We do agree that doing different length intervals for each ST workout (3min, 6 min and 10 min) is mostly to ward off boredom, right? (I tend to remember sirpoc writing something along those lines).
The park located just outside my door is a nice 7,5 min loop, so by far the easiest solution for me would just be to do 4 times that 7,5 minutes loop ever every time.
My personal theory is that doing at least 1 workout a week of shorter reps (e.g. 10 * 3 minutes) provides a slight benefit for 5K/10K training since it enables a faster pace. Perhaps it's purely psychological though.
In theory, yes. In practice, it does t always play out like this. Cheeto dust is a prime example. The dude is in his early 40s. The longest distance he races is 5k. He just ran a 4:05 1500 a couple of weeks ago. But the shortest rep he does in training is a mile. He does two mile, 2k and mile reps. No strides from what I can tell. Yet he’s had no problem running 65-66 second 400s despite not running faster than 5:10 for a mile in training. You’d think a guy training for 5k and down would do 3 minute reps or even 400s but he doesn’t and it’s worked extremely well. I’d be curious to hear why he chooses not to do the shorter reps
Any thoughts on Sirpoc's interval pace being very conservative lately?
For example his very recent 10x3min was significantly below his 1 hour pace and even HM pace. According to public info about Jakob's training he runs his 10x1km at around HM race pace (or maybe even slightly faster).
I would expect this going in another direction as amateur's threshold will be close to 45-50min pace while pro's threshold is likely going to be close to 1hour/HM pace.
Has anyone looked into Keith Baar style tendon training? Specifically the twice-a-day low intensity isometric holds that made waves through the climbing community via Emil Abrahamsson?
I was really excited to give it a go, but unfortunately 12+ weeks of it did minimal for my hip and lower leg issues.
Reading through the thread, I would aruge that Keith Barr tendon training would be a good foundational layer for strength training for runners. Doing JUST it by itself, seems a bit incomplete if you're trying to implement some cross training. After all, running is the exact opposite of an isometric. There needs to be a way we can introduce loading the tendons through movement that mimics the impact stresses of running. If the tendon isn't actually going through the mechanism of transferring force in practice, all the isometrics do is sort of help with some muscle activation and tendon stimulus.
It could be argued that it is an introductory stimulus for tendon strengthening that can lead into doing things like plyos on a safer level, if you are just starting. Just my two cents.
Any thoughts on Sirpoc's interval pace being very conservative lately?
For example his very recent 10x3min was significantly below his 1 hour pace and even HM pace. According to public info about Jakob's training he runs his 10x1km at around HM race pace (or maybe even slightly faster).
I would expect this going in another direction as amateur's threshold will be close to 45-50min pace while pro's threshold is likely going to be close to 1hour/HM pace.
It's on a treadmill. I guess his Garmin watch just estimates the pace but he has the mill calibrated offline. That's the situation I'm in. Just ask him on Strava. He usually answers. I highly doubt the pace of those 3 min reps is correct.
Any thoughts on Sirpoc's interval pace being very conservative lately?
For example his very recent 10x3min was significantly below his 1 hour pace and even HM pace. According to public info about Jakob's training he runs his 10x1km at around HM race pace (or maybe even slightly faster).
I would expect this going in another direction as amateur's threshold will be close to 45-50min pace while pro's threshold is likely going to be close to 1hour/HM pace.
I'm pretty sure he said on his Strava recently that he was doing some testing around LT1 on his reps, so this is probably why the paces seem more conservative.
One theory of physiology is that you only train the muscle fibers you recruit. I believe my old coach (Tinman) once told me that running at x:xx pace will train the muscle fibers that run +/- 15 sec/mile from that speed. This supports the argument for variable speeds in training! For athletes running 5k and below, the short rep sessions of 60/30 or 45/15 at 10kish effort become important as a specific endurance session. However, it has been interesting to see many in this thread have success without those short sessions! I would speculate they are more slow-twitch dominant athletes who can recruit 70-80% (or more) of their muscle fiber pool at the slower end of threshold.
Fast twitch v slow twitch is overblown in my view. In fact, I'm a 800/1500 guy and like many others who have posted here, I've had better luck with the longer reps. It works on my weaknesses. Even with no direct stimulus, my natural fast twitch speed is far superior to even slow twitch guys who work at it. This is also hobby jogger specific, as becoming aerobically stronger of course holds way more value than speed itself in 99% of scenarios to use.
I read a lot of the thread talking about this a while back and it's very much also how it's played out for me.
