Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

For an approximate CV estimation, only one time trial can be fine (as starting point). E.g. 5k TT. You can do also e.g a 3min and 12min all-out, that works also well (and there are other opions). Not too complicated.

Btw also for the Stryd pod you need time trials, to get a reasonable CP value. Time trials, real performance data are unavoidable for performance oriented athletes.

Hopefully as we have really gone in deep on this, some people might find this interesting.

So for my normal schedule, over 6 weeks, I ran with the wrist paced power set up, linked to my nearest weather station 1 minute before I started the run and pressed start on the Garmin. This was a mixture of easy runs, long easy runs, 10x1k , 6x 1600 and 3x 3200.

My FTP was set up with the assumption ( this is what I will continue to use) that a 5k is equivalent to a 10 mile TT or 20 mins and that 94% of that will suffice. It's not my real FTP, it's just a guess like anyone really but that is going to be my protocol from now until the end of time. For what it's worth, I always used this when cycling and my 10 mile PB is near 18 min flat and my 5k is around 17 mind flat. So in terms of aerobic effort, they are very close. We can argue on the 94%. If coggan was here, he would argue. But I've known plenty of people use this and it works over time. FTP is only relevant to me and the only thing I consider important really is it's in the range of realistic and highly repeatable in how I work it out.

Anyway, onto the data. So all my runs are either giant loops, or out and back repeats with an even number of runs into the wind and back or vice versa. I thought I would add that in.

So here is the huge issue. The watch based power, requires elevation in its calculations. Whilst that is usually accurate, as part of this testing I recalibrated manually before the start of each run. However every now and again there might be a random 5 foot spike up or down ( just as an example) despite clearly me being on a flat, sea level plain with literally the sea at eye level to my left or right, during the run.

So you would get a huge spike (or decrease) in power for a short duration, if you were looking at the power gauge in real time. This would obviously completely skew the data, over say a relatively short 1km repeat. However, the caveat to that, is when it measured the elevation as pan flat, say picking HM effort (not pace) as the example, it measured the power VERY accurately both ways, compared to the styrd. So it must accept my frontal area as less. Again, this must be factored into the equation, as it has no actual idea of the force being applied. So the "power" number is just an approximation of a giant algorithm, rather than a mechanical measurement. Note, if anyone ever tried the Cyclops "chest" based cycling power meter about 10 years ago, it reminds me slightly of this. Sometimes it plays ball, sometimes it doesn't.

Ok, so the problem. How to deal with the spikes. What I did was load all my runs into golden cheetah and use the editing software to flatten out the spikes in elevation/ power That's when things became much more interesting and usable.

All easy runs then fitted neatly into between 76-79% of FTP.

All 1k repeats were within 102- 103% of FTP.

All 1600 repeats were within 99- 100% of actual FTP .

And 3200 repeats were within 96- 97% of FTP.

This suddenly is incredibly useful information on a narrow range that is working for me. The pace was a bit scattered, so in this sense power is a much more useful and narrow margin of error metric to use.

Ok, so the big problem. I had to smooth out all those power spikes. It had zero use to me on the go or in the session in real time. Sometimes, before the data was smoothed out, there could have been 20w difference between workouts of the same duration. So on the go, really I would have no idea where I am. Anyway, I found it incredibly helpful to look back in retrospect. It's just such a shame, there is no way to see it with this accuracy in real time.

A final note, these are "harder" than cycling sweetspot zones. But the final say on that, cycling sweetspot you might do 3x 15 or 3x 20, so in a lesser percentage of FTP range, (96% was the lowest I did in running) which is offset by the longer reps and for a longer amount of time. Whereas in my running, they are shorter but a little bit harder, even the 3ks are probably 5 mins shorter than any sweetspot reps I would do on the bike (where I would target maybe 89- 93% of FTP).

Excellent info! I'm starting a few months of sub-threshold training and on my first mile repeats yesterday I hit 97-98% of CP for the intervals. I'm much slower than you (22min 5K), so I'm starting a little lower on the power scale for my intervals and a small number of intervals per week.

I did CP and lactate testing to get an idea where threshold is and now I'll start small and keep adding repeats every few weeks until I test again.

Finally translated into CV/CS/CP:

1k reps: 3-4min reps, 96-97%CV

1600m: 94-95%CV

Mission accomplished, i bow out now.

For the handful of haters, jealousy, cowards, non-registered posters, i wish you a better life.

For all the others, all the best.

I'm sure you trawled through Strava looking for that n=1, but is that really the best you came up with? I don't have an account there, so I can't look at the details, but come on, man, that is a race run at only marathon pace in low temperatures in Dublin at the end of October. It's just about the worst example if you are trying to disprove increasing heart rate near threshold under normal conditions.

