0:00

Ready, set,

0:03

go! This is episode

0:05

378 with journalist, endurance

0:08

athlete, and author of the fascinating

0:10

new book The Norwegian Method, Brad

0:13

Cole. Welcome

0:23

to the Strength Running Podcast. We surround

0:25

you with the same experts as pro

0:27

runners. So keep listening to

0:29

hear running coaches, physical therapists, strength

0:32

experts, dietitians, sports psychologists, and other

0:34

thought leaders give you the best

0:36

guidance possible to take your running

0:38

to the next level. I'm

0:41

your host, Coach Jason Fitzgerald. I ran

0:43

a cross-country, indoor and outdoor track for

0:45

Connecticut College. I one time ran a 239

0:48

marathon PR, and now I'm the head

0:51

coach of strength running and a monthly

0:53

columnist for Outside Magazine. You can learn

0:55

more about me and strength running at

0:58

strengthrunning.com. And if you

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moboboard.com. My guest

3:51

today is Brad Kulp. Brad is

3:53

a sports journalist who's contributed to

3:55

triathlete and just about every other

3:57

triathlon publication on earth, including being

3:59

triathlete. He

4:01

also served as the media manager for World Triathlon

4:04

for the 2010 season. Brad is primarily

4:06

a triathlete, but earned all American swimming

4:08

honors in high school

4:10

before completing seven Ironmans and 15 marathons. His

4:17

new book is titled The Norwegian Method,

4:19

the culture, science, and humans behind the

4:21

groundbreaking approach to elite endurance performance. In

4:24

this conversation, we focus on the training

4:26

principles behind the Norwegian method,

4:29

lactate threshold, lactate testing,

4:31

a focus on low intensity, but

4:33

high volume, heat training, altitude, and

4:35

more. By

4:39

the way, if you're a regular listener to the podcast and appreciate our

4:41

work, go

4:43

to strengthrunning.com/newsletter to get training

4:45

tips, deals, and behind

4:48

the scenes content delivered straight to your inbox. And

4:51

now without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with

4:53

Brad Kulp. Brad, it's great to be speaking with

4:56

you today. Welcome to the podcast. Jason, thanks for having me on.

4:59

Yeah, I'm honored to be here. Well,

5:02

I haven't been this excited for a running book in quite a while.

5:05

So congratulations on the publication of The Norwegian Method.

5:07

This book looks amazing. Thank

5:10

you. Yeah, I appreciate it. Hopefully

5:13

something a little different than what's already out there in the running and

5:15

endurance space and glad you enjoyed it. Yeah.

