Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage

Lexel I agree sirpoc is slow twitch. As distance increase his pace does not decrease as much. He is like some sort of Diesel engine from follow his Strava. I think quite a unique athlete. However I believe he is old, already 40? So maybe I think that counters your age athlete? Or we not count 40 as old. Genuine question. I just see 40 as already over hill. I think if we continue go follow him and he stays not broken we really all have a good chance to see how far this actually can do. It's already insane impressive off literally what he outline here, same thing over and over and over. Week to week month to months. As oppose to the guy on previous page. 56:13 for 10 miles is quite remarkable on this training I would say and more than 99% of hobby joggers will ever do, whatever troll says.

Yes.

Double-polling means arms-only exercise. You should know that arm muscles have more FT fibers than leg muscles.

Yeah, so I really think this thread is for me. I recently measured my VO2max and I got 58,4. I also measured my threshold, and it's around 2.9 mmol @ 5:05 min/km. For the record, my VO2 10*1k intervals are ran at around 3:55, and my 10k PR is 44:28, sat 3 weeks ago.

How big is/should the difference between ones lactate threshold pace and ones 10K pace be? As in my case, there's a pretty hefty gap (5:05/min vs 4:27/min)

I also measured my lactate at my 10k race pace and I measured 7.8 mmol. Does this mean I have a high threshold for lactate, since I can handle those levels for 40+ minutes?

All lactate measurements was made with the Lactate Pro 2.

Lab or self-tested?

What was your testing protocol?

Both were lab tested.

VO2max protocol was: Starting at 5% incline and 10 km/h, then increasing either speed by 1 km/h or incline by 1% every minute until I signalled no more increasing, then holding on as long as possible. Got VO2max from average of the last three measurements.

Lactate protocol was: 2% incline and starting at 8 km/h, then increasing speed by 1 km/h every 5 minutes (45-60s rest with blood testing). My recordings were:

8 km/h - 1.5

9 km/h - 1.8

10 km/h - 1.7

11 km/h - 2.3

12 km/h - 3.7

13 km/h - 7.0

Research tends to favor stages that last 7 minutes for lactate to stabilize. However 5 minutes is not bad. What is your usual easy pace? I'm curious if you had enough easy running before the stage test (i.e. warm up).

Anyway, for your original question: "How big is/should the difference between ones lactate threshold pace and ones 10K pace be? As in my case, there's a pretty hefty gap (5:05/min vs 4:27/min) "

It depends on context. For an elite runner like Jacob Kiplimo
(26:33.93 10,000m vs 57:31 HM), threshold pace is around their half marathon pace, so the differential is a mere 4.1809 seconds per km, which is simply astonishing.

For a mere mortal like me, my VDOT threshold pace corresponds to 3:37/km and my 10K PB pace is 3:42/km, so 5 seconds differential.

It could mean that the method they used to calculate your LT2 wasn't sufficient for estimating your actual heavy-to-severe domain boundary. This is a known problem with graded exercise tests, not only are there so many different variables in terms of step duration, rest periods, etc., there are at least 25 different methods to calculate lactate threshold and nearly all of them are invalid, with OBLA (4 mmol/l) as the most notable example. This is why maximal lactate steady state tests were considered the gold standard before critical power, they're much less variable, but there are still some protocol issues not yet fully addressed, as previously mentioned.

So you have a lactate meter, right? You can take your 10k pace and run for 30 minutes at a constant speed. If the measurement at 15 or 20 minutes (using these points seems to have the closest agreement with critical power without the intensity being adjusted on the fly) is ≤1 mmol from the measurement at 30 minutes, then you are at or near your MLSS. You can increase or decrease the speed as required and take the test again on a different day to hone it in, but such fine-grained information isn't really useful. What is useful is knowing your approximate MLSSv (velocity) and MLSSw (watts) so you can use it in training to ensure you are below threshold without poking yourself and wasting lactate strips if you think that is of benefit.

This of course does not make much sense if one defines threshold as 1 hour all out pace.

My 10K time is outdated though.