One theory of physiology is that you only train the muscle fibers you recruit. I believe my old coach (Tinman) once told me that running at x:xx pace will train the muscle fibers that run +/- 15 sec/mile from that speed. This supports the argument for variable speeds in training! For athletes running 5k and below, the short rep sessions of 60/30 or 45/15 at 10kish effort become important as a specific endurance session. However, it has been interesting to see many in this thread have success without those short sessions! I would speculate they are more slow-twitch dominant athletes who can recruit 70-80% (or more) of their muscle fiber pool at the slower end of threshold.
Fast twitch v slow twitch is overblown in my view. In fact, I'm a 800/1500 guy and like many others who have posted here, I've had better luck with the longer reps. It works on my weaknesses. Even with no direct stimulus, my natural fast twitch speed is far superior to even slow twitch guys who work at it. This is also hobby jogger specific, as becoming aerobically stronger of course holds way more value than speed itself in 99% of scenarios to use.
I read a lot of the thread talking about this a while back and it's very much also how it's played out for me.
It’s talked about because some are not responding well to this training, and options/changes are discussed. The book by Bakken talks about this explicitly, for instance, and I recall Copeland does the same in his book.
Honestly, I don't think it matters much whether you're doing 3/6/10 or 4/6/13, you just have to scale the paces accordingly. If you do 4x10 at 30k pace or whatever, you'd probably want to do 3x15 at M pace -- although even at 30k pace they should still work. The 3-minute-intervals are probably an exception because you're running them roughly at LT2 pace and at least I usually reach LT2HR by the end of the 9th or 10th interval. With 4 minutes at that pace, I would hit LT2HR probably by the 5th or so.
Correct, I have even done 7- and 9-min reps but just adjusted the pace. Nice not overthinking workouts.
This is great but the scope of this thread is basically for people who don't have time/can't double threshold
The title of the thread is “Modifying the Norwegian Method to lower mileage.” It is not limited to discussions of vanilla NSM. That’s one version of it. Many people are very interested in lower mileage double-T methods that work. Heck, even Sirpoc is doing hybrid bike-run double days.
‘lower’ running mileage is the main point
everything else to cheat is on the table for the old Fs here
My personal theory is that doing at least 1 workout a week of shorter reps (e.g. 10 * 3 minutes) provides a slight benefit for 5K/10K training since it enables a faster pace. Perhaps it's purely psychological though.
In theory, yes. In practice, it does t always play out like this. Cheeto dust is a prime example. The dude is in his early 40s. The longest distance he races is 5k. He just ran a 4:05 1500 a couple of weeks ago. But the shortest rep he does in training is a mile. He does two mile, 2k and mile reps. No strides from what I can tell. Yet he’s had no problem running 65-66 second 400s despite not running faster than 5:10 for a mile in training. You’d think a guy training for 5k and down would do 3 minute reps or even 400s but he doesn’t and it’s worked extremely well. I’d be curious to hear why he chooses not to do the shorter reps
because 1500m is a predominantly aerobic event.(70% aerobic, or 60% for the elite) Raw speed is rarely the limiting factor for hobby joggers like us.
That's why the fast-twitch and slow-twitch stuff is a false dichotomy to me because they just don't matter - it's about the distance you train for. For anything 1500 and up, its still about volume and threshold, because they're, by definition, aerobic events. Just like you won't tell someone who wants to run a fast 100-meter dash to "do some long runs, you're slow-twitch!" So why is it different for distance running?
In theory, yes. In practice, it does t always play out like this. Cheeto dust is a prime example. The dude is in his early 40s. The longest distance he races is 5k. He just ran a 4:05 1500 a couple of weeks ago. But the shortest rep he does in training is a mile. He does two mile, 2k and mile reps. No strides from what I can tell. Yet he’s had no problem running 65-66 second 400s despite not running faster than 5:10 for a mile in training. You’d think a guy training for 5k and down would do 3 minute reps or even 400s but he doesn’t and it’s worked extremely well. I’d be curious to hear why he chooses not to do the shorter reps
The issue with this is the sample size. While yes, there are some folks who can NEVER touch a faster pace and still bang out a 4:05 like CheetoDust, I’d argue that this is the exception to the rule, and that MOST people need to obey the rule (aka: run faster than 10k pace to race a fast mile). There are a lot of people out there with quick natural turnover who don’t really express it until their overall fitness is solid, but not everyone is like that
In theory, yes. In practice, it does t always play out like this. Cheeto dust is a prime example. The dude is in his early 40s. The longest distance he races is 5k. He just ran a 4:05 1500 a couple of weeks ago. But the shortest rep he does in training is a mile. He does two mile, 2k and mile reps. No strides from what I can tell. Yet he’s had no problem running 65-66 second 400s despite not running faster than 5:10 for a mile in training. You’d think a guy training for 5k and down would do 3 minute reps or even 400s but he doesn’t and it’s worked extremely well. I’d be curious to hear why he chooses not to do the shorter reps
The issue with this is the sample size. While yes, there are some folks who can NEVER touch a faster pace and still bang out a 4:05 like CheetoDust, I’d argue that this is the exception to the rule, and that MOST people need to obey the rule (aka: run faster than 10k pace to race a fast mile). There are a lot of people out there with quick natural turnover who don’t really express it until their overall fitness is solid, but not everyone is like that
Disagree, I ran a fast mile too fast using this method almost 15 sec quicker (5:05 for the mile though) than my previous best when I was training for 5k specifically doing Daniels.
