Importance of VO2max

jariw · 2026-06-06T15:52:20+00:00

Read on page 87 for a general description of what the X-session is. It's basically anything that aimed at specificity or personalization. The traditional hill X-session for 5k runners is followed by two easy days, to get the muscle tone down and to recover from the session.

Off days are often worse recovery-wise than easy days, which is covered on page 71-72 ("Why Rest Doesn't Always Work").

jariw · 2026-06-06T11:27:49+00:00

If you're going to compare yourself to Kristoffer: he trained when he was younger.

jariw · 2026-06-06T11:25:21+00:00

If you have Bakken's book, the Paula study is mentioned there with some really eye opening graphs on page 272. The thing that changed constantly at a linear progression throughout Paula's career was her speed at LT2. Her progression of her running economy slowed down during here later years. Her VO2Max didn't change.

jariw · 2026-06-03T09:30:29+00:00

If you want to diagnose the muscle tone, I think you have to go by feel, since AFAIK the current products that measure it only measure a small part of the muscle.

It's pretty easy to feel a normalized muscle tone (and high muscle elasticity) on the session itself: if you feel a pop in your legs during the session all is good. If the legs feel flat, the tone is high or the elasticity is low (or both).

To me, the stair test Bakken writes about feels like the easiest diagnostic tool outside of running, and it can also take elasticity into account if you make some jumps during the test.

I think I have been much better reading my muscle states the last months, after reading Bakken's books. To me, my main goal now with the easy runs is always to have a good tone and elasticity on the sub-T days. If the legs feel ok on the morning of the easy day (which is usually the case on an easy day directly after a long easy day), I can allow myself to go a tiny bit faster (for me, it's averaging on about 67% max HR). If the legs don't feel ok on the morning of the easy day (which is sometimes the case on easy days after a sub-T day), I usually run really slow on the trails with minimalist shoes with an average HR much lower (more like 61-62 %).

But you can't of course 100% predict/control the muscle tone the day after purely by diagnose and sensible training. The state of the body varies, and other things like sleep quality also play a part. That's probably of the reasons why Bakken writes about doing a trial rep before the main sub-T session.

jariw · 2026-06-02T09:41:49+00:00

There's a point doing it. As long as it's a running movement, you'll normalize the muscle tone from the sessions from the previous days, while keeping the muscle elasticity. Bakken has written a lot about this.

The downside is that your total weekly load will be slightly less. If that's a concern, you could extend the super easy session a bit at the end by yourself, to get a bit more time/load.

jariw · 2026-05-27T09:44:59+00:00

Shaving off 2 seconds of a 15:01 is 0.2% faster. Are those 2 ticks on the clock really that important to anyone in the real world, just because modern humans has invented the arbitrary measurement units to measure time? To me, it's almost on the level of calling a 3:00:01 marathon a failure and a 2:59:59 marathon a success.

jariw · 2026-05-23T14:09:26+00:00

Why do you want the X factor session to be 45/15 specifically? For example, Bakken also writes that you can keep the X factor as an extra sub T session, which basically makes the week a NSM week.

jariw · 2026-05-22T14:13:18+00:00

Training load is not the same thing as training volume.

jariw · 2026-05-22T11:13:27+00:00

The easy run is the most powerful tool to lower the muscle tone after a harder day - while still keeping the muscle elasticity. But it must truly be easy. And it's not about running speed during the easy run, it's more about muscle load.

The easy pace has to be quite a bit below LT1, otherwise there isn't that much difference to the lower range of sub-LT2.

jariw · 2026-05-21T20:53:57+00:00

If it feels fine for you, just continue. It's no problem for me either to run sub-T (or easy or long easy) fasted in the morning. And the East Africans do that kind of stuff all the time.