Check this out: This is a recent meta-analysis (14 studies with 299 total subjects) comparing training only below the maximal metabolic steady state (subthreshold, tempo, sweet spot, etc.) to training partly above it (HIIT, SIT, etc.) in trained athletes. It was expected that training more in the severe domain would lead to a greater increase in VO2peak, and it did by ~2.5 mL/kg/min, but surprisingly, there was zero difference in time trial performance or peak power. If true and confirmed by research with a larger sample size, this could be quite groundbreaking. The implication is that an improvement in something like lactate threshold or mechanical efficiency is offsetting a lower VO2max, which is also often the first thing to peak in elites so it could be a sign they should focus on more heavy domain intensity vs. polarized.

I will add the cavate that this would matter more for half and full marathoners who race below threshold. In my estimation, 5k and elite 10k runners should probably still do some training near race pace to get them used to high exertion, drive motor unit recruitment, build W'/D' capacity for kicking or overtaking, etc., but none of that is exactly necessary just to beat the other guys at the Parkrun.

Article:

link.springer.com

The Additional Effect of Training Above the Maximal Metabolic Steady State on VO2peak, Wpeak and Time-Trial Performance in Endurance-Trained Athletes: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Reality Check - Sports Medicine

Background To improve sport performance, athletes use training regimens that include exercise below and above the maximal metabolic steady state (MMSS). Objective The objective of this review was to determine the additional e...

Link:link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s402...

Overview:

My easy pace is anything between 6:15 - 6:50/km, that puts me at around 135-136 bpm which is 68% of my max HR. For my lactate test I followed up the normal warmup procedure they had which was 20 min total, starting slow and ramping up towards the end.

I didn't really believe these numbers/values myself, so I thought maybe there was something wrong with the settings on the treadmill. So I tested it myself on a track. I ran 6x5 min at 5:00/km. I measured lactate after 2nd and 4th rep and I measured 2.9 mmol and 3.8 mmol, and my HR was 161 and 163 bpm. During my 10k PB I had an average HR of 187 bpm.

Admittedly, I've done very little threshold-training since I started training seriously back in late April. Most of my intervals have been VO2, so it was expected that my VO2max would be higher than my threshold pace, but being told my LT2 is almost 30 seconds slower per km than my 10k PB makes me a bit confused. Coupled with the fact that I can run with a blood lactate level of >7 mmol for more than 44 minutes is also a bit perplexing.

This sounds doable, so: 30 min at 10k pace, measure lactate after 15 mins and 30 minutes.

5min is short. 2% incline is too much, to compare with road pace. Standard is 1% inclination, however for that lower speeds 0.5% does the job best to compare it with outside. Treadmill running can give a little bit different lactate levels as on road. Lactate is surface dependend , believe it or not (read a paper on that). Also there are more than 20 ways to estimate LT (whatever that means :) ). CV solves all that problems, but that does not mean a lactate ramp test is of no value.

The pace was adjusted to accomodate the incline, so I wasn't running on 2% incline and 5:00/km to measure the 5:00/km lactate, I think it was around 5:26/km

Which adjustment tables the labor uses (% inclination to speed table)?

You have to really analyse critically. Even uncalibrated equipment can make a difference. I have seen that too.

Unsure, but it was on a $20,000 treadmill at my university . It's the same treadmill they do all their research on so I trust their conversion tables and calibration.

Level, you are too rigid with your assumptions about lactate testing. You just need a good testing venue in the field. I’d avoid treadmill testing since it’s not representative of where most people do their primary racing and training.

As long as you understand the context in which you take lactate samples, you can take quality samples. I dont even use steps on my cycling ramp tests. I plot a straight line in the appropriate slope in Golden Cheetah and every few seconds the power increases. I take samples at regular intervals to generate a curve.

I also do quick ramps at the track after I do CP/CV testing to generate a lactate curve. 10 minute stage lengths at various paces. Super easy.

But every now and then I’ll do constant rate tests where I set the power at several different work rates and collect lactate data over 60 minutes, with shorter sampling intervals at the start of the test.

The gold standard are constant rate tests. All these dynamic tests (step, ramp, graded, etc.) generate misleading data.

Confusing text. You say all dynamic tests generate misleading data. Further up you say you do 10minutes ramp testing. Then Golden Ceetah slope? Is that not also some kind o ramp test? Even 60minutes is just a longer ramp duration.

A ramp test can be helpful to compare a training intervention before and after, like i did and showed here.

Interesting. Can you please share that paper?