The Truth about the Norwegian Training

Do you know the Norwegian Training?

Shame on me, I didn’t know that.

Since I started teaching how to train in English and teaching moderate run, many people asked me whether what I call moderate run and what double threshold in the Norwegian training are same or not.

Every time I got asked, I answered ‘I didn’t know much about the Norwegian Training’ honestly.

However, I gradually got interested in the Norwegian training and made a decision to learn from a 5000m Olympian who ran 13:06 named Marius Bakken.

You see, just like all Japanese people cannot make Sushi well (did you know that？), all Norwegian people don’t know the Norwegian method and all Norwegian athletes do not use the Norwegian method.

But Marius Bakken wrote the book which was titled ‘The Norwegian Method’. That means, at least he knows something, right?

So, I bought his book and started reading it.

Let me get to the point about moderate run. The double threshold and my moderate run are different. The Norwegian method is double threshold neither. Double threshold is only a part of the Norwegian method.

However, the core concept is completely same as me.

‘Repeating not very hard but effective workouts more frequently is much better than doing very hard workouts less frequently’.

He personally learnt from other top athletes and his personal experience too.

Very often, athletes who get stronger are athletes who always keep good reserves in training, in other words, they don’t make the maximal effort in training. So that they are able to recover faster and keep doing good workouts.

This is the reason why I say ‘The most common mistake amateur runners make is training only very hard and easy’. They go for ‘train hard or stay home’ method.

The reason why is very simple. It’s because most people believe ‘The harder you train, the faster you get’.

Utterly nonsense and totally crap.

Why do I say this?

Because I’m the most person who made this mistake. Meaning, I trained very hard and didn’t get as fast as I wanted or I didn’t get as fast as my effort. In a sense, my effort was in vain.

I know that making a good result is not everything about running and that’s why I still keep running probably more seriously than anybody else here.

However, it is not a good story. It’s OK to run slow because you don’t train much. But it’s very bad to run slow with hard training.

Anyway, he observed many good athletes and noticed that usually athletes who get faster mostly do not run in front in training. They hide in a pack with many reserves.

The former 5000m Japanese record holder Matsumiya Takayuki also very often said, ‘It’s better to finish hard workouts with a lot of reserves. By the way, I played Shougi (Shougi is a Kind of Japanese Chess) with him once.

Also, when the former 5000m Japanese record holder Takaoka Toshinari ran a 5000m race 13:20 (2:40/km), his usual 1000ms interval was 2:55 average.

This kind of story is everywhere.

In more radical cases, some male athletes got faster after they became a pace maker for women.

A husband of Mairy Keitany ran a half marathon 61 minutes after he became her pace maker.

At that time (around 2010), he was one of the top long distance runners in the World.

Athletes who keep good reserves even in intense workouts get faster most. This is an undeniable fact.

But again, you need to recover quickly, and you need to do these workouts with high frequency.

Although Marius Bakken and I have a common basic idea about training, what Marius Bakken does and what I do are different and what he suggests is very interesting to me.

What he suggests is, most relatively hard or intense workouts should be done at the point where your blood lactate concentration level is 2.3 to 3.0 mmol. It’s very normal to me, this is slightly more intense than my more moderate run. So, this is moderate to hard run or hard run.

But what makes his idea very interesting to me is that he does this workout with interval training or Fartlek. He does not use continuous runs.

This is completely my blind spot. I have never thought about it because training at the point where your blood lactate concentration level 2.3 mmol to 3.0 mmol is absolutely not hard effort. For me, it’s slower than marathon race pace. So, I never thought using interval workouts with this blood lactate level.

The reason why he uses interval workouts is because you can run faster at the same level of blood lactate concentration level if you use interval workouts. This is more practical for track runners and in fact, he was a 5000m specialist.

For me, it is not a good idea because I’m a marathoner and continuous runs are more important than interval workouts from practical point of view.

Approximately 90-95% of my marathon race pace is the intensity which my blood lactate concentration level reaches at 2.3 mmol to 3.0 mmol.

