15 weeks of NSM
I thought I'd post my experience with NSM here in case it's of benefit to others. I started training with the NSM method about 15 weeks ago today. I'm a 44 year old male, and have been running pretty consistently for the past 10+ years. I've had many injuries up until about 3 years ago, where for whatever reason (maybe moving away from stability shoes?) I became less injury prone. My lifetime bests were 3:02 marathon (about 8 years ago), 1:23:15 HM and 18:21 5K. I was running about 50 miles a week prior to starting - typically one day of intervals, one longer run, and maybe one tempo day too. I was feeling burnt out from intervals sessions, which I found quite painful and had inconsistent performance in.
When moving to NSM I started running 7 days a week (instead of 6), and started running easy runs quite a bit easier than I had previously (staying under 125 average BPM, while I'd run them more like 133 BPM before). This slowed down my easy runs from around 8 min/mile to 8:50 min/mile. I started with three subT runs a week: 4x10', 10x3' and 6x6' - all with 1 min walk/jog recovery.
I use a local parkrun (5k) to see how I've been progressing:
- 3 weeks in: 19:12 (6:08 pace, 161 average HR).
- 8 weeks in: 18:45 (5:58 pace, 162 average HR).
- 12 weeks in: 18:32 (5:54 pace, 164 average HR)
I should note that I started this training in July in NE America (fairly hot and humid), and conditions are better now in October.
Then this past weekend, 15 weeks in, I ran a local 5k that had about 3000 other runners. It was a last minute decision; I'd run a subT session two days earlier, and had run the most milage I've ever done in a week (70 miles). I'm still not too sure what happened, but somehow I ran a 17:45 (5:43 pace, 163 average HR). This was 36 seconds faster than my best time set 8 years ago - so it really shocked me. My best guess is the jump in performance was due to the adrenaline from a bigger race, a slightly faster course (both courses were pretty flat, but this one was a little less twisty), good conditions, and a slightly shorter race (3.10M vs 3.14M, as per my watch).
A few things I've changed since starting NSM:
- gradually increased weekly milage from 50 to 70. I've found I enjoy running at a very easy pace (except perhaps being overtaken by runners that don't look very fit!), it makes my legs feel better/looser, and it doesn't seem to take much out of me
- Replaced 4x10' with 3x10', and now 3x11'. At one point I felt like 4x10' was too much, and I was concerned I wasn't recovering well enough.
The thing I've found hardest about NSM is determining the right pace to run my intervals at. I don't have a lactate meter, but do use a chest strap HRM. I've been looking at suggested paces from both LacTrace and the book (the latter of which seems too fast), and also using HR to set an upper bound on how fast to run. I do mess this up sometimes and end up starting too fast and then having to slow down a bit in later reps - but I'm mostly getting better here. The pace normally feels pretty easy to me, especially in later reps where I have to hold myself back to avoid my HR creeping up.
I've enjoyed this program and will keep doing it. I find I'm normally looking forward to the workouts, and the easy days leave me feeling better when I finish them than at the start. It feels sustainable to me in terms of injuries and recovery - but I do worry how long before I'll plateau. I'm planning on experimenting with adding some more easy milage though and slightly upping the intervals -- when my body feels ready for it. Hopefully I can post another update here in a few months.