or maybe you just shed enough fatigue over the rest of the day to be noticeable in feel and DFA a1. All fascinating stuff. There's loads more to experiment with for recovery - diet, rolling/stretching, rest, etc.

Muscle tone or LFS (disappointed this never caught on ha ha). You also have stuff like small metabolic differences, perhaps neuromuscular fatigue, sympathetic tone, perhaps even hydration as it was first thing in the morning and I just had a cup of coffee and that's it. Obviously the big one for me at that time of day especially is sleep. There's a ton of stuff going on in the background and DFA a1 might pick up on, or show that HR alone doesn't. The thing it doesn't tell you is what of the above is going on. Just that something is.

Yes this is very much my feeling on it. I have been finding the readiness alert panel pretty good and can confirm what I already feel in a few minutes of warming up, that the body is either in a decent state or I'll need to keep the easy run or workout on the lower end of the plan.

I think this really is something that has helped me guide my training into a narrower window of intensity control. A big advantage even over lactate, is it can potentially tell you the cost of the intensity, whereas lactate is just telling us the basic intensity we are at.

It fits incredibly well with your method. Almost made for it.

Well that is the other practical advantage for intensity control, is it could provide a metric to use that identifies intensity creep, potentially before other metrics like HR show any clear change. That can really help accidentally shifting into a higher intensity domain where the recovery cost becomes disproportionate to the training effect.

I think this becomes more important the more volume you train at, especially if you are doubling.

For 5-6 hour runners, probably don't even worry. Just spam 3x subthreshold and 4x easy runs if you can, or something sort of at ratio and balance of that in the time you have available, sticking to the basic guardrails as closely as you can.

On the topic of muscle tone, and on the Fodcast last week where there was talk on pre-race priming.

I have a 5 miler tomorrow at 19:15 my plan was to try out doing a primer in the morning.

So next 24 hours looks like

1900 today - 60mins super easy

0800 tomorrow - 10mins easy, 2x3mins at below threshold, couple mins walking cool down (this is my usual pre-race warm up)

then pre-race - do the same as above and finish that approx 15mins before the start

Has anyone tried priming before and have any advice on the above?

What makes this even more amusing is that I am a solid 10-15 beats above you at easy pace (My max is north of 200). I almost have to walk if I am keeping my HR under 130 lol.

I wonder if you have a higher max HR, you generally have to run slower to stay under 70% MHR. That probably isn't the determining factor, but it is one of the few known variables we have for most people using this training.

To the other poster "puzzled"- No, I think HR is still a great gauge of effort (for myself, at least). I just found it interesting that my heart was working not much harder at a mildly quicker pace on easy days. But my legs were certainly working harder.

I am going to attempt one of the sub t sessions with quicker reps today. I usually just do 8-10 minute reps bc I am lazy. Hope my mildly tired legs don't fall!

In this thread, Sirpoc has now considered, tested and dismissed/highlighted the limitations of 3 devices/metrics for us. Each time trying to get it to work rather than fail. This is worth bearing in mind when asking if his training method is missing X or Y. It is highly unlikely that Sirpoc failed to consider strides, VO2, hills, etc. We’ve reached a simple training method because that is all we needed.

If in the future someone releases the “WiffWaff3000 v2 Monitor”, I’m sure he’ll test that as well…