By the way, many researchers and scientists say that marathon race pace is the intensity which your blood lactate concentration level is 2.0 mmol. Based on my many tests, it’s a lie. Probably it’s true if you are a very slow runner like 4:30 marathoner.

However, for me and most my customers, it’s not true at all because my marathon race pace is only 17 seconds per kilometer slower than my 5000m race pace last year and most my customers run through a full marathon with only 24 seconds per kilometer slower than their 5000m race pace.

At this pace, it’s impossible that blood lactate concentration level is only 2.0 mmol.

A good friend of mine Maeda Honami runs a full marathon (2:18:59) at only 11 seconds per kilometer slower than her 5000m race pace. I’m in doubt if she is really so slow at her 5000m race, but comparing her 10000m race and 3000m results to her 5000m result, her 5000m time is not significantly slow and she does several short races from 3000m to 10,000m.

Then her blood lactate concentration level at her marathon race pace should be more than 4.0 mmol. Probably 6.0 mmol or something like that.

Anyway, since Marius Bakken was a 5000m specialist, he liked to use interval workouts or Fartlek with a lot of reserves though, if you are a marathoner or half marathoner, you better use continuous runs.

However, some of his ideas were very impressive to me.

First, he suggests to take relatively long recovery between fast running sessions when he wants to run at his 5000m race pace.

For example, if you take 2 minutes recovery between 300ms or 4-5 minutes between 500ms fast running sessions, you can finish with tons of reserves even though the pace is fast.

This idea can be well applied in the Summer in Kyoto in Japan where I live in now. In the Summer, the minimal temperature is approximately 30 degrees and the maximal temperature is approximately 40 degrees in Celcius with a lot of humidity.

As far as I know, Kyoto is the hottest place in the world considering the temperature and humidity.

So, in the Summer, almost impossible to do race specific workouts for long distance runners.

But in this way, it’s much easier to run at 3000-10,000m race pace because body temperature gets lower during recovery sessions. Besides, it’s easy to drink cold water and pour cold water over myself.

Many people think that running fast and short is a good idea in the Summer. But it’s not 100% true because how much your body temperature increases depends on the product of the speed and the duration.

Even if you run long, if the pace is slow, your body temperature does not go higher much.

While even if you run relatively short like 5km or 10km, if the pace is fast, your body temperature goes up rapidly.

So, in the Summer, I usually do a lot of moderate run and short intervals at faster pace with lower volume.

But if I put long recoveries between 500ms, I can repeat it many times at relatively fast pace (at least much faster than marathon race pace) with good reserves. This idea is very interesting to me.

Also, in this way, it’s easier to prepare for a marathon which is held in the early Autum like Kanazawa Marathon which is held on the last Sunday in October because you can do intervals at 5000m to 10,000m race pace with relatively big volume easily in a hot condition (In Japan, it’s still very hot in September in the last 5 years).

Also, he does what he calls sub-threshold workouts (the workouts at where the blood lactate concentration level is 2.3 mmol to 3.0 mmol) twice a day. The reason why he separates it into two times is because he can increase the total volume with the same effort (with the same internal training load).

Meaning, he can do more good training with the same amount of fatigue.

For marathoners, it’s not always a good idea because we need to run long on a race day. So, 25km continuous run at blood lactate level 3.0 mmol is better workout than 2x13km continuous runs at blood lactate level 3.0 mmol in the morning and in the evening.

However, again in the Summer in Kyoto, it’s almost impossible to do a 25km continuous run at blood lactate level 3.0 mmol in other words, 90%-95% of my marathon race pace (probably it’s almost 100% of the marathon race pace for some of you if the blood lactate concentration level is 2.3 mmol to 3.0 mmol).

But if I split it into two workouts, it’s realistic workouts. The biggest benefit is easier to do it in a relatively cool time (in the early morning and in the late evening) without destroying my daily schedule so much (I usually work 365 days a year).

Although I believe that you need to do more race specific workouts when a race comes closer to you, it’s a good idea to do a part of what Marius Bakken suggests to us in the fundamental period and special period.

