u/theorangeartist

After starting Norwegian Singles, my Strava Fitness Score skyrocketed to levels I hadn’t seen in two years. I felt so cool, you know? A steadily increasing score is a great motivator in lieu of actual races.

Then after two months it began declining, and declining, and declining, and now it’s lower than when I started Norwegian Singles. According to Strava, despite a dogged diet of fifty miles and seventy eight minutes of sub threshold work a week, despite a rigid adherence to the principles and tenets of our path, I’ve been wasting my time.

To be clear, I don’t care. I am getting faster and my times are coming down and that is literally the whole point. Strava can go kick rocks, and unless I get slower I won’t change a thing.

HOWEVER.

I recall a post on the original Letsrun thread, where Sirpoc mentions that whenever his fitness score increased he would, almost without fail, PR at a Parkrun. It seemed that Fitness Scores, beyond simply great motivators, could be accurate assessments of one’s capabilities.

I want that! How cool would it be to roll up to a race and be able to say “the data says I’m going to PR and the data is never wrong.” Like a robot! I do not want uncertainty. I do not want to feel. I want to be a robot— a robot that wins the Turkey Trot.

SO:

I have come to three conclusions, which I have listed in order of likeliness:
1. Strava Fitness Scores do not matter, especially when the only data it’s getting is from a four year old heart rate monitor on my wristwatch.
2. Strava Fitness Scores do matter, and I am working myself into a hole. In short, while I am getting faster, I could be getting faster faster.
3. Strava Fitness Scores do matter, and I’m dying. Despite this, I am bravely plowing through training that shouldn’t be humanly possible and somehow, against all odds, racing faster than before.

If the first conclusion is true, then again, I do not care. My races are getting faster and that is all that matters.

If the second conclusion is true, then I would love any input, advice, assurances, or commiserations you all have to offer.

If the third conclusion is true, then I have no regrets.

(for reference, the first picture with heart rate data is from a workout at peak Fitness Score, the second is at current Fitness Score, the third is from my Best Race, and the last is what Strava thinks my maximums and zones are. I also attached a relevant comic.)

Hey all, this is my personal progress report after 18 weeks of Sirpoc’s Norwegian Singles Method. I think progress reports are kinda silly and self-centered, but I also like listening to success stories of people walking (running) the same path as me, so maybe you’ll like this. I’m not looking for praise, as my ego is enormous already, but if you have any questions or comments I love talking about training even more than I like training, itself.

In December, after a lackluster Turkey Trot, a decided to overhaul my training for the millionth time and do workouts exclusively with 60 seconds rest. Shortly thereafter, I heard about Norwegian Singles and bought the book. I liked Sirpoc’s story, I liked the workouts, and I liked that it was pretty similar to what I was doing anyways, so I decided to devote my entire life to it.

After a brief buildup in early December, I’ve run roughly 50 miles a week every week with three workouts and a long run each week. Workouts are either 3x 10min, 4x 6min, or 8x 3min, all with a minute rest. I started with 15x 1min instead of 3x 10min for a few weeks when I thought I’d be training for a mile. Easy runs are 50 EASY minutes, Long Runs are 80 EASY minutes.

Here are some things I noticed straight away:

1. I felt great. All the time. A stiff zombie gait, especially in the mornings, used to be an accepted consequence of hard training. Now I feel great every day, all day. Even my friends have commented “this is the least geriatric you’ve ever been since I’ve known you.” Aside from that, I just FELT strong.

2. My hip injury disappeared. I’ve a hip injury since July 2024. I tried training through it, taking time off, scrapping running entirely for calisthenics, whatever I did I’d always have nagging hip pain, all day. When I got back into training in January 2025 I kept Sunday a sacred rest day so that my hip could reobtain some semblance of normalcy. Since starting NSM I’ve run every day, and my hip pain has gone away entirely.

