Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

cob wrote:

f wrote:

Where in earth are you getting that from? Care to point out any place where that was said? Or are you just making up imaginary things?

The point is simply that if our 28 min guy runs workouts at 9:20 or 9:40 just doesn't matter. They aren't running 12 hours/week and doing 2+ hours of quality work or pushing any limits. If they want to go to lab and find their max heart rate, measure lactate, and so on go for it. But it isn't needed. Figuring out that one guy is running a 5k and 95% and tempos at 85% and the other is doing 5ks at 90% an tempos at 80% just isn't that important.

If you want to cosplay at being elite and going to levels of detail that don't matter for you, go for it. But you don't have to.

Imagine gatekeeping running, lmao. The goal of many here is to find how to train optimally, given limited talent and time. Once you have maxed out those constraints, you need to get into the details to improve.

I mean, yeah at the end of the day, you're not going to win anything other than the local parkrun. You're not going to make any money by running. So what's the point?

It's a hobby, it doesn't need to have a point, other than enjoying the process. Just ask the millions of fat slow cyclists spending thousands on carbon bikes, power meters, fancy computers etc etc

I take it you'd consider buying the latest shoe tech also 'cosplaying at being elite'?

It is about low mileage, right? wrote:

That's written a bit harshly, but it's true in the meantime. The term "Norwegian approach" alone is interpreted differently here and then as an all-powerful magic word, which is somehow laughable. From my point of view, there are two findings:
1. Who trains low mileage, should accommodate as much quality as possible. This includes threshold training, but not only. It's nonsense to think that all you need is just threshold in your low mileage schedule.
2. Who trains low mileage, does it consciously. You can and want to train much harder workouts than treshold, you want to minimize the risk of injury, you have problems with higher volume or you simply don't have time for much training.

The classic threads titled "Getting the most out of lower mileage" and "Real Low Mileage performers" are the gold standard for low mileage fans. There's a lot of valuable stuff in there. Very interesting: Bruce Tulloh, time efficient running (4 days plan) and "Bruce Tulloh on the truth about running".

Hard2Find wrote:

lexel wrote:

We see with MAS, it matters how we define things. It makes a difference if you use a 5min or 8min all-out for MAS. 8minutes is too long imo. Billat et al, found that tlim (time to exhaustion at vVO2max) is inverse correlated to performance.

CV/CS/CP is in the area of 88-92%VO2max, typically 90%. So i have CV = 90%MAS (on average).

Lexel, coincidentally, I read that paper. Three things that stuck out to me were the correlation coefficient was low (so there was not a strong inverse linear relationship), the three runners with the longest time to exhaustion had vVO2Max values that were right on the mean, and the times to exhaustion ranged from around 2 minutes to 11 minutes, I believe. I recognize the limitations physiologists can face in regard to their research, but that is not data that warrants absolute conclusiveness, in a true scientific sense. If anything, I think it demonstrates how we should be more careful in assigning take away messages from research to apply in our training.

I agree, there is interpretation on the range of percentages to use. Also, how you calculate them (i.e. “normal” math vs “Canova” math). I myself have used both versions on this thread in relating ideas, but they both get you in the range. Intuition and feel for effort should play a part at some point, I think.

It is about low mileage, right? wrote:

a blast from the past wrote:

The only annoying thing about this thread is that we've had like 3 better ones on this exact topic in the past, but everyone here is circlejerking this one guy just for posting his schedule lmao.

That's written a bit harshly, but it's true in the meantime. The term "Norwegian approach" alone is interpreted differently here and then as an all-powerful magic word, which is somehow laughable. From my point of view, there are two findings:
1. Who trains low mileage, should accommodate as much quality as possible. This includes threshold training, but not only. It's nonsense to think that all you need is just threshold in your low mileage schedule.
2. Who trains low mileage, does it consciously. You can and want to train much harder workouts than treshold, you want to minimize the risk of injury, you have problems with higher volume or you simply don't have time for much training.

