Low volume NSM
Hi all,
I have always been a relatively low volume runner - 3 runs per week, around 30km baseline and then increasing to around 60-65km peaks for marathons, but over the last year I have added in two gym sessions (Hyrox, so a mix of strength and cardio included). I had stagnated for a while, although always felt I still had room to improve and that the problem was mostly overtraining. After my autumn 2025 marathon I received James's book as a Christmas present (after having heard bits and pieces) and switched fully to a sub-threshold approach.
I initially went to one fully easy day and two sub-threshold sessions (10 and 12km of quality in each), plus the two gym days and I ran new 10km (38:01) and marathon (3:01) PBs.
However, post-marathon I switched to three sub-threshold sessions a week (2x8km, 1x9km of quality) alongside the gym sessions, along with upping my baseline to 40km per week. It's hard to tell through the heat of summer (I live in Portugal), but I seem to be making progress after having lost some fitness in the marathon recovery.
I am wondering whether there are any other low volume runners out there that have made adjustments to the NSM that have thoughts about what works best and whether they are seeing good results?