Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

To me, it feels more about maintaining speeds from the past than building towards a new PR. Cheetodust has run faster before, it's not that he's training up to a level where he hasn't been before. It's a bit like Bakken who says he can still can hit the same speeds that he trained at during his elite days. Or like Keith Bateman (a 70+ barefoot runner with several senior WRs) that still maintains pretty high speeds in his legs.

I mean, I am lol. Hope I can run that someday or the equivalent(I think 14:40, 30:30 ish). I'm training like this because I think it's a good foolproof way to get fit but I'm wondering at what point does one need more? I know you can get to at least 30:40 in the 10k as evidenced by our Lord and Savior, but he's the exception in many ways (like his cadence that lets him run fast on his easy days)

EXACTLY, which is why it rubs me the wrong way when some people try to use Cheetodust as an example of why strides or specificity might not be needed, when this is a man who's run a 3:46! 1500 in his prime

More like 70-80% aerobic.

Expand on that?

Calling it a theory is underselling it. It's really more of a fact.

What many don't understand, though, is that you don't have to go fast to recruit your fast twitch fibres. You can also do so by going long enough to first fatigue your slow twitch fibres.

Either way, it isn't hard to recruit, and thus train, most of your fast twitch fibres. That's why you find very few IIx fibres in the trained muscles of any endurance athlete, regardless of how they train.

TLDR: I would say that recruitment is a red herring here. To the extent that you need to run fast to race fast, it's going to be more about any biomechanical adaptations.

His cadence on easy runs is like 200+, which I suspect enabled him to run <4:30/km at under 70% heart rate(at least when he was in peak running fitness). I've experimented with the Sirpoc Shuffle™, and you can go much faster, it's just very uncomfortable

He said, "I seem to be quite susceptible to soreness and tight muscles with any shorter reps below a mile in distance."

IIRC, Cheetodust was also coached by Tinman recently. That means he was doing lots of strides and 200s. Yet he’s running faster now, without those things, than he was with them. My main issue is that there are so many people that think they are the exception when they are not. They think they need to change something, add something. Most people should just do the standard method for an extended period of time and if they want to add load, do the bike doubles. There has been a recent trend of people changing things just to change things. Be patient and keep lugging away. Week after week. Month after month.

You are probably in that handful of people then. But I stand by 99.99% of people who have ever opened up this these will never be faced with this direct problem of the speed you can actually run a lap in.

You have to remember sirpoc's 10k PB and 5k (on a shockingly slow course compared to Battersea) came in the period of marathon training, which is totally unsustainable and very hard in comparison to vanilla NSM. Ultimately that gives the game away a bit, volume is probably still king.

I understood that the aerobic component of the 1500m/mile had been updated to be circa 75%-85%.

The biggest races in my part of the world are the yearly half and full city marathon both pushing toward 30,000 runners.

Then there is the a yearly 10k and a 13k associated with the royal family and/or tradition pushing toward 20.000 runners

And finally there is a corporate 5x5k relay that over the course of a week totals +100.000 runners (more of a social event that an actual race off course, but ultimately it does involve a ton of people actually running a 5k)

And yet I love how we keep coming back to how NSM is sub optimal for shorter distances up to a mile. For example I was quite entertained with how Steve Magness main argument against NSM was "It's going to hurt your 400-800m races!"

Just out of curiosity ... How big are the biggest of such races?

I get that Letsrun is rooted in competitive runners and the US high school tradition, but the number of runners from the hobby jogger segment that are serious about distances up to a mile truly are just a fraction of a percentage as Hapoonz said

I'm in the UK. Masters racing is pretty competitive here. For example, the masters national champs sirpoc won, even a 16:30 wouldn't get you in the top 35. I would say for masters level, that's pretty good going.

If you were even a guy who scraped into the top 25, the depth of the field at shorter stuff means you could probably medal in the mile. That alone tells you even at competitive age group level, we are still talking about a handful of people.

When you consider most runners doing this type of training are significantly slower than this and just trying to improve their parkrun or local 5-10k or HM time, Harpoonz is likely spot on when he says it's a fraction of a percentage. Even by Letsrun standards, where people are interested in training more it's very few people these worries apply to.

FOD is running easy at close to 4:30/k stomping around at 160 cadence. 15 flat 5K guys can run well under 4:30/k easy. 2:35, 16 flat guys run 4:30. Your cadence doesn’t really make it easier to go faster or not

Well if I read it right, TarzanIQ implied he can get the same HR at faster pace with higher cadence. If you plot cadence on the x and speed on the y and HR as colour, ie a heatmap, the curve of any particular HR is going to be an inverted U.

I don't know, but do wonder, if running at the cadence that maximises speed on your personal 70% MHR curve would maximise the benefits of easy running - mechanical or metabolic.

Like some folks have mentioned, I’ve done plenty of short stuff in the long and recent past. Under tinman in early covid times I did hills and strides regularly. Unfortunately during that time period I had far fewer race opportunities but if my memory serves me, I had the historically typical lower limb tightness and injury cycle of my younger days. Don’t get me wrong. Ripping 200’s and 400’s has always been my true love in training. Only now, comically late, do I have the insight that it was likely the cause of the majority of my injuries but also they likely only moved the needle a tiny bit at a great risk cost.

I continue to do the vanilla plus method (some bike doubles when able) because I have tremendous brain fatigue when thinking about building a training plan. Knowing I have the same thing every week without sitting down at the end of a tired life day is the only way I’ve found to stay consistent. If I’m leaving a few seconds on the table then so be it. The longer reps suit me because I like zoning out and just getting in a groove, stopping and starting constantly just feels like I’m inviting injury. Early on I tried 400/1 k’s, all left my LFS quite high along with me wondering if I’d missed a rep since I don’t program them into my watch.
I love racing and am fine shaking off a sub par effort with a shrug since I don’t really periodize.
On the race pace topic, I closed a mile in Denver in 63 a few weeks back. That is close to what I closed lesser miles as a much faster collegiate. And this is without doing any prep, no 200’s tuning up. I figure my speed is just latent sitting there as long as I’m in good overall shape I see zero need to put my hand in the fire during training if I only call on it in races. I was of the opinion that I need a few race reps prior but I think not now.

Isn't FOD like 6'6? 💀 Can't compare those giant strides to mine. I've run 16 flat and I genuinely cannot average under 5min/km on an easy run and I'm a bit jealous of people who can. Maybe I'm too soft and I need to try harder.....

But then again the easy runs are basically cross training with running economy benefits so it probably doesn't make a difference

Maybe, just maybe, the fact you can't get under 5min/km is due to your aerobic deficiency? Is there a plan you could follow to help you? Maybe check out Letsrun, there's a new way of training that may interest you. Although there are many, many naysayers who don't seem to want to believe it because it's so simple

Why do you care what you are running on easy days? This is a genuine quirstion. The best advice IMO sirpoc ever gave me in the book outside of pacing, was to take everything off the screen on your run apart from HR on easy runs. It's a total game changer for me. 75% of all my running is now totally stress free. I just aim for ~65% of Max.

Sometimes it's 5:10/km, sometimes it's 5:25/km. Who cares? I was a 16:40 runner and now I've recently ran 15:23 after just 7 months of this training. I had been a mid 16 guy for 5 years straight. I used to obsess over worrying about easy pace that, how it should be this, or that, in all those years. All it really meant is I was going easy runs too hard.

I'm super fresh for workouts. My easy runs if anything are getting slower, or not really improving. But I really don't care. The only thing that matters is what's on the results sheet.