The classic threads titled "Getting the most out of lower mileage" and "Real Low Mileage performers" are the gold standard for low mileage fans. There's a lot of valuable stuff in there. Very interesting: Bruce Tulloh, time efficient running (4 days plan) and "Bruce Tulloh on the truth about running".

shirtboy2022 wrote:

took 2 days to read! wrote:

Finally finished the thread just now on my lunch break! Boy was I glad I started it. I think I fully commited on page 3 and was glad I did. Bar JS as usual trying to mess it up and Lexels weird infatuation with CV, it was really, really good. Btw Lexel, I actually kind of understand what you mean. I think you just don't communicate very well maybe, or maybe you are a bit too married and anchored to CV. But I actually kind of see your point, I'm just not entirely convinced it's an improvement on anything offered here. In fact this thread was very simple to understand, which is the point. Bringing % of CV complicates it more I think for your average Joe than just saying run the 1ks at 15k pace or using the HRM solution offered. I stopped to Google and familiar myself with stuff like TSS, CTL and the PMC which didn't take long, then all that stuff made sense as well - I really learned something there and I am going to back catalogue my own data myself.

I think what sets this thread apart is anyone can do it. We often have ex sub elites or current saying "this is how you must train to run sub 15" . But they are talented, have only trained one way (usually not like this) and we have NO IDEA what they could have run, had they trained like this, arguably more optimally. Here we have spoc84 in particular, as well as others - who have COMPARISONS to other ways they have trained. That is the key difference. We have something to base this off. As often we have natural runners who say "this is how you must train" when actually, often, even being sub 15, I think "you could have done more". Lets not forget, spoc isn't slow. He's just run 35.50 or something like that. That's not slow. That's way above average, even for letsrun. The key takeaway is that it's been compared, to another way to train - we don't often get that and solid rationale for why this way is better via the overall training load talk. I have no idea where he sits in terms of being fast, for cycling, but seems faster to me than his running? So that's two sports he's trained to make him way above average, relatively the same way. That makes me sit up and notice.

Also I always enjoy shirtboys posts. Also very informative. Would love more little links like that , if possible. Hard2find, also really enjoyed your posts from the scientific point of view. What's great is you are all roughly on the same page - sharing ideas in real time and it makes a really awesome thread to read through. There's a book in it somewhere, for someone - or the main people involved in this thread. I've read much, much worse collaborations that have sold many copies by much less knowledgeable on the science or application of training.

Anyway, my 2 cents and I hope there is more to come, but even if not, someone already said it I think but this will be included down the line in the "must read" and HOF LRC threads.

Yeah i think fundamentally what everyone tried to stress and underline is this is how to read and identify things yourself and within yourself rather than just blindly following a schedule.

I think we have all done that at some point for whatever reason and all have regretted it.

The takeaway, dont be us. Dont F around with your development until you are trying to train correctly as a master's athlete.

Stress your body intelligently and recover. And do it as often as you can. We get caught up way too much doing workouts that are withdrawals from our bank of fitness instead of deposits.

leave wrote:

COACH WIZARD 1 wrote:

Yeah! Let´s play that game.. )) Gjert copied Bakken and then used it on his super talented sons inclusive the daughter who didn`t do so well. I have a very different experience than Gjert. I have during over 50 years studied and performed practically many of the most successful training methods in history and from that developed my own method that of course has nothing to do with magic, just the results from it looks to be magical.I have never lied about the runners I have coached to quite impressing results on relativelly short coaching time in many cases. How is it even possible you can believe this can be performed by a mad man bordering on full psycho? You are really too much buddy, LoL ))

This thread is not about you. You are not welcome here unless you have something useful to say, or questions to ask.

Your lies have been exposed dozens of times.

This thread has amazing quality so go away, because your posts and arrogant posture bring down the level here.