5:17

Well, a lot of folks are very interested in this topic. I

5:20

feel like over the last couple of years, it's really taken on a life of its

5:22

own. And I think

5:25

with the success of Jakob Ingebretsen, you know, a

5:27

lot of runners in particular

5:31

are looking at this approach and thinking, hey, maybe

5:33

this is the answer to, you know, my performances

5:35

and helping me get to the next level. But

5:39

maybe we can start with a common misunderstanding

5:41

about The Norwegian Method is that, you know,

5:43

it's just running double threshold workouts. And

5:47

I know that's not true. Can you maybe

5:49

give us a good working definition of the Norwegian method? And

5:54

a little bit more nuance of what it

5:57

actually entails. Sure. Yeah, I think that the two... that

6:01

most people probably heard of and understand a

6:03

little bit of are the double threshold like

6:05

you mentioned and lactate testing and those are

6:08

definitely parts of the Norwegian

6:10

method or they can be they don't necessarily

6:12

have to be but

6:14

yeah it's certainly something much broader than

6:16

that and that's kind of the approach

6:18

that I tried to take in the

6:20

book is look at it much more

6:22

holistically and

6:25

see what sort of common threads

6:27

a lot of these great Norwegian

6:29

endurance athletes have

6:31

in common runners triathletes rowers

6:34

as well as a lot of the science goes back

6:36

to rowing and

6:39

yeah I think that those two

6:41

components are huge and but they're really

6:44

just there because the main

6:46

goal of the Norwegian method is to

6:48

to get in is the most amount

6:50

of stimulus and really there's a huge

6:52

focus on Valium and that and

6:54

that's something that people have heard a lot

6:56

of and the double threshold and the lactate

6:59

testing are there essentially to allow you to

7:01

get the most amount of Valium throughout

7:03

the week throughout a block throughout the

7:05

year throughout many years and

7:08

yeah the the lactates really there

7:10

is a measure of control and

7:12

that's something that some of

7:15

the best Norwegian athletes especially Jakob have really

7:17

mastered so yeah

7:19

lactates a tool in the Norwegian method and

7:21

as well as a double threshold it's a

7:24

tool that that can allow certain athletes to

7:26

maybe increase their Valium and increase their their

7:30

real high quality Valium without overdoing

7:32

it but they're just

7:34

really really sort of small parts and

7:36

you know someone like

7:38

Jakob he may be doing one

7:40

or two double threshold sessions a week there are

7:43

times when double threshold you know isn't part of

7:45

his program so yeah

7:47

that the focus on that that one component I

7:49

think is kind of a guard

7:52

too much attention while taking away from sort

7:54

of the broader sort

7:56

of holistic approach that Norway's been building

7:58

for for decades now Yeah, and I'm

8:00

really interested in this more holistic approach,

8:02

but I think it's fascinating that one

8:05

of the entire points of

8:07

doing lactate testing is so that

8:09

you're not going too hard and

8:12

can then do higher volume. So

8:14

it makes me wonder if you

8:17

could potentially get the value of

8:19

this approach to training without a

8:21

high volume running program. Is that

8:23

almost antithetical to the goals of

8:25

the neuro region method or can

8:27

it be done? A little

8:29

bit and a little yes

8:32

and no. And some of the athletes I talked to, I

8:35

quote, a siren siler, who

8:37

is the daughter of Dr. Steven

8:40

Siler, who some of your listeners may follow

8:42

and may know has been a great sports

8:44

science researcher, an American, but

8:46

is in Norway. And

8:48

yeah, she was one who she

8:52

had tried this sort of the normal version

8:54

of the Norwegian method, the very, very high

8:56

volume. And she was just a runner that

8:59

did not take well to that. And that's

9:02

sort of one of

9:04

the principles of the method is that you're really

9:06

tailoring it to each individual athlete.

9:08

And she really started performing a lot better

9:10

when she did a much more high intensity,

9:12

much lower volume. She was someone who would

9:15

do a lot of her work

9:17

well above race, race, pace, intensity, which

9:19

is one of the tenants of

9:22

the Norwegian method in its purest form. And you

9:24

know, Mary's Bakken, who was really the one who

9:26

kind of crafted it. You know, that was a

9:29

big no no in his world. And going all

9:31

the way back to Ingrid Christiansen, who was the

9:33

first great Norwegian marathoner, the

9:36

idea of running faster than

9:38

race intensity was absolute no

9:40

no, something that they would never do. Something

9:43

that Jacob really doesn't do in training either. And

9:47

you know, he's been very vocal about that. Now,

9:49

the catch with that is that he's racing so

9:51

often, and much more often than

9:53

his competition, he'll do a full cross country

9:55

season now. So

9:57

if you're not going to be doing that sort of. You

10:00

know very controlled and not dipping over

10:02

the intensity into that really really high-end

10:05

stuff It is important to be

10:07

racing a lot and that those are kind

10:09

of your your higher-end You know way way

10:11

above threshold sessions are essentially your races Yeah

10:13

This reminds me the old college advice that

10:15

you're gonna race your way into shape You

10:17

know at the beginning of the cross-country season

10:19

and and that's that was very true for

10:21

a lot of runners who you know Had

10:24

just spent the last four months doing a

10:26

lot of base work and their first race

10:28

was a little little rusty You know, they're

10:30

finding their legs underneath them But then you

10:32

know, they really progress well into the season.

