Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Thank you Hard2find, nice link as always. I am now more than just intrigued by this thread. The section of putting this into practice seems to be a lot of what yourself , shirtboy, sirpoc have been saying. Whilst training on this lower intensity, it doesn't quite give as good adaptations minute for minute BUT you can do way more of it because of the reduction of fatigue. It's really quite simple when you think about it. I think this is what links into on a more simple scale and non lactate testing, the use of the PMC as sirpoc has suggested. I was incredibly skeptical of this as first. However I have spent a week going back over things and injecting current fitness retrospectively as I had pbs to go on, so my data collection was pretty accurate. Things to note here. Firstly, it's clearly harder to score as much TSS when you do the zone 4-5 stuff. Point 2, threshold was easy to score TSS, I didn't feel tired during these blocks either yet you can see my CTL increasing and then maybe a few weeks after that, it's created a higher load and I've pb'd on multiple occasions. Note here, this was not my design, just chance that I sometimes do the odd threshold block to mix things up. But these based on my view of the pmc in training peaks, clearly is getting me the best results. I hope I get the term correct, CTL, TSS etc are very new to me and I've learned them from this thread.

Sirpoc, I hope you don't mind me following you on Strava, seems a few others have. But I have to say looking back through your recent stuff and Kristoffers, it's hard to not be tempted into me committing to this from now until the new year. What I can see with both of you is that this is not a short term fix, but you both have clearly ramped it up on a tiny scale week by week, month by month but both clearly are staying healthy and getting stronger and stronger. I no longer have the luxury of 10+ hour weeks so this is an incredibly tempting way for me to try.

I'd say my hydration is decent. I surely could do with more intake during the outdoors runs, but I'm almost never running without water during the summer. I do supplement with electrolyte pills as well, or sometimes take an electrolyte drink on the run with me.

"My HR will spike but my breathing doesn’t follow."

Exactly. It is only the HR. Sure some runs would feel miserable, but the breathing is not heavy at all, nothing like doing a hard workout.

Another disappointing parkrun of 18:40 this week. Did 30 miles again, with 60 minutes in total at 6:30-6:40. With parkrun on top it's 78 minutes of harder running. I thought I could race myself into fitness but clearly not. It's clear that this pace of 6:30-6:50 does fock all for my fitness. I'll have a week off now and try a different approach next time, maybe something like 6xmile at 6:20, 8xk at 6:10 or 20x400 at 6:00. Not too dissimilar to what I was doing last year before injury. I'm losing interest truth be told. Can't believe I ran a 36 10k last year yet I've always struggled to do a 17 5k no matter what approach I take.

IMO your injury took more out of you than you think. Aerobically you are not in your best shape right now. Also, this sub threshold way you not see much benefit for while. This is not short term fix or something to get frustrated with until at least 6 weeks. I have success with this approach but I almost quit until 6-7 weeks in finally my plateau of 6 months ends. 30 miles is not a lot. If you no have time to build that up and start to think about time not distance and try to get in the 5.5-7 hours range then I think all honesty you could do harder stuff and still be fresh on just 30 mile a week.

Skip your parkrun for some time and just train . You need to go faster than 6:30- 6:50 in your lactate threshold intervals and more like 6:20- 6:25 . You need two workouts per week, one maxVO2 interval 15-20 x 400m @ 87-88 sec , 60 sec rest, and one LT - interval 800- 2000m reps @ 6:20- 6:23 , rest easy walk back to 120 bpm or 60% of MHR , and a total of 5-7 miles. Then you just have to complement with some easy steady runs @ 8:20- 8:30 pace. Just follow this a couple of months and you will see guaranteed improvement. Don't forget to come back and thank me after here, lol . 🇸🇪🧙‍♂️🇸🇪

5,6 or 7 days/week traing? How often parkrun? Long run?

Easy pace is?

In my opinion don't worry about HR too much. If the breathing is fine you are probably OK. I have done lactate testing in hot climates and cold, my experience and other sub elite athletes I've trained with suggests in extreme conditions high and low there can be quite a bit of decoupling with HR and lactate. There's probably things you can learn from it. But it's not the overreaching factor to be worried about.

In general , I totally agree with the original approach on page one but the username spoc. I would look at the rental or borrowing of a meter, do some lactate tests and then find safe cautious paces you can follow on the flat or on treadmill rather than worrying about Hr too much.

Also, thread is funny. Starting to weed out those who just want results now. Been mentioned in this thread many times. If you just want to short term improve PB, this is not the best training system. But long term it's probably the best for a HJ. But you will not likely see the huge jumps and gains you are expecting short term. But over time you will. Think of it as an indefinite period of a training cycle. You cannot pin a number on it and say it's an 8, 12, 16 week block.

Honestly not too worried about the HR, especially that I have a lactate meter and am using it on the sub threshold sessions. I was just curious about the other "easy" runs in extreme weather, during which the HR drift is so massive that it creeps into LTHR domain.