You do not need touch faster paces it seems as you get more bang for your buck. sure if I was closer to 4 min per mile, but then again if I was I probably would be doing doubles.
Thats too big of a simplification imo. Many beginners would struggle only running long intervals as they don't have the muscular endurance to run them with quality. It is also very hard to adjust volume if you are just running 8 or 10 minute intervals. (Say you have 3x10min and want to increase volume a little bit, well 33% up is the only way to go).
Additional benefits could be to have a slightly higher heartrate and a bit different stimulus for the muscles which helps with the variation.
You could always do 3 x 10, then 1 x 5 at same pace/effort. don't NEED to do 4 x 10
Well then you are arguing for shorter reps, just as I do.
You could always do 3 x 10, then 1 x 5 at same pace/effort. don't NEED to do 4 x 10
Well then you are arguing for shorter reps, just as I do.
All of this originates in my question about doing fixed loops in my local park, where you said that if I run 3x10 I can only increase my distance to 4x10
He is arguing that you can add a single shorter rep to your 3x10 and not for running shorter reps as such.
Which is easy enough I have a round of cool down at the end anyways, so just shorten that to half a round or what ever.
Alternatively I could fiddle with my easy warmup round and start with 1x15 and then do 2x10.
Well then you are arguing for shorter reps, just as I do.
All of this originates in my question about doing fixed loops in my local park, where you said that if I run 3x10 I can only increase my distance to 4x10
He is arguing that you can add a single shorter rep to your 3x10 and not for running shorter reps as such.
Which is easy enough I have a round of cool down at the end anyways, so just shorten that to half a round or what ever.
Alternatively I could fiddle with my easy warmup round and start with 1x15 and then do 2x10.
You’re overthinking this. Just continue running your fixed loop until all your intervals are done, unless there’s some road you don’t want to cross. Then easy run home.
The issue with this is the sample size. While yes, there are some folks who can NEVER touch a faster pace and still bang out a 4:05 like CheetoDust, I’d argue that this is the exception to the rule, and that MOST people need to obey the rule (aka: run faster than 10k pace to race a fast mile). There are a lot of people out there with quick natural turnover who don’t really express it until their overall fitness is solid, but not everyone is like that
The reason I disagree with this is I don't think he's an exception. At all. I have ran a really good mile on just vanilla, I have also trained for it with specificity and basically was the same speed. I did another 6 months of vanilla aerobic loading and then was about a full 10 seconds faster with nothing else.
I now have veteran friends who have trained like this for close to a year, who jumped on the bandwagon following me. One of those just broke his mile PB, lifetime. He's 44. Of course you could add this stuff, it it's probably overrated for most reading this and on top of that, you are probably giving up what you be better training elsewhere.
Doesn't mean don't do it. But just think what are you gaining. Is the small amount of speed needed at the point you are at, adding to making the race tank fuller than just getting fitter and fitter with spamming mkre of the aerobic gains which are most important even for something like the mile.
There's a guy on Reddit who was 3:10 marathoner, now he's close to 2:40. The mile is his strongest PB out of everything. I don't actually think these are outliers.
Some people might need to do these things, but I would argue some of it is actually psychological, rather than physiological.
I post all this btw as someone who has admitted many times on here, I used to be obsessed with training speed or sure this was the only way for shorter events.
You’re overthinking this. Just continue running your fixed loop until all your intervals are done, unless there’s some road you don’t want to cross. Then easy run home.
Not really .. Just tired on a Saturday morning and tempted to debate
I appreciate the feedback here and a page or two back I decided to just run my 7.5 minute loop 3 times a week and be happy about it
If I ever get bored out of my mind then I'll take it from there :)
I find it very hard to believe that someone trying to run say under 4:15-4:20 for a mile(I am aware this doesn't apply to most people on this method) wouldn't need some specificity. Cranking out multiple sub 64 laps without even touching that pace in training seems impossible to me, at least from a mechanical point of view. Surely a few 200s just to feel out the pace before a middle distance race would be warranted?