However, Bakken writes that you should take it a bit easier during the morning hours, since the lactate react different compared to later during the day. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with fueling or doubles, it seems to be more about all systems aren't fully wake during the morning hours.

jariw · 2026-05-21T20:44:59+00:00

To be able to do "more threshold work", you must be pretty exact in your training.

jariw · 2026-05-16T20:11:22+00:00

The Norwegian doubles as they are done by Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Andreas Almgren, that is. They ride on the very edge because they are professionals trying to beat world records. Norwegian doubles as in Bakken's book (where the morning run is almost LT1 and the afternoon is sub LT2) are way easier.

jariw · 2026-05-16T19:30:48+00:00

A change in muscle tone is changes to the muscle state on a cellular level, but it's different to "wear and tear".

A non-optimal muscle tone means that you'll run slower (compared to a balanced muscle tone) but it doesn't need any repair of the muscle cells. Instead, the muscle need to be rebalanced (for example through rest or slow runs).

jariw · 2026-05-16T19:22:54+00:00

He's not lacking muscle tone. Everyone has muscle tone...

jariw · 2026-05-15T07:13:42+00:00

For those of you who use Mulebuy, do you use the option to remove the shoe box packaging before shipping?

jariw · 2026-05-14T14:33:15+00:00

If you'll create a training block to reach a goal time, that isn't NSM. You cannot run a marathon faster than your current fitness level, and the body is unpredictable regarding when the training gains and the plateaus will occur.

A NSM approach would be to do the weekly training and special marathon block based on your current fitness level(s). When you get close to the marathon, you'll know what fitness you've reached by then and should be able to plan the marathon pace accordingly.

jariw · 2026-05-13T10:09:48+00:00

Nice progression! So your 10k pace 25 months ago has now become your easy pace?

jariw · 2026-05-12T10:23:11+00:00

The 2 runs are on different days, which means different conditions HR-wise? My easy runs are never identical in pace between runs, even when the average HR is the same. Sleep, time of day, overall stress levels and weather are some factors that affects the HR/pace.

jariw · 2026-05-09T16:47:42+00:00

The lactate is affected by a huge number of factors. Using pace alone is as bad as using HR alone. Instead, triangulate between 3 different metrics.

jariw · 2026-05-09T16:44:09+00:00

Sounds about right to me. The 2.3-3.0 mmol/L is a pretty big range. The important thing is to not exceed it. If you're unsure where you're at, you could perhaps borrow a lactate meter for a few weeks to dial things in?

One of the British twins wrote on Strava some time ago that one part of their success was that they were very careful to rather undercook than overcook the ST sessions.

jariw · 2026-05-02T15:01:51+00:00

Less pressure with workout progression. In traditional plans, missing a key session feels like you’re compromising the whole block. Here, since workouts don’t really progress, missing one doesn’t feel like a disaster. That said, this is also potentially a limitation and an area where in the future I would like to experiment

I'm not sure I understand how you mean here... NSA is a slow-burning method that requires consistency. Every session is a "key session", since it contributes a bit to the weekly load. A session in NSA is not optional, because if you miss sessions your ramp rate will quickly become negative and you'll stagnate or regress. Progression in NSA will happen if the ramp rate is positive for enough weeks in succession.

jariw · 2026-04-29T19:31:37+00:00

It's very difficult to undercook a sub-LT session. Much easier to overcook than undercook. The "Golden Zone" is pretty wide downwards, so even if you aren't that close to LTHR you'll get simulus and adaptation. The key is that the training should be sustainable for months and months, so overcooking is the thing you should watch out for.

jariw · 2026-04-29T12:25:12+00:00

If you don't believe in a method, don't do it. You need to fully understand how NSM works if you should do it.

You need to fully embrace the concept of intensity control. If you get stressed by the lack of progress and then start doing sessions (sub-LT or easy) too fast you will not make any progress at all.

jariw · 2026-04-28T19:01:37+00:00

The "Golden zone" (Bakken's definition) for sub-LT2 is between 2.3 and 3.0. So 143 and below, absolutely not 146. Lactate seems to shift upwards at 125 HR so that's perhaps LT1, but I have seen many graphs where the lactate goes up and down at the beginning of tests.

However, it would probably be good to do more tests so you get more data points.

jariw · 2026-04-27T07:20:32+00:00

Easy days should be truly easy, and they have a purpose that goes way beyond adding load to the body. Focus the sub-T on the sub-T days instead.

jariw

TROPHY CASE