Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

MrCarmady wrote:

I aim for <70% average, not cap, but I appreciate some people might be more stringent with this. I use pace as the main metric and I'm usually slower than even 60% of MAS so I reckon it's okay but obviously monitor your LFS and your fatigue levels and you'll get a feel for what's sustainable. Like I don't remember the last time I did a sub-T session and felt like 'damn, I should have gone even easier on the run yesterday', for me sleep/hangovers/fuelling play into it more than 70% hard cap vs 75% hard cap, but YMMV.

75/25 split should be minutes, IMO, but here, again, I lean towards being more conservative, I'm running 6.5-7 hours a week at the moment and haven't felt the need to push the sub-T sessions beyond 30 minutes each so 90 minutes total yet. So it ends up being 21-23% of minutes for me, I'm counting the rest periods as part of 75, not 25. Because my easy runs are really slow compared to my sub-T runs, as mentioned, 25% of mileage would be a bit too little for me. Plus I like tracking with minutes better because then I keep it consistent if I ever cross-train or do my sub-T workouts in altered conditions (like with a significant treadmill incline, for example)

trashcan wrote:

MrCarmady wrote:

I aim for <70% average, not cap, but I appreciate some people might be more stringent with this. I use pace as the main metric and I'm usually slower than even 60% of MAS so I reckon it's okay but obviously monitor your LFS and your fatigue levels and you'll get a feel for what's sustainable. Like I don't remember the last time I did a sub-T session and felt like 'damn, I should have gone even easier on the run yesterday', for me sleep/hangovers/fuelling play into it more than 70% hard cap vs 75% hard cap, but YMMV.

75/25 split should be minutes, IMO, but here, again, I lean towards being more conservative, I'm running 6.5-7 hours a week at the moment and haven't felt the need to push the sub-T sessions beyond 30 minutes each so 90 minutes total yet. So it ends up being 21-23% of minutes for me, I'm counting the rest periods as part of 75, not 25. Because my easy runs are really slow compared to my sub-T runs, as mentioned, 25% of mileage would be a bit too little for me. Plus I like tracking with minutes better because then I keep it consistent if I ever cross-train or do my sub-T workouts in altered conditions (like with a significant treadmill incline, for example)

One thing that has been brought up on this thread is how slow some people’s easy run has to be to get below 70%, especially in the heat. I certainly have also found that going below a certain pace, alters stride mechanics in a way that can actually result in increased damage. Do folks have thoughts about there being a pace below which you should go to a run walk format? Like, if you can’t maintain a pace faster than 6:45/km, you should keep your running pace there and intersperse walks to maintain the heart rate?