A new era in middle-distance training

One of the misconceptions about Jakob’s training is that these ‘threshold’ workouts are done at the same paces. However, they vary the pace of the intervals depending on the length. Someone looking to mimic Jakob’s training but for whom using an expensive lactate meter is impractical might approach the sessions as follows:

-5x6 min, 1 min rest 3-5 seconds/mile faster than marathon pace.

-10x3 min, 1 min rest between 1 hr and HM race pace

- 20x1 min, 45 seconds rest between 5k and 10k race pace

Do a combination of the above 4x/week for a few years and survive to tell the tale and yeah, you will get pretty damn far.

I haven't read much about The Norwegian System. Is this system even practical for anyone that is not a high level athlete? I'm always skeptical when reading the workouts and training of world class athletes because those runners would be great (maybe not as great- but still great), even with "conventional" training. So I'm not sure how transferrable the differences in training for top athletes are for the rest of us.

I'm sure it could apply to college runners, but I don't know if you could pour on a lot of tempo/threshold stuff on HS kids and keep them healthy through the end of the season. I'd like to hear what some HS coaches have to say. I could be completely wrong.

There appears to be something going on up in Norway. For such a small place they produce some great athletes.

If you’re talking about 16 years old Jakob that’s fine but he does a lot more than that now.

1) He now does 12km threshold sessions. Exemple : 30x400.

2) The sessions are often in time intervals and not distance intervals, that means he does a lot more than 10k if he’s doing 10 x 3:00 because he often runs a lot faster than 3:00 per km.

3) he now does a threshold session on saturday afternoons after his morning hill session.

The total amount of threshold work is probably more than 50km a week most of the time.

reuters com/article/us-olympics-2018-nors-norway-idUSKBN1EV0EC

Why wouldn’t it work with HSers? Most HS kids are RACING their workouts. The point of this system is that it’s a lot more controlled so you can do more and not get burned out.

I’m doing a junior varsity version of this with threshold pace fartleks and hills with my middle school kids. They never get tired and it’s fun. Seems a lot better than the traditional hammering of quarters all the time and I’m orettt happy with the results so far (happy kids plus fast times).

What does you week look like for the middle school kids? How do you get the kids to understand what threshold pace is and not just go as fast as they can?

Why are you overcomplicating this? I am slower than Jakob but at 3:44 im still good

I dont complicate my training

Some days are repeats based, some are tempo based

Important thing is i try to trash myself during training

repeats day:

15x400m repeats at 62s 400 pace, 3 min rest

tempo day:

10k run at a 6 min mile pace

It all works, dont overcomplicate it, do the hard work

The key on all of these is the short rest. As an adult with a job, I’ve played around with some of these training sessions and my threshold pace increased like crazy. I was an 800 guy, so these workouts didn’t help me there at all (in fact, I got slower), but my 5K time dropped by 2 min back close to my PR on only 2 months training. They seem to all be geared toward threshold, which seems really super relevant for the 5K. The key is to keep the rest short and to run the pace at each rep length controlled enough to not accumulate lactate through the short rest periods. Theoretically, you can do the 20 x 1 min x 3 sets, aka the Once a Runner workout. It works because it’s controlled, but think of that volume of fast running!

Getting middle school kids to run as controlled as you need to in these workouts is nearly impossible. You need to turn it into a game somehow. They are also likely not going to have enough focus to hit any sort of volume on these either. I wouldn’t venture outside of 3-4 by 1 mile below the high school level.

There is very little information about Jakob’s training during the specific phase. I have seen a lot of posts on these boards about Jakob’s training. It is mostly accurate but I don’t think we have the exact and full plan.

It’s also a huge mistake to think that any and every athlete should do this type of training. Jakob won the gold in 2021 but he lost to Jake Wightman this year. Jakob didn’t get any medals in 2019. He has run very fast but clearly the training has limitations as Jakob does lose races. If you had everybody in the 2022 1500m and 5,000m finals do the exact same training as Jakob they would all have different results. Many of them would probably run slower. There is a lot we can learn from Jakob’s training. Plenty of training principals to apply across the board. But Jakob’s exact training should not be applied to everybody.

There are many different ways to succeed in this sport, clearly Jakob has found his through large amounts of threshold running and im sure many runners would benefit from something similar. But its kind of odd you are putting down Salazar (Yes ik he was banned, but his athletes weren't) and Canova who have also had massive success with their training programs.

Can you really say that Mo Farah's training was not optimal for him considering he won 10 global golds? Or Centrowitz squeezing an Olympic Gold medal + 2 other medals out oh his 3:30 pr. Canova probably has the most impressive resume out of any coach ever, the sheer number of medalists and fast times his athletes have run is staggering.

That is what I was thinking in regards to getting a middle schooler to run controlled. We play heaps tag games and set up obstacle courses which is currently the best I can think of. I would love to hear the boards ideas.

Have a coach pace them. And make it a game to get the pace right. If you are doing 12-16*400 in 90s. Tell them to run some at 95s and others in 85s. To some extent though you don't need to be super exact. You shouldn't be pushing the edge as much as pros or even HS kids do. If you over due intensity at 20mpw and 1.5 workouts, it isn't the same at 80mpw and 4+ workouts. You practice and hope the kids learn restraint over time.

Yeah. You need to pace them at first. Or call out 100m splits. The game is getting as close to the goal pace as possible.

Interesting, I introduced some 4 or 5 x 5 min threshold stuff this year (MS), Lots of PRs who knows. But...they would MUCH rather hammer 400s! Partly due to over running the cruise intervals but also something about the 400 nuggett that they can digest easily. Mentally anyway. They cheer when I say 400s, even before I say what pace and what interval!

All of these noobs chatting and yakking about all the 400s that JI is doing .. blah blah … What do they think Zátopek was doing with his 10x200 ; 20x400; 10x200 … and later his 50x400 and his ridiculous 100x400 routine…? Give E. Z. better shoes and better tracks … maybe a few training partners… Jeesh the guy ran in crap shoes and on sh!t tracks and was the first of his time to do this type of training … 13:57 / 28:54 .. in the middle 1950s

And your point is? Should runners go back and train like Zatopek?

Snippy much ? There’s not much difference between what Zatopek was doing and what is being done now 65 -70 years later. Yeah he did bundles of 400 repeats, short rests, but the interval work was closely related..lots of volume at +/- the threshold.