We agree to disagree. I have some relevant thoughts regarding the more recent posts but I'm going to sit on them for now. If nothing else, this style of training gives everyone too much free time.

Regarding sodium bicarbonate, LetsRun just did an article on it if anyone is interested. Here is the accompanying thread.

Now now...you're being too hard on Lexel.

I did my quick CP/CS and lactate calcs in a simple spreadsheet. I use the lap averages from my watch app to do a quick calc. Say if I average 310, 312 watts on the laps and CP is 318, its easy division.

That's why I like CP so much...it's easy (for me). And it's trivial to collect data on your watch for it to be pushed to your platform of choice. WKO5 and Golden Cheetah for me.

I bet we can find half a dozen workflows to arrive at nearly the same thing.

found it rather quickly

im fine agreeing to disagree, until we disagree again.

the LRC overlords are reading the thread apparently

i too am interested in bicarbonate

to clarify im not mentioning HR again

What do you wish for us who actually know someting about real world coaching and has credentials to back that up?

Thank you very much for this and everything you have done in this thread. I didn't even mind the back and forth with unbelief and the unknown , I don't think they were actually that far off in what they were both saying, I think the only thing people are splitting hairs about is what metric to use!

I think that is what people have missed through the thread, it literally DOESN'T MATTER if you use pace, hr, or power, it'll roughly get you to where you are based on whatever one is more appropriate to the user. Lactate is obviously best but we are trying to keep it simple!

I think we can all agree that we understand at this point power isn't really power but that everyone also agrees it would be awesome to have an actual power meter. But I think everyone is now catered for, even Lexel is happy which is a miracle! I must admit I hope he sticks to his word and leaves the thread for good, but it's nice that this thread is so strong trolls like him can't even kill it.

Thank you also to the unknown, the bi carb stuff I also found interesting. Let's take you off the troll list, for now ;-)

Is it physically possible to have a threshold of 5:00/km (measured with a lactate meter), but run a 10K in 44:29 which equals 4:27/km?

Hey sirpoc! First of all, thank you so much for your fantastic contributions to this thread. I and others really appreciate the time and effort you've put in.

I had a question related to the portion of your post that I quoted here. I love what you're doing and have also been thinking I'd pass on the X-factor and hills sessions since I am just a hobby jogger looking to stay healthy and enjoy the sport. My question is whether you also forego strides, if you do them as part of your warm-up on workout days, or if you do them at the end of easy runs?

Thanks again for your time and for any insight you're able to offer regarding my question.

And after a bit more time pouring through the thread, you've already answered my question about strides. Amazing results, considering that you literally never hit mile to 5k paces.

Awesome awesome awesome thread. I’m giving this training a try. My one question.

Why insist on the short rest even during longer intervals? People say this keeps it aerobic. I feel like short rest let’s heart rate come down less and makes you more likely to cross the line past the threshold in the next rep. On my 2k reps I’ve been doing 2 min rest instead of one and feel it just gives more opportunity to stay aerobic. But I think my heart rate probably takes longer to come down then a lot of you guys. Just my thoughts, but I’d love to hear why a lot of the guys on this thread, a lot smarter then me advocate for the one minute rest on every interval length. I like to keep it variable

To sirpoc, shirtboy, or any of the others who've adopted this system and have a solid understanding of it: I'm wondering if since the system is based on time for the longer efforts (3-minute and 6-minute intervals), would it make sense to shoot for 1-1.5-minute intervals in place of the 400m intervals? I ask because it seems like the amount of time spent at the appropriate pace puts all runners in a similar lactate state, whereas if a slower runner has to spend 90 seconds covering 400m, for example, doing 20 reps is going to tax them a bit more than Jakob, or one of the guys running a 17:00 5k.

It seems to me that if you're running at the appropriate pace for a given interval, running for longer just to reach a specific distance means more time than others spent at a given level of threshold, and thus a higher lactate mmol value. The faster you are, the less time you'll spend at any given pace, and I've just been thinking that since time is the factor with the longer distances, maybe that should be the goal for all paces.

I do understand that many have come to view 6-minute intervals as circa 2000m, and 3-minute intervals as circa 1000m, but looking into the Norwegian training, they seem to emphasize time over distance, except for the shorter 400m intervals and hills. Alternatively, of course, a slower runner could stick with the 1000m or 2000m distances, and just do fewer reps. I'm wondering what all of your thoughts are on this.

Check out Sully is Running for awesome running YouTube content.

A lot of people do anywhere between 1-2 min reps. I believe now sirpoc does 3200 repeats on Strava, he sometimes does 90-120 min rest. I would say 2 mins is probably the upper limit, for the longer stuff, 10-12 mins. Only anecdotal though, in the sense that's 1:6 ratio and I've not seen anyone go over that in terms of rest for sub threshold stuff.