3. I’m having fun? My sister and I used to have a workout pace we called “looking cool” pace, which meant you were running fast enough to open up your stride but not fast enough to visibly struggle or, in her words, “anybody driving past you thinks you look really cool.” Every NSM workout is, essentially, looking cool pace. There’s no going to the well, no deals with death, I don’t even procrastinate workouts (as much) because they’re just not that scary. It’s just looking cool, having fun.

My lackluster Turkey Trot was 29:30, or a 56.6 VDOT. I trained at the appropriate paces through December and in early January ran an indoor 5000m in 17:41 (57.5) and could not have run a second faster. I was happy with the improvement, though kinda wishing for a breakthrough.

I ran the Brooklyn Parkrun a month later in 17:48 (or 17:27 according to Strava) feeling pretty good on a weird course, then a 5k in Prospect Park in 17:32 (or 17:19 according to Strava) and probably coulda run a bit faster but had to hold down some lactic bile for the last 400m. So there was some improvement there but nothing I could really point to.

Then I ran the New Bedford Half Marathon in 1:23 or so (1:22 according to Strava due to two bathroom breaks). I followed the prescribed NSM taper in and taper out. I felt like I had worked pretty hard the past few months with nothing to show for it. I also felt terrible during the race itself. I decided to quit drinking and smoking weed, which I did most every day, and see if that made a difference.

It didn’t make a difference during workouts, but I was sleeping better, feeling less lethargic, and generally quitting drinking and smoking makes me feel more confident, kinda like how running every day makes me feel more confident. After about a month of this, in early April, I ran a pretty flat out and back 5k in 17:11 (59.4), even though the race started 20 minutes early and I didn’t get a chance to entirely warm up. Again, I could not have run faster.

The next week I ran the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in 58:56 (59.5), following the prescribed NSM taper for a half marathon. I felt great, confident, smooth, etc. I got to the 5 mile mark in the time I ran my Turkey Trot and knew I could do it again. I got walked down by a bunch of kickers in the last mile, but again, felt like I could not have run faster.

Here’s what I’ve liked about the last few months:

1. I don’t have to be tough. Like I said, I don’t have to go to the well, I don’t have to be brave. I can just be kinda tough, and kinda brave, every day.
2. I don’t have to be ambitious. I just have to execute. The prescribed splits are what I hit, no slower, no faster. Faster, in fact, is actually worse.
3. I don’t need to be strategic. I don’t need to periodize, I don’t need to craft a season. If I want to test my fitness I jump in a 5k. If I want to run a longer race I still run the same weeks just at a lower intensity. I know exactly what I’m doing every day.
4. Lastly, and is most important, I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor. I did not experience a breakthrough the way Sirpoc did, but I have improved my 5k time by an average of 10 seconds per month, which is a rate of progress I am happy with. It’s a lot of work over a long time for seemingly little return, but it’s safe and near guaranteed, kinda like investing in an Index Fund, and I love investing in Index Funds almost as much as I love investing in Norwegian Singles Method.

My ultimate goal is to win my local Turkey Trot in 2028 and die by lightning strike at the finish line. I will be following Norwegian Singles Method for the remainder of that endeavor.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t indulge in some shameless self promotion. If you enjoyed this post, I make a comic on Instagram called @theorangerunner. Every comic I’ve posted since November has been inspired by this journey. If you’re on a similar path, you might find some inspiration, or at least some humor.

Thank you!

Edit: My Turkey Trot is 5 miles, not 5k. So a 29:33 translates to roughly a 17:50 5k, or a 56.6 VDOT.

If anyone's interested, it's the Pequot Turkey Trot in Fairfield, Connecticut. You get an elite finisher t-shirt if you come in the top 20. I've run it most years since 2010 but haven't got a t-shirt since Covid. This year my goal is to get a t-shirt. Next year it's to podium. The year after it's to win and die happy. It's relatively competitive and takes up an unhealthy amount of my mental bandwidth.