10:34

So yeah that has a lot of You

10:38

can be racing every single weekend You

10:40

can kind of do that is just like the

10:42

best workout of the week and it's just you

10:44

know, you're repeating it So

10:46

yeah, I could definitely work Let's talk a little bit

10:48

about lactate because I feel like this is a

10:51

big component of the Norwegian method and and

10:53

it's all about Making sure that

10:55

you're not running too hard So what

10:57

is the role of lactate and lactate

10:59

testing in the Norwegian method? Is it

11:01

only used in workouts or do

11:04

they do any testing at other

11:06

times just to set benchmarks things

11:08

like that? No, pretty I mean

11:10

pretty much essentially just just workouts

11:12

and and with that at

11:15

least and I know a lot more about the

11:18

About Christian Gustaf's training because I've got to

11:20

know a lot pretty well and got an

11:22

idea of exactly how he's using it And

11:25

they're not even using it in every session They're

11:27

at the point where you know if it's just

11:30

an easy day or they they know what they're doing

11:32

They don't really need to track it. It's more the

11:35

double threshold days, which they do pretty regularly twice

11:38

a week and and

11:40

for them You know being multi-sport athletes a

11:43

double threshold would typically be a bike and

11:45

a run swim in a bike You know,

11:47

they're mixing sports. They wouldn't be doing two

11:49

runs like yeah complete or one of the

11:51

Norwegian runners would be doing and

11:55

the big thing especially with when Marius

11:57

started, you know playing with lactate and

11:59

and learning how it was playing in

12:01

his body. The

12:03

biggest benefit that he found when he was kind

12:06

of modeling double threshold idea was

12:10

that, especially with that first session

12:12

in the morning, is that there is a

12:14

lot of cost if you really dip over

12:16

and spill over. For him, he had three

12:18

millimoles was his, what he called

12:20

the sweet spot, where he knew that once he dipped

12:22

over that, there was a lot

12:24

of cost. He was really, really impeding what

12:26

he could do later that day, later that

12:29

week, later that month. So

12:31

especially in the morning session, he

12:33

was using the meter to make sure that every interval

12:35

he was doing was ideally a little bit below that

12:37

3.0, that sweet spot. And

12:40

then if it's a double threshold

12:42

day in the afternoon, you'd be

12:44

okay with dipping a little bit over that 3.0. And

12:47

maybe in the later intervals, really pushing it,

12:49

because you can, you

12:52

don't have another session after that, you

12:54

can go a bit farther. So

12:57

yeah, I think that it can be especially valuable

13:00

if you are doubling, to

13:02

keep that first session under control. It's

13:05

something that if you are using lactate, you

13:07

really have to be doing intervals of some

13:09

kind. You can bring it out

13:11

on a long bike ride and

13:13

kind of see how your lactate changes throughout

13:16

the course of a four or five hour ride,

13:18

but you still have to stop to do the

13:20

testing obviously. So you are kind of breaking it

13:22

up naturally. But

13:24

yeah, I think that for the,

13:29

an athlete like you or me or one of

13:31

your listeners, I think that there's

13:33

a lot of learning about

13:35

lactate can be valuable even if you're not,

13:37

you don't plan on testing regularly. And

13:40

just kind of getting an understanding of what

13:43

lactate is doing in your body, what your curves may

13:45

look like as you're working out and kind of learning

13:48

just where that sweet spot is where you can

13:51

do the most value possible at

13:53

a high enough intensity without spilling

13:56

over and costing yourself

13:59

for the next. days, weeks or

14:01

an injury which may cost throughout your

14:03

entire season. So we've talked

14:05

a little bit about this, you know,

14:08

three millimoles of lactate. You don't want

14:10

to spill over and go too hard,

14:12

too intense. A lot of this is

14:15

around your lactate threshold or your anaerobic

14:17

threshold, this second threshold that we have.

14:20

Is that the real value of measuring

14:23

lactate is making sure that you're

14:25

essentially not going anaerobic at any

14:27

time during these workouts? Yeah, that's

14:29

a great way to summarize it.

14:32

That's definitely the most important part,

14:34

especially someone who's new to using

14:36

it. You know, that's

14:38

kind of what you want to be honing in on.