Just leave.

sirpoc84 wrote:

MrCarmady wrote:

Lurker checking in. Loved this thread and have been slowly transforming my training to this for the past couple of weeks. I'm way more of a hobbyjogger than most, recently PR'd with a 19:46 parkrun. I haven't had access to a lactate meter so I've erred on the side of caution and used the VDOT equivalent HM-FM paces for the workouts so far (5x5, 5x6, 8x4 minutes), HR has been creeping up to 90-92% of max by the last minute of the last rep so I'm reasonably happy with that even though the paces seem very slow for now (around 4:30/km). Will do a Friel test soon. One thing to note is that 65% of MAS and 70% of max HR for me are two completely different values - the former is a bit faster than I had been doing my easy runs prior to finding this thread and would push the HR closer to 80% of max. I tried the latter approach and was honestly shockingly slow, around 7:00/km or 11:00/mile, closer to 50% of MAS than to 65%. I'm definitely aerobically undertrained as my PR's get progressively worse as the distance increases (42:02 10k, 1:39 HM, 4:05 FM, though more recently I raced a 70:43 10mi and a 2:41:40 20mi which are still bad compared to the 5k/mile but definitely an improvement), not sure if that has something to do with it or if the body just needs to adapt to the new training load. Will try this out for a few weeks with no races (will do one 7k time trial just to get the Friel results and check my fitness levels) and race again in exactly a month's time to see the results. Thanks to spoc, shirtboy, Hard2Find and others who have contributed to outlining this approach.

Well done on your recent PB mate. Sub 20 is a nice milestone. There's plenty of hobby joggers who will never get there.

Were you doing the easy runs based on MAS around 5:35/km? If so I have a friend who has been training like this (although now I think he's given up as he just went too hard on the sub threshold days). He was the same, his HR was pretty high - but we stuck to MAS and even after a few weeks it came down quite a lot on these runs. The other option is you don't know your true max HR, but I doubt that - it wouldn't account for most of the gap and also I'm usually at or very close to max HR at parkruns so I would imagine you are as well.

This is why everything I posted up was a guide , I'm sure I'm boring everyone by keeping saying this - but what I posted was what I knew definitely fit neatly for me. Go to Tinman's calculator, plug in your 5k time and from memory his "easy" is a little big slower than MAS. I would stick to that range maybe for now. It's definitely not going to crush you and you will be able to do your workouts the next day - take HR even off the screen on your watch for a few weeks and then after 2-3 weeks have a look at how things have improved.

Your intervals now seem like they are in a good range. Slightly slower than what I've been doing proportionally, but not by much tbh and as I've said before it's better to go a little bit slower , as there's still a reasonably big sub threshold window for you to catch and fall into. It does feel slow IMO. Especially if you have been doing park runs. It's significantly slower all the time than your regular "race" (park run isn't a race I hear you say ha ha) pace. But do that Friel test, then you can maybe stay where you are or Dial it up a notch . It'll give you more data and confidence in what you are doing.

Again, you have to maybe take into context my own situation. My 10k and 5k PBs are both new in the last few weeks - I'm probably better at the longer distances than short. My 10k a couple weeks back is 35:41 and my 5k is now 17:24. So again, with my posting up my "guide" I'm probably better as the distance goes up - opposite to yourself. Obviously lactate testing would be best. But I totally understand that isn't a realistic option for most.

sirpoc84 wrote:

MrCarmady wrote:

Apologies for double posting. Am I right in thinking Tinman's tempo is basically equivalent to marathon pace? In that case could it just be a consequence of not doing enough consistent mileage until recently/being aerobically undertrained? So my VDOT MP is more like my realistic HMP and my VDOT HMP is more like 10mi pace.

The fastest end of the scale of Tinman tempo is marathon pace. Stick with it and let it settle down. Your 4:30 really isn't much slower than I do my longer intervals at. So I wouldn't worry about it too much. You are in the ball park. Honestly don't push right up to the limit whilst you are getting used to how it all feels. The 2k repeats are just under 8 mins for me and I'm often a bit slower than HM pace and and lactate is still reasonably high if I have tested. The good thing if you feel you are aerobically undertrained, you are doing probably the best workouts to fix it if you can squeeze 3 in a week.