Was there much difference overall in your average or max hr, doing the long run this way.
Got to be honest, I'm one of those that posted about not having a sportswatch so I can't give a mid-rep HR figure, but each rep ended at about 72% MHR. You might say that doesn't sound very easy, but it's the lowest HR I ever record (I'm late 50s, max is only 172, and I'm happy that low 70s is extremely easy, conversational). Typically on a long run I'll get a bit of drift up to mid-high 70s by the end, so to keep it flat at basically 72% throughout was a clear difference. And I felt it, too.
Was there much difference overall in your average or max hr, doing the long run this way.
Got to be honest, I'm one of those that posted about not having a sportswatch so I can't give a mid-rep HR figure, but each rep ended at about 72% MHR. You might say that doesn't sound very easy, but it's the lowest HR I ever record (I'm late 50s, max is only 172, and I'm happy that low 70s is extremely easy, conversational). Typically on a long run I'll get a bit of drift up to mid-high 70s by the end, so to keep it flat at basically 72% throughout was a clear difference. And I felt it, too.
I honestly don't think this is the worst thing in the world. If this is a range where the max you're hitting is just breaking into the bottom range of LT1 , it can be a beneficial training stimulus. After all, isn't is much similar to running in a hillier area and walking the hills to keep HR down? You're just trying to play with the average HR for the duration of the run with different intention.
My current goal for the next several months is to break my weak PBs in the 200, 400, and 800 while keeping or even continuing to build an aerobic base, so I'm testing a variation where I replace one of the Sub-T workouts with an anerobic workout but keep the rest pretty similar.
Doing workouts like 8x400 at mile pace with 2 minute rest, 2x300/200/100 at close to max pace, and sprint/float/sprint 400s. Also adding one rest day a week and may add a few strides to easy runs. I'm continuing to run lots of doubles, but that's so I can run both ways for my commute and I don't think matters much to the overall plan. It's probably less load overall, but two months in I'm feeling fresh and having fewer niggles than while using vanilla method. We'll see how it goes.
Th: Sub-T Workout (3 * 2000, sometimes an extra 1*1000), 2.5 easy double
Fri: Rest
Sat: Track Workout, 3200 or less of work, mile pace or faster
Sun: 90 min Easy
Update: although I was mercilessly ridiculed for this post, there was good discussion on the following pages about what if any adjustments would be helpful for primarily 800/1600 runners, so I figured another update wouldn't be a total waste.
I've continued this plan basically as described.
The track workouts generally are speed endurance with long rests rather than VO2max sessions. I recover pretty quickly from these sessions, and it helps to go into them with a rest day, as my legs have more pop. I don't think I could do tough vo2max sessions every saturday without burning myself out. Recovery is also helped by the two subsequent easy days.
I tried to add strides or analactic sprints to one of the easy days, but couldn't keep it up. Maybe if I wasn't working full time and had more time to relax and stretch I could tack it on to easy runs. But it just felt like that would push me over the edge of sustainable. Keeping the easy runs at 9:00/9:30 pace, and mostly running them as 25 minute commute doubles, just feels like it holds the whole program together.
Load is lower; I'm short one easy day, and the load on my saturday workout according to intervals is about 30% lower than a Sub-T day. My Sub-T days have improved, but I suspect they would improve more if I was doing plain vanilla.
My speed has improved; I hit a 28 second 200 and 46 second 300 as the last reps of workouts while in superblasts, so I think I'm on track for my current goal of a 57 second 400. Would the speed workouts be faster without the Sub-T, the easy miles, and the lack of strength training? Probably also yes.
My current conclusion is that I may be doing jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none training, but i'm feeling fresh and niggle-free, so enjoying it for now.
Update: still enjoying this method; not feeling burned out, no major niggles, and feeling fast on the short stuff. I think the key is nothing at threshold or VO2Max, which are the efforts that really drain me. I ran a 300m in 41 seconds yesterday, then did my long run today at 9:30/mile pace. I signed up for a marathon in the fall, so starting to extend my long runs (they were at 75 min) and will slowly transition to Vanilla NSA, then the marathon plan.
I really like being able to do all distances, and don't want to give up on either sprinting or longer distances. I'm thinking my year will look like the below, which should get leave me only a little behind standard NSA in terms of load:
Spring: Replace Saturday sub-t with speed endurance/sprints. Long run is only 75min. Goal races: 200m - 800m
Summer: Add a couple 200m sprints or a 400m sprint to the end of the Saturday Sub-T session each week. Goal races: 800m - 5k
Even the pacing section (gold for anyone) really is just how a person gets from A to B in the fastest possible time.
I'm kinda shocked by how many people are blown away by the pacing section. When I read that section I thought why did he even include that?
I figured good race pacing was basic knowledge most people learned way back from their coach in junior high, high school track & XC. Guess not, because I've read a lot of comments on here, reddit etc saying how helpful that section was, so I see why he included it. Makes me wonder how bad were people pacing themselves before, lol?