14:40

And yeah, that 3.0 number gets a

14:42

lot of focus because that's where Marius, that's

14:45

what worked for him and that's where he was

14:47

sort of focusing. And most people's LT2

14:50

is going to be somewhere around there. Like there

14:52

aren't going to be absolutely huge. No

14:55

one's going to be around like 1.5 or something. So

14:57

it's a good starting place, but just

14:59

know that it's totally arbitrary. And if you're new

15:02

to it, don't be surprised if you find that

15:04

2.2, 2.4, 3.5 seems to be my

15:12

sweet spot in where my LT2 is. And

15:15

that will change as your curve moves

15:17

as it lifts throughout

15:20

the year, throughout many years.

15:23

So yeah, even if you don't want to buy

15:26

a meter and do regular testing, if you don't

15:28

like pricking yourself, there can be

15:30

some value in doing one

15:32

or two tests a year throughout the season

15:34

to sort of see how your curves are

15:37

changing and adjust your training as needed. And

15:40

that's really what the value of

15:42

all that testing is doing is once

15:44

you have all that data, you can

15:46

kind of see, is my curve lifting?

15:48

Is it going the right way or

15:50

do I need to be changing something?

15:52

Now you sort of mentioned this earlier,

15:54

but it seems like after a period

15:56

of heavy testing, it may actually not

15:58

be necessary to continue with the same

16:00

frequency of testing. Is that because athletes

16:02

get pretty good at intuitively understanding where

16:04

that zone of effort sort of lies?

16:06

Yes. I think when

16:08

you get to athletes like a

16:10

Christian or or Yakov, especially who

16:12

started doing this kind of testing so

16:15

young as teenagers. Yeah, they

16:17

intuitively know they

16:20

could probably tell you just before they even break

16:22

themselves, you know, really, really close to about where

16:24

they are. And, you

16:26

know, I know a lot of the interviews and the shows

16:28

that Yakov has done. He talks so much about RPE

16:30

and I think that a lot of the,

16:32

you know, the lactate testing

16:34

was there for a long time when his dad was

16:36

coaching him to have that feedback. And it's the same

16:39

thing with Christian. The testing is there so that Olav

16:41

has the feedback. It's more so for the

16:43

coach than the athlete because the athlete themselves. Yakov

16:46

loves to say that his famous Hill workout,

16:48

he's doing it like

16:51

eighty seven percent of max. So like

16:53

eight point seven RPE and, you

16:55

know, he's done that

16:57

workout so many times and he's tested himself

16:59

so much like he can probably get like

17:01

exactly. It sounds like such an insane number,

17:04

like eighty seven percent. Like he's probably pretty

17:06

close to that. Like I doubt he's he's

17:08

very far off. So

17:10

for the athletes themselves, especially at that level, once

17:12

you've been doing it for a while. Yes,

17:15

you can certainly probably

17:17

test less or just intuitively

17:19

know by RPE where you're

17:21

at. And that might

17:23

be the greatest value is that it's

17:25

just an awesome tool at teaching yourself

17:27

about your actual perceived exertion. It's

17:30

one thing for you or I to say, like, oh,

17:32

I feel like I'm in an eight right now. But

17:34

when you really, really start to see the numbers and sort

17:37

of understand what an eight means and what a

17:39

ten is, you might have a better idea of

17:41

just what's going on. Internally

17:44

and how you can kind of express that externally.

17:47

Yeah, you know, I feel very fortunate to have

17:49

run at the collegiate level. And I feel like

17:51

I got there and was able

17:54

to do this without the testing. But it was

17:56

a long process that

17:58

required a lot of. trial and

18:00

error, a lot of very poor

18:02

workouts. And this just seems a much more

18:04

efficient route to go about better

18:07

understanding your personal RPE

18:09

levels and how to relate to different

18:12

training intensities. Because, you know, at the

18:15

end of my college career, I was

18:17

really dialed in and was able to

18:19

hit intensities and paces just incredibly well.

