Modifying Hobbs Kessler approach to lower mileage

Rather than doing double threshold you can just do a slightly longer threshold session, something like 8-10x3:00 somewhere between 10k-10 mile pace, 5-8 mile easy run days without doubles, and that’ll about put you there. From what I understand he’s not doing a lot of mileage as is.

I heard his mileage was 75-90 per week. I believe it was his interview after Millrose. 75-90 in six days is definitely a good amount of mileage, especially for an 8/15 guy. That’s like 90-100+ in seven days, especially if this seventh day was a long run.

Modifying to lower mileage seems relatively straight forward. Just remove the doubles or make the doubles shorter. I think Hobbs does a lot of 6/6 doubles for the easy days. You could just drop the second 6 miler or do 4/4 or 5/5. I would move the hills/track day to Saturday, followed by the day off. The fatigue from that hills/track session could make the next threshold day, only two days later, a bit harder. The hills/track is the easiest day to overdo. You can buffer the fatigue of that day by following it with a day off and an easy day after that.

Appreciate the replies! I need to re-listen to the pod because I'm sure Hobbs mentions mpw but can't remember off top of my head. Recall it being higher than I expected, given his "no run longer than 7 miles" rule. What I found appealing was I also tend to feel better keeping runs short but this is kind of an issue when not doubling (i.e. getting enough miles). Usually training ends up looking like big distance workout days with 30-40 minutes of slow recovery sandwiched between. Speed Dev is also an area I haven't found good way to incorporate for me. Someone started thread not long ago about how to get speed dev in w/o sacrificing mileage and this is part of my problem. Ideally could get regular weeks between 40-50 with all elements (speed dev, threshold, and hills) included but found if I want to include all those sessions, mileage suffers and long run basically doesn't exist. Doesn't seem to be problem for Hobbs but for me, an out of shape, aging runner with poor basic endurance, feel I need some level of mileage just for general fitness.

Currently playing around with Sirpoc's threshold workout style (from the Norwegian thread and Strava group) but only doing 2 a week, mainly to see what it gets me while racing 5ks this summer/fall. Finding it a lot easier to bank mileage but I'm not sure how speed is going to hold up. Eventually want to add in a hill workout so weeks would be 2x threshold, hill session, and long run with other days easy or day off. Probably will do strides after one of those easy days and then moving into winter I guess transition will be moving sessions more into the "Hobbs schedule" where strides become speed dev, keep threshold, and make hill sessions more important. This is the plan in theory but finding out that training plans for me never play out like they get written down!

MoVB

Might try working on a 14-day cycle instead of 7, since you're trying to squeeze a lot of variables in. That allows more workouts while still being a better logistical fit for normal people than a 10- or 12-day cycle. Full disclosure, the following suggestion is hypothetical--planning to start it in a couple weeks to build a base after finishing my back-to-running block this week (see username), then work toward a more mile-specific plan later in the year. I do think the full day off each week is really important and enjoyed hearing him say the same on the podcast. Would be happy to follow along with your own experimentation and/or check back in with feedback on how this goes.

(A)

M: Easy + drills/strides, strength/plyos in evening if possible

T: Threshold reps

W: Easy + strides

T: Speed dev.

F: Recovery (light jog, skip strides)

S: Med. long run on hilly route OR hill reps w/ extended warmup/cooldown

S: OFF

(B)

M: Easy + drills/strides, strength/plyos in evening if possible

T: Light fartlek w/ opt. float recovery and/or hilly route if feeling good

W: Easy + strides

T: Threshold reps

F: Recovery, add strides if feeling good

S: Long run w/ opt. progression/cutdown

S: OFF

I agree with Washed. We have to remember that Hobbs is a 21 year old professional athlete. He has a ton of talent. One of the reasons that the other Norwegian low mileage thread is so popular is because the main case study is a 40 year old Hobby Jogger. The training is very sustainable and you can easily fit it into a training week. The results, over an extended period of time, are proven. I wouldn’t stress too much about trying to fit everything into 6 or 7 training days. You could easily do a two week cycle, as mentioned above, with I go two workouts a week. Week 1 could be mile reps at half marathon effort one day and 400m reps at 10k effort off 30-40 seconds another day. Week two could be 1k reps at 15k effort one day and hills as the second workout.