Most US high school and college coaches tell you to go out hard and hold on (old school no pain no gain mentality) aka people going out in their 3k PR for a 5k XC race and then dying horribly the last 2k
Even the pacing section (gold for anyone) really is just how a person gets from A to B in the fastest possible time.
I'm kinda shocked by how many people are blown away by the pacing section. When I read that section I thought why did he even include that?
I figured good race pacing was basic knowledge most people learned way back from their coach in junior high, high school track & XC. Guess not, because I've read a lot of comments on here, reddit etc saying how helpful that section was, so I see why he included it. Makes me wonder how bad were people pacing themselves before, lol?
This might suprise your but some people aren't from the USA. Also some people didn't "run track" at any junior level.
Letsrun seems to have a large section of people obsessed with HS and college track meets, what times you ran in HS and who you beat.
It's not the same in the realm world. Most runners don't come from the USA way.
This might suprise your but some people aren't from the USA. Also some people didn't "run track" at any junior level.
Letsrun seems to have a large section of people obsessed with HS and college track meets, what times you ran in HS and who you beat.
It's not the same in the realm world. Most runners don't come from the USA way.
Even then, I've spoken to a lot of US runners and as someone posted above, they were just told to go out and hold on. Which is obviously giving up time if you paced it properly.
Here in the (scolding hot) UK, just look at club runners. They don't have a clue. I've been in a number of local clubs with coaches, none of who teach you how to pace or even understand where to pitch a race.
In fact, it's pretty common in hobby jogging 5ks for someone to finish in 17 flat but went out in like 3:10/km.
I was in a group of us of about 9 who were aiming for 37:00 to score points in our local series and agreed to run as a group even though it was cross team. Everyone else went out in 3:25/km for the first 2k. This was like 4 months ago lol so at least I knew better and just held off, in fact, I dropped off after like 100m and did the first 2k in 3:46/km and then passed absolutely everyone in that group as if they were standing still in the last couple of K. At least three of them are definitely better runners than me and should beat me every time.
Not a single one of them that I spoke to afterwards saw the problem. "Just one of those days" or "sometimes you just gotta let rip!". But if you explained to them that 3:25/km killed their race they would just tell you "nah, felt fine at the time, didn't have it in my legs today".
After 13000 posts there for sure must be some details of NSM that’s not covered. ;)
How about this one? I did my LR today as 8x12 mins with 1-2 min rests. HR was flatter as you'd expect and it felt considerably easier than a continuous run at the same pace (NSM book easy pace). Like, ridiculously easier. Afterwards I felt like I'd hardly run. Does anyone else do this?
What benefits would this lack compared with continuous running? How much would you need to add to normal LR distance/time to make up the difference? And how short could the reps get to still count functionally as a long run in total?
Pros - little cardiac drift, HR stays low and flat. Less mechanical stress, no fatigue in legs or joints that I'd normally get on a LR (but not regular easy run). In the heat, regular access to water/towel if doing a loop.
Cons - opposite of the pros - no stimulus to improve drift or mechanics over a long duration. Or the mental side. For more sprinter-types like me, frequent reloading of the anaerobic system, so less aerobic stimulus overall (not sure how much that would apply at snail-like easy pace).
Essentially you just ran an abbreviated ultrarunning long run workout. Those 2 minute walk breaks are why mid pack ultrarunners can go for hours with very little slowdown burning primarily fat as fuel. For most of us, this is the way. At the front of the pack, it's a different game...
Something I don't understand about Sirpoc's running history is how quickly he ramped up from 4-5 hours a week Daniels to 7 hours a week of NSA. From the book it seems like he was doing Daniels in February 2023 and from his Strava is seems he was consistently doing 7 hours a week by October 2023. That's +2.5 hours in 8 months, so about 20 minutes a month. Then it seems like he increased to about 7.5 hours a week by October 2024, so about 2.5 minutes a month. In ramp rate that's ~.7 CTl a week vs .1 CTL a week.
Can you ramp up quicker to lower to moderate volume than from moderate to higher? Or could Sirpoc have continued to ramp up .7 CTL a week?
. One of the ingenious insights of NSM is that a time trial in cycling is quite similar to the race demands of most hobby joggers, where covering the distance in the shortest time possible vastly outweighs the importance of outkicking any competitors at the end of a race.
If that's an "ingenious insight" to you then RAC called it.
Something I don't understand about Sirpoc's running history is how quickly he ramped up from 4-5 hours a week Daniels to 7 hours a week of NSA. From the book it seems like he was doing Daniels in February 2023 and from his Strava is seems he was consistently doing 7 hours a week by October 2023. That's +2.5 hours in 8 months, so about 20 minutes a month. Then it seems like he increased to about 7.5 hours a week by October 2024, so about 2.5 minutes a month. In ramp rate that's ~.7 CTl a week vs .1 CTL a week.
Can you ramp up quicker to lower to moderate volume than from moderate to higher? Or could Sirpoc have continued to ramp up .7 CTL a week?
