Threshold training

I looked at a (Swedish, I think) guy on youtube following the ‘Norwegian double threshold’ to a tee, and he is running his threshold intervals that happen to be very close to the Daniels threshold pace, which would be LT2.

But that does not necessarily equate to 4mmol, since the lactate turn-point (‘curve knee’) will drop in value, and the ‘curve knee’ will get more acute, as one gets fitter. (Similarly, the Heart Rate at a given pace will drop in value as one gets fitter, but the HR at the ‘’curve knee’ will be higher.)

I believe the answer is both right?

Often intervals and shorter tempos will be done with a goal of being at, slightly over, or slightly under LT2, and then there will be long runs and sometimes daily mileage targeting LT1. I remember reading something about how ingebrigstens will walk up hills on easy mileage days if said hill will push them past a certain HR or the LT1 threshold even briefly.

Sounds interesting could you send the name of the channel

I suspect he was overdoing it, and going up in volume, he should have dropped intensity more, backing off the paces on his four threshold sessions, rather than fixating on taking lactate measurements. I say that, suspecting his recent race results may have disappointed; maybe he has plateaued in his four years of running. But I don’t know, since I haven’t investigated him that deeply.

Quickly looking at his story, he obviously had some talent, and his trajectory looks like it could have been had with or without double-threshold, which he seemed to start mid-way through his four-year running career.

But as I said, maybe he is now fixating too much on lactate levels, and over-doing it.

I don’t have Strava, but if someone is willing to investigate and report back here further, after reviewing his Strava to find out what’s currently going on with him, I’ll provide his name

Think about it, increasing volume, plus X-factor workouts, plus four ‘sub-threshold’ workouts that are run in shorter intervals. The one video I watched of him indicated he ended up with higher lactate levels than he wanted in his afternoon session, and he was backing of at least 5-10secs/km from what would have been Daniels’ Threshold pace.

Can’t believe all the misleading responses in this thread so far considering the Ingebrigtsens’ base training is well documented at this point. Based on your question, my understanding is they would do their typical morning 5x6 min session between LT1 and LT2, but closer to LT1. Their afternoon sessions of 25x400 or 10x1k would also be between LT1 and LT2, but much closer to LT2. These are all “threshold” in the sense that threshold is more of a metabolic state and not a pace such that you can achieve the goal of the workout physiologically with short reps, long reps, continuous runs, etc by adjusting the length or pace of the reps and length of the recovery intervals.

Threshold is not a pace.

So what I’m suggesting is that the moral of the story may be to not fixate on trying to squeeze out the last drop of obtaining training intensity by fixating on taking lactate measurements. Really, maybe HR and perceived rate-of-exertion would have been sufficient to keep training in-check.

First of all, when you are aerobically as fit as JI, the window between LT1 and LT2 is going to be relatively small.

So who said it was a “pace”. The point is, when one runs, they actually do end up running at a “pace”.

They are running their morning sessions (tuesday/thursdays) at a pace that gives them below/around 2 mmol in lactate. The afternoon sessions (tuesday/thursday) are run at a pace that gives them below/around 3 mmol in lactate.

Exactly this.

Morning is around 2 mmol/L and evening near 3.5, although individual LT1 and LT2 values are not fixed and can actually vary a fair bit (LT2 can be between 2-8 mmol/L) It would be best to get a lab test if you want to really find exact numbers.

However, if you don’t want to do that or test lactate after every workout, I’d say the paces work out to somewhere near MP for 6 min reps, HM for 1ks and a bit faster than 10k pace for 400 reps.

Threshold is outdated and simplistic thinking. As you learn more physiology you will understand why I say this.

As mentioned above the term threshold is nebulous at best and not a one size fits all.

The curvilinear lactate plots you might see are also a function of protocol and math, much of it arbitrary, some of it downright stupid.

What it should mean though is this, acknowledging that effective training gets away from jogging as soon as possible, is generally somewhat hard to hard intensity level and provides for a decent volume of work if the loads and rest breaks are appropriately set. It doesn't guarantee that you wont get outkicked in a 1500 or dominate a marathon but it does get you closer to your potential. You still need to show up with 50 or faster 400 capability to succeed internationally, and you still need awareness of peaking timetables and risks of overtraining and racing too hard too early.

And here we have it, the names LT1, LT2 , ...

All you need is here:

Anyone have Strava and want do a deep dive on the double-threshold guy?

@dsrunner

Out of curiosity, what aspects of the protocol and math do you think are stupid? For example, the interval durations, the criteria for determining the turn point, not enough measurements (i.e. 8-10 would be better than the typical 5), etc.?

In April 2023, he ran a 30:50 at the Swedish Championships. That is significantly slower than 29:30 earlier in the year.

BTW, I don’t cite this particular athlete to dox or somehow make fun of him. I’m actually grateful he (with the video producer) put some useful info out there to learn more about application of the double-threshold system using lactate measurements.