Sometimes you need to think beyond the 7 day cycle. Based on how much your body needs to recover maybe that means an 8 or 9 or 10 day cycle. If the speed dev is banging you up the day before a workout try doing the threshold workout day 1, day 2 do your speed development workout, day 3 easy, day 4 your next workout. If your doing 30-40 min on easy days doing a long warmup 20-30min then your speed dev workout and a cool down can still keep you mileage up there.

I think the double threshold is so key to the training that it would be weird to remove it completely. If you're not doing double T, you're not doing the Norwegian method. The idea of a longer microcycle (8-10 days) is a good suggestion, but can be hard to plan. That would probably be my recommendation if possible, but if it's not, then I would adapt with a significant amount of cross-training and singles on easy days. The warmup and cooldown for workouts can also be quite short in this model, like 10-15 minutes for each. Something like this:

Monday - AM speed development (4-5) + PM rest

Tuesday - AM long reps T (7-8) + PM short reps T (7-8)

Wednesday - AM 4-5 easy + PM cross-training

Thursday - AM long reps T (7-8) + PM short reps T (7-8)

Friday - AM 4-5 easy + PM cross-training

Saturday - AM hills (6-7) + PM rest

Sunday - rest or cross-training

Total: ~50 miles + ~2 hours of cross-training

I'm not sure what Rinaldi recommends for the speed development day but it really should not be too taxing. Should be no more than ~1600m of work, with a decent amount of recovery time. A bit of a longer warm-up is fine (20-30 minutes) and a short cooldown (5-10 minutes) to complete the day. Joe Rubio's guide has some awesome speed development day examples to use throughout the year.

It's not just the double threshold that is key, but, ultimately, it seems like the overall frequency of runs/workouts is the key. Hobbs never does more than 7 miles in one session, but he doubles nearly everyday, which maintains a high volume of 70-90 miles a week in 12 different sessions. The big takeaways are to not overly stress your body in any one running session or workout, which allows your body to recover and turn around and get another easy run in later in the day or first thing the next morning or another workout in within 36-48 hours.

In terms of correlation with middle-to-long distance running success, high volume (total mileage) has certainly shown to have a high correlation with success. Likewise, frequency of training also appears to have a high correlation with success. High frequency can be a lower stress way to reach high volume.

As a hobby jogger, the easiest thing to do could be to add a 2-3 mile run as part of your morning routine to get ready for the day. With some cool down time, this really only adds 30-40 minutes to the morning routine. Then, the main run/workout can be 5-7 miles in the afternoon/evening. It's a pretty easy way to add 10-15 miles of volume while teaching your legs to recover.

What's funny is using 10 day cycle for long runs has worked well in the past but I never thought of breaking all training down like this. Personally too married to the 7 day week and idea that I have to get in all elements of training in that timeframe but might play around with this.

Again, biggest issue I was having initially was recovering after speed dev + tempo on back to back days but only real downside was easy days felt like crap for next two days. Always fine for the next workout but days between felt rough. Buffering with one day seemed to help but also think I need to get used to speed dev, as it was totally new to me. Usual session was 20 minute warmup, full set of drills + some plyos, then into short sprints (4x 30m, 2x 60m, something like that trying to accelerate to top end from standing start), finish with 120s or something longer @ ~800 pace trying to relax. These were straight from Fast 8 and Rinaldi, just usually less than they were doing but may still have been too much. Also had nagging hamstring problems the last year+ so always a little cautious hitting these types of workouts and recovering from them. Speed dev and plyos actually seemed to help hamstring, possible because of more comprehensive warmup but definitely took something out of the legs for tempos and day after those was a slog!

MoVB

I did an even easier version for base building and it worked great: easy + hill sprints, tempo/fartlek, easy medium long run, recovery run, easy run + strides, long run, rest. By the end I couldve been doing a mild hill rep workout before the long run, especially if the long and medium long runs were dialed back (or split into 2 runs for the mlr)

I don't think you can do 4-6 workouts a week without doubles ! You need the aerobic / base runs to balance the hard runs and reduce the stiffness.

I count:

6x days doubles = 12 runs of 7 miles

4x treshold

1x speed dev

1x HillS/ track

= 6 workouts & 6 aerobic runs

If you want to run 6 singles I would

1x treshold

1x Speed Dev + Treshold

1x Hills / Track

3x aerobic runs

Not sure you get the same results thought, I run much faster on 6 days of 30-40min AM and 30 min PM with 3-4 workouts (fartlek, tempo, hills etc) then on 6 days of singles equal milage