u/Ashamed-Video-3794

I’m on week 13 of my marathon build, where I’m aiming to run sub 3:20 in just a few weeks, having followed NSM since around January. On Friday this week I completed the 5x5KM (17 mins intervals for me) session. In the book James uses only the word “brutal” to describe the session, insinuating that it was the hardest run of his build.

I finished the session honestly feeling like it was relatively comfortable. I could’ve run another one or two 17 min reps before being done. Surely this is a good thing right? But there’s two things concerning me.

Firstly, anyone who follows people training for a marathon will often hear about how common it is to have a really good session just a few weeks out from the marathon, to only be spent come race day like peaking too early. Secondly, the week 12 Sunday session is a HM race effort. Due to other commitments, I moved this to Friday and changed it to 1 hour easy, 1 hour marathon pace, 30 mins easy which provided a similar load to a half marathon I did 2 months before and gave me an opportunity to test my shoes and dial in my race day routine (breakfast and gels etc). Has the extra two days between the sessions defeated the object of running on tired legs (I still run every day anyway) or made the session easier by having more recovery time?

I’m hoping I’m just adapting better and I’m just fitter, but I wanted to see if anyone else has had similar experiences!

Last thing as well. The 3x8km (30 min session) on week 14. It says in the book a progressive run starting at 92-93% going to 100%. But I saw someone say on here that it’s meant to be so the first rep is run at 92%, the second at 93%, and last at MP?

Thanks for the advice!

I know these are really popular for those using this method. How are people living in the UK purchasing them?

I’ve seen mulebuy mentioned on the Strava group - but a quick search online suggests it’s dodgy as sin. Apologies if this isn’t the write forum to ask such questions.

So I found that I’ve been having some good success implementing this training method. I find it really sustainable, that I’m less fatigued and full of energy to train every day. I want to continue to do this method long-term.

At the moment, I’m in a position where I have very little external commitments leaving me with plenty of time to train - at least for the next couple of months.

I’ve been running around six hours per week for the last couple of months, over a six day week.

I’m looking to increase my mileage slowly to 7 hours per week and to do this i want to go up to 7 days a week. I’ve never run seven days a week before. Does anybody have any advice on how to start implementing this? Would it be a case of doing a 15 minute run on the seventh day? Or splitting my easy days equally, including on the new day (e.g - rather than 2x 45 min runs, go to 3x 30 min runs and build up from there).

I’ll obviously build up to seven hours quite slowly. Just keen mostly to understand how to build up to the seventh day safely.