Also, it’s interesting that he does 15-30 times 45 seconds fast and 15 seconds rest Fartlek at his 5000m race effort (or pace). If he does 30 times 45/15, he started with slower pace and runs faster to the end up to his 3000m race pace.

Many people believe that they need so-called VO2 Max interval (a kind of long interval 1000-1600m repetitions) to get ready for 5000m-10000m races.

But he says that this workout is enough to get ready for a 5000m race although he also used 4-6 x 1000m right before an important 5000m race (2-4 weeks before a race).

Interestingly, in my high school days, we often did 15x300m with 100m jogging recovery. So, it was like 54 seconds fast and 28 seconds slow instead of doing 45 seconds fast and 15 seconds slow. These two workouts are a little similar.

And every year (in Japan high school is 3 years), we produced ten to fifteen 5000m 14 minutes runners and I was one of them.

Also, when I trained in Iten in Kenya, many top runners did 15 x 600m with 200m recovery. But they walked in these 200m recovery sessions. That’s why the ratio of fast sessions and recovery sessions were approximately 1:40 fast and 2 minutes slow (walk).

Recovery sessions were longer than fast running sessions.

In the beginning, I was surprised because no top runner in Japan trained like that. Most top Japanese runners do 1000ms with 200m jogging recovery even if they prepare for a 5000m, 10000m, half marathon or marathon.

For example, 5x1000m for 5000m, 10x1000m and 15x1000m for half marathon and full marathon.

Although there are many more variations, the ratio of fast running sessions and recovery sessions is approximately 3:1 if it’s long interval. If it’s short interval, something like 2:1.

But I have never heard of that recovery sessions are longer than fast running sessions.

But in a sense, it’s a good idea because before we think about speed-endurance, we need to address the neuro-muscular system (your brain, kinetic neurons, sensory neurons and muscle fibers).

Simply speaking, sprinting performance is determined by the maximal power output of skeletal muscles and long distance running performance is determined by the maximal power output of heart muscle.

Roughly speaking, it is true.

But if you think only in that way, you are wrong.

No matter how good heart you have (I don’t mean your warm heart but your physiological heart), you cannot run fast if your neuro-muscles system is get used to your goal race pace and resist the impact of hitting the ground long and fast.

This is the reason why you need speed workouts.

You can train your heart or metabolism with easy runs and moderate runs. But you still need to run at fast pace to get used to the speed itself.

And if you are a half marathoner and full marathoner, you need to be resistant to the impact of hitting the ground for a long duration too. This is the reason why even adding one more easy run into your weekly training makes you a better half marathoner and full marathoner. The more you run, the more your legs can resist the impact of hitting the ground.

Anyway, repeating not very hard but effective workouts more frequently is much better than very hard workouts less frequently. But you need to get used to fast speed. How can you solve this dilemma?

You can solve this dilemma by putting longer recovery sessions between fast running sessions. Then you can run fast with good reserves at the same time even if you live in a hot place like Kyoto in the Summer, it’ll be easier to get it done.

Marius Bakken wrote many more things in his books. But if I should choose only two valuable things to tell you, I choose 1. ‘Repeating not very hard but effective workouts more frequently is much better than doing very hard workouts less frequently’ and 2. If you put longer recovery sessions between fast running sessions, you can learn how to run fast with good reserves, so you can recover faster from that workout.

In terms of the latter thing, don’t try to run as fast as possible because recovery sessions are long. Before you go for your speed workouts, know how much speed you need and just repeat that speed with as many as possible reserves.

And in terms of the former point, moderate run and easy run are enough effective workouts for amateur runners. If you are in doubt, do easy run, moderate run and supplemental speed workouts more frequently and once a week short Fartlek 20x 1 minute fast and 1 minute slow.

Only by combining these workouts, you can run much faster than now without any hard workouts (for half marathoners and marathoners, also long runs, otherwise you cannot run through the race no matter how good metabolism you have).

I hope this article helps you a lot.

Lastly, if you want to learn more about how to run faster, please click here to download my free E-book ‘The three things you should know to get faster dramatically without any injuries and overtraining’.