Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Thanks for your kind words! After I posted about humidity for my EZ everyone educated me on just going on effort and to ditch the HRM as well. It made sense. For the 5k yesterday, I just went by a hard effort and didn't look at splits/effort until after. Hit start/stop for the race and that was it.

Felt strong and controlled throughout--I didn't go out super fast--let everyone pass me early on--for fear of dying to 7:40 splits. My goal was to run negative splits. It sucked 2.5 miles in, which is normal for a 5k and I had to hang on until the end. I wish I had a better kick but to be fair it was not an A race, just a fitness check to see where I am at in my training (marathon build plus just general fitness). I also haven't practiced kicking in a race like this either.

That HR (Garmin Fenix 5S, a good watch and not cheap), was WAY low. I would think I'd have it around 190-200 at 5k effort (which it was). I know wrist monitors are not 100% accurate but if it was something like 175-180 (instead of 190) for 5k that would make more sense. But 152-155 is tempo pace...

What is your guess as to what happened? I understand now you can't totally rely on HRM for some of this training. Thanks Coach.

Please please get a chest strap if you want to use HR data. For a large proportion of the population wrist based HRM's become random number generators as soon as you start running, especially at higher intensities. I've had both the Fenix 5 plus and FR255. If I ever forget my chest strap I turn HR off within minutes as it is evidently wrong all the time, it's not even near correct. This is the same for many people in my club who i've discussed this issue with.

I have used the FR230, FR235, FR245, and FR255. The wrist HRM on all of them have been very accurate. I am not sure why you are having problems with them.

Do you have a recommendation for a chest strap? Thanks. I want to train properly and if wrist-based HRMs are not worth it then I will go with a chest strap.

I am sorry if my posts in this thread offended people or came off as rude. Trying to be professional here on LRC.

Congrats on being one of the lucky ones! Depends on skin tone/complexion, wrist shape, arm movement, it really is a lottery as to whether it'll work for you. Even for those who it does the error bars are large. Clearly for Jecht, like myself, it's absolute nonsense. For some eg DC Rainmaker it'll only work on one wrist (the 255 still performed badly on his 'good' wrist fwiw). Neither of mine work well on either regardless of strap tightness.

Try the arm band instead of chest strap. I don't know why more runners don't wear them. So much more comfortable and convenient than chest straps with much better accuracy than watches.

I've used Polar Verity Sense for years. Also check out Coros and Stroop arm bands

I actually do have a 3K race planned for the fall, but it's XC rather than track. Did you run 18:21 for a 5K this week? That would really be weird. The time is converted from the slightly faster official time on a "5K" course, but it's what I'm going with. I know the Norwegian method for hobby joggers isn't about quick results, but that's actually a slightly better result than my recent marathon, so I'm happy with it, and it's a bit faster than I ran on the same course 2 years ago. So that's my benchmark. We'll see where this goes over the next 3-12 months.

Jecht, why are you only running one subthreshold workout a week? 20:01 is a fine result, and races can vary a lot with the weather and the course. But if it were me, I'd worry less about a precise HR and more about figuring out how to get in more subthreshold sessions per week.

No, I haven't been racing this year. Injured my knee in a downhill leg at a relay in May, but I am almost recovered and training is fine. I plan to run a 5000 in August, two 3000 and a 5000 in September and a road 10K in October. If I feel like yolo and the weather conditions are not terrible (no snow), I will also consider running a half and even a marathon in November. Last year I ran 17:54 and 37:33 (20 seconds late to start) out of ten weeks of 30-40k/week, so I'm hoping running more and doing faster (MP) workouts kan help a bit. Consistence is my most important area of improvement, so I think running consistently more and maybe also some faster workouts will give me progression regardless of method. If I am able to follow this system, year 2025 would be a better reference whether this works for me or not. However I am only 44 years, so I have some time before I reach my physical prime.

@jecht: your heart rate DROPS during your final kick. That's not possible.
So definitely BS heart rate measurements.

Much appreciated, I'll give those a go. Polar Verity Sense looks solid at $100.

Starting off with one to make sure I can handle it without injury, then will build to 2-3 as recommended. I don't want to overdo it!

It's the first time I've seen his HR getting into the 190s, wow, what a race.

No offence, but I assume you made that assumption based on the downvotes? Actually, don't care about it. I don't think anyone really hates you per se, otherwise you wouldn't get any responses.

Are armbands really that good even for hard runs? Aren't they using an optical sensor?

I'm actually interested. I'm still using a wrist HRM. They're fine for easy runs, but for faster runs, they're not reliable at all.

I use the old Polar armband (OH1 I think?). Works great.

As Sirpoc has mentioned, there is a slight lag. But to me this does not matter, as I mostly look at it after the workout (and in intervals.icu for HR workload). I think targeting pace and following your HR afterward is the way to go (thanks Sirpoc). The lag doesn't matter at all for easy days, but even those I've moved towards looking later. Turns out if you are running 3 workouts a week, no way you are hitting high HR on easy days and feeling really easy.

jecht-- both here and on Strava, you post comments that show you are very sensitive to any feedback. People don't hate you. You just keep putting yourself out there, so you will get comments. Who cares. Some of your questions have been repeatedly answered during this very long thread, so you will have people who just say that. (Also, I've never paid any attention to the upvote/downvotes, I don't even know why they are a feature. All I do is downvote Rojo.)

That's fair peekay--I need to not worry about it as much. I know it's easy to say "who cares" and that's a good point but I take threading seriously and if I am failing I want to know where in order to improve and get better. I try to put 100% in everything I do in life, and take failure hard.

I'll just refrain from asking dumb questions and re-read the threshold thread from page 1. I wish there was a way to search within a given thread for a keyword, for instance. That would clarify things w/o having to ask the same question again (even by accident, I can see how it would annoy others).

Re: pace

I've found that just varying the sub-threshold pace-by-time also helps--i.e. if you're able to do 3x10 one day but only 2x7 48 hours later that will still give you *some* residual effect, even if it's not the same as doing 3x10, EZ, 3x10, EZ, etc. That way you can fit it into your schedule to some degree...if not perfectly.

The new Coros Band HRM is great.

Only drawback is some compatibility and lack of ANT+ (its BT only and didnt work with my Garmin FR 935 unfortunately. Was great other than that annoyance)

An awesome contribution that everyone will love you for: scrape this thread, arrange the posts into a formatted text file, delete every post by lexel and coggan, and share a PDF. That gets you keyword search AND the respect you're seeking!

Really though, I think you would benefit from posting less and reading more! You seem keen to participate but are barely doing the training as prescribed, so your posts don't add much to the discussion. I realize that's because you listened to the advice of others, but it was a case of the blind leading the blind IMO. If you read more you'll figure out what you need to do.

To be honest there is just one or two posts that you need to copy. Put in some local doc and read every time you forget/need to reconsider.

1. Quite early, the initial suggestion of distance for reps and run everything else slowly

2. A bit later, suggesting that you should adapt to time if you are on the slower end of the spectrum

3. There is one about running up to 25% of total can be hard. And I suspect it suggests that you should build up to this is you are starting out.

Honestly, that is all you need. and then remember the key is it that it is not rigid. so, try and follow, but if you cant work out why, did you run an easy day or session too fast (probably the only reason why you are struggling after building to a decent amount of running). There is probably also a post about that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