There’s going to be a to of variation here. It depends on so many factors. Some people can ramp up quickly, others can’t. I see this a ton in the Strava group, on the subreddit and even here. People go from 5 to 7.5 hours in a matter of months and then run into issues and can’t seem to figure out why. What’s the rush? Why not squeeze all the fitness out of a certain level of training before increasing it? You can be at five hours a week for months before you need to increase to continue improving. Sirpoc was at 7.5 hours for like two years or so?
Something I don't understand about Sirpoc's running history is how quickly he ramped up from 4-5 hours a week Daniels to 7 hours a week of NSA. From the book it seems like he was doing Daniels in February 2023 and from his Strava is seems he was consistently doing 7 hours a week by October 2023. That's +2.5 hours in 8 months, so about 20 minutes a month. Then it seems like he increased to about 7.5 hours a week by October 2024, so about 2.5 minutes a month. In ramp rate that's ~.7 CTl a week vs .1 CTL a week.
Can you ramp up quicker to lower to moderate volume than from moderate to higher? Or could Sirpoc have continued to ramp up .7 CTL a week?
Yes you can ramp up quicker when you're further from your ceiling.
But I think he was quite inconsistent it recording his runs (at least to strava) in his early days, so that could be what you're picking up. I haven't looked to closely at his strava history in a while, so I don't remember the exact timing of when he started recording runs more consistently.
Even then, I've spoken to a lot of US runners and as someone posted above, they were just told to go out and hold on. Which is obviously giving up time if you paced it properly.
Here in the (scolding hot) UK, just look at club runners. They don't have a clue. I've been in a number of local clubs with coaches, none of who teach you how to pace or even understand where to pitch a race.
In fact, it's pretty common in hobby jogging 5ks for someone to finish in 17 flat but went out in like 3:10/km.
I was in a group of us of about 9 who were aiming for 37:00 to score points in our local series and agreed to run as a group even though it was cross team. Everyone else went out in 3:25/km for the first 2k. This was like 4 months ago lol so at least I knew better and just held off, in fact, I dropped off after like 100m and did the first 2k in 3:46/km and then passed absolutely everyone in that group as if they were standing still in the last couple of K. At least three of them are definitely better runners than me and should beat me every time.
Not a single one of them that I spoke to afterwards saw the problem. "Just one of those days" or "sometimes you just gotta let rip!". But if you explained to them that 3:25/km killed their race they would just tell you "nah, felt fine at the time, didn't have it in my legs today".
This is very true, the club I am part of (which I like) seems basically to approach races based on good vibes - and then if a bad race happens it's all positive self talk to try and move on. As if the only thing holding anyone back from an Olympic-class performance is sufficient good vibes and getting lucky if the dice roll you a good race on the day.
I'm reluctant to be too critical because everyone that coaches is essentially giving up their time for free, and perhaps that's all the bulk of hobby runners want or ask for, but it does seem like there's quite a lot of room to be a bit more analytical and reflective within the club scene. Maybe other clubs are like that, I don't have enough experience.
All the talk about HR being a bad proxy for lactate. I always assumed it would only err on the high side thus making you run too slow.
You know stuff like lack of sleep, hot weather or whatever making your heart rate 10 beats higher without really affecting lactate levels.
But can it err on both sides?
Yes. It happened to me moving to altitude--my max HR went down, and my HR became far less responsive to changes in pace. My threshold hr at sea level was 160; like clockwork would hit 160 near the end of the last rep.
At altitude I had, for example, a 10 minute Sub-T rep where HR peaked at 130 after 4 minutes, then fell to 118 at the end of the rep.
I think HR going down is much worse because you can confuse it with fitness (I did, mine was probably overtraining), giving essentially the opposite prescription for your training (I trained more).
That's where analyzing HR against another body marker (lactate, breathing, rpe) is helpful. If HR is way down but RPE and breathing aren't, you're probably not fitter.
This is very true, the club I am part of (which I like) seems basically to approach races based on good vibes - and then if a bad race happens it's all positive self talk to try and move on. As if the only thing holding anyone back from an Olympic-class performance is sufficient good vibes and getting lucky if the dice roll you a good race on the day.
I'm reluctant to be too critical because everyone that coaches is essentially giving up their time for free, and perhaps that's all the bulk of hobby runners want or ask for, but it does seem like there's quite a lot of room to be a bit more analytical and reflective within the club scene. Maybe other clubs are like that, I don't have enough experience.
Uk club here as well. Very similar. We had a chance if gaining the point we needed to finish in a good spot in the league. Last race, this guy can easily run 16:30 which is about what he needed for us. Said he felt super good on the start line so went for it. Opened the first km in 3:06. Blew up and finished in 17:12. Had absolutely no real knowledge that what he had done was detrimental. The talk after in the club was how strong and impressive that first km was and pats on the back and go again next time, even from the coach.
I'm not going to laugh and mock too much, as that was me really until I came to this thread. Go on places like AR on Reddit and they will tell you this is how to run a PB. Mainly because this is how so many runners do it. Yet they forget this is in spite of, not of why they ran a PB.