Thanks for the insight. I do realize how HR is higher in those condition, but this is not a question of why or how, but rather, a question of how well are the lactate levels also correlating/coupling well with said increased HR.

My misunderstanding. That is an interesting question you pose. Since you have a meter, you could test it yourself and see if there is a decoupling effect?

Being in a warm climate as well, I have experienced what you describe. Spike in heart rate but breathing and effort continue to feel representative of the easy pace being run. I never thought to take lactate readings as I generally ignore heart rate and go on effort. Only after will I look at the data.

Did the 30 min LTHR-test today. Based on HR from workouts and races I’ve been assuming that my maxHR is about 180-182. On todays test my avgHR for the last 20 mins was 171 (30 second max 174). Is it possible for an out of shape runner to run at 93-95 % of maxHR for 20 minutes or do you think my maxHR is higher than I previously thought?

Thought I would share some success with this approach. I am coaching an athlete that I implemented 2 sub T + 1 medium long run per week about 2 months ago. His threshold pace has dropped from 10:29/mile to 8:20/mile in that time span. Granted he was relatively undertrained so that in part accounts for the huge jump but he says he feels fresh and better than he ever has with this system. Very excited to see how he continues to progress but this system seems to work excellent at least from this one example!

That's a massive improvement in just two months.

Well done to both of you.

I'd say it's possible, in my experience it's easier to push HR to a high percentage of maximum even if out of shape as long as your legs are fresh. I'm curious to hear from others about how exact the 30 minute LTHR test is in respect to using that HR as a guide for sub threshold training?

It's not really super accurate. But it'll work. For me, as I have said in this thread, the Friel test is the best option if you are going to go by heart rate. Taking the data from a race you'll just be too high. It would have me with a LTHR of 183 if that's the case. And if I ran all my sun threshold reps up to around 175-182, I'd be totally crushed. We've said before, there's many factors as why you can push a higher HR in racing than training. Considering virtually all of your running will be in training, it makes sense to just use Friel's test as the LTHR jump off point.

Heart rate isn't the best for this type of training, but it's not horrible. If you then just use Friels zones, literally just aim for 80-90% of the time of your intervals (say 30 mins total) somewhere in his sun threshold zone. Will this be perfect? No. Will you get the majority of the training benefits? Probably you will. Just make sure you stay in this friel zone. Intervals icu is good, as if you are going to do this , set it up to create load by HR and it will show you what Friel's sub threshold range is.

Side note, first time I have "raced" ( park run) back to back weeks in a long time. Today was the first time I have felt a little tired in a while. I think it shows how much when you are above threshold, the amount it fatigues you is pretty unreasonable. I did PB, so it was worth it. A side note to the side note, has anyone ever actually tested lactate at the end of a 5k? I mean I doubt I could get the test strip out of the wrapper, to be honest. I'm just curious, that's all.

I always wonder how accurate the lactate self testing is. I have seen runners run around a park, and then go sit on a park bench to take the lactate sample. Say, there is a 30 second break, HR will have dropped significantly, will lactate not also have dropped by the time the blood sample has been extracted?

There are studies that say lactate at the periphery, ie thumb, will not be the same as lactate in the working leg muscles.

I take sample only from leg: "vastus medialis" area, easy to wipe off, good blood circulation, easy to take.

I've found out in practise the effectively best way to handle the lactate thresholds is to run them close to half marathon race pace and reps from 400m to 3000m.This way you are sure you don't run too fast or too slow to see a fast improvement in the recycle of the produced lactate into new energy . Some of many examples of this fast improvement was a couple of years ago when I coached an Irish master runner then age 43 on just low mileage and 5 sessions per week . He had family and 2 kids and worked often nights at a shift job. He did mostly one threshold interval per week . When I started to coach he had a best of 16:30 @ 5000m . After 2 months with this low mileage , lactate thresholds @ half marathon pace and 5 sessions per week he ran a 15:37 5000m. Some time after I had been the coach he told me he had kept on his own with the threshold intervals at half marathon pace and he was happy to tell he ran a 1:12. half marathon. I just say it to everyone who wants to listen to this advice it's most effective to directly point to the most effective threshold pace close to half marathon race pace. It's not a tough pace when you run it at reps 400-3000m. and after some time you quite easily can perform them in one session up to 16k/ 10 miles total and even more sometimes. It"s super effective ! Good luck! 🇸🇪🧙‍♂️👋

Regarding the Friel LTHR test where you run a 30 minute time trial, i.e. as hard as possible for 30 minutes, I don't think that's accurate. For example, yesterday KI ran 5 x 2000m at 16.7 kph or 3:35 per km with a lactate reading of 1.9. If he were to run a 30 minute time trial I predict he could run 3:30 per km or faster and his average HR for the last 20 minutes would be considerably higher than what it was for the 2000m intervals.