18:22

But I could probably have done it years

18:24

earlier with some lactate testing. And I feel

18:26

like that would have been so beneficial. And

18:28

it would have saved me a lot of

18:31

heartbreak because, you know, any runner knows your

18:33

bad workout is not the

18:35

way to build a lot of confidence in

18:37

your abilities. Can

18:39

you tell me a little bit about the

18:42

testing abilities right now? You know, you said

18:44

you can get a kit. It requires a

18:46

finger prick, you know, like, how does that

18:48

all work? Yeah, the great part now is

18:50

there's probably four or five different brands on

18:52

the market for consumers that are

18:56

reasonably affordable, like between $200 and $300. The

19:01

one, the lactate L.T.

19:03

pro, the lactate pro two is the

19:05

one that it seems that most

19:07

of the best cycling teams, the

19:11

Yakov, Krisha, all those guys, they seem to

19:13

really enjoy that. And that seems to be

19:15

the most popular. A lot of the coaches

19:17

and sports scientists I talked to swear

19:19

that that's the

19:21

most accurate. But we're kind of it's

19:24

kind of like doing power meters in cycling these

19:26

days is they're all pretty good. And as long

19:28

as you're using the same one, you know, you're

19:30

going to get a consistent reading. I

19:33

bought the edge one because it was the

19:35

cheapest on Amazon. It's very available. And if you're

19:38

in the U.S., the testing strips are easy to

19:40

get, which a lot of people said is a

19:42

better problem with some of the European brands. But

19:47

yeah, it's there's not honestly not much

19:49

of a learning curve. The

19:51

hardest thing is getting used to pricking

19:54

yourself. If

19:56

you're doing it yourself, it's most people find

19:58

it a bit easier doing your finger. because

20:00

it's just harder to get the right spot. I find

20:02

it's a lot less... I won't feel a prick on

20:05

my ear. I really, really feel it on my finger.

20:08

So I definitely recommend a prick in your ear

20:10

if you're getting started and you hate needles like

20:12

me. But

20:15

yeah, the reading takes somewhere

20:17

between like seven and 12

20:19

seconds usually. It's really instant.

20:21

Yeah. And the best thing

20:23

I can do to

20:27

sell it on people is if

20:29

you're lactate curious, is that

20:31

if nothing else, it's a really cool motivating

20:35

tool. I've been

20:37

in endurance sports for more than 20 years now. I

20:39

just get in walls and

20:42

I need new things to get me

20:44

excited about training and new data points

20:46

to see. It's sort

20:49

of similar. If you just got started running and you

20:51

just get your first heart rate monitor and GPS watch

20:53

and all of a sudden you have all

20:55

these actual numbers to see and you can see

20:57

improvement. And that's so motivating when you

21:00

can fire up a file and see like, oh,

21:02

I'm this far ahead of where I was last

21:04

month. And it's the same thing in lactate. If

21:06

you really want to test a lot, you can

21:09

see throughout the month, throughout the season,

21:11

how your curve is changing and really

21:13

just have that confidence that,

21:15

oh, this training that I'm putting in

21:17

is going in the right direction.

21:20

Even if day to day you're having your ups and

21:22

downs, you don't necessarily feel great. It

21:25

can be a big confidence boost to

21:27

see that this hard work all these

21:29

hours are really starting to pay off.

21:31

Yeah. While you were talking, I actually

21:33

looked up on Amazon, the lactate testing

21:35

device. And if you want

21:37

the edge testing device with 30

21:40

testing strips, it's $289.99. So essentially, for

21:45

the price of a pair of super

21:47

shoes, you can get this really interesting

21:49

tool with the testing strips. And

21:51

I always love it

21:54

when runners invest in things that are

21:56

actually going to help them become a

21:58

better runner, not like the new fancy.

22:00

shirt from tracksmith, you know, and I

22:02

know I'm teasing them, but I'm currently

22:04

wearing a new fancy shirt from tracksmith.

22:07

So I'm making fun of myself a

22:09

little bit right now, but like the

22:11

things that actually provide you with information

22:13

or better information so that you can

22:15

make wiser training decisions, I think are

22:17

the better purchases that runners can make.

22:20

Um, so yeah, if you want to check that out, I'll put a

22:22

link in the show notes for this. Um, let's

22:25

talk a little bit about high volume training because

22:27

I would love to talk more about this and

22:30

sort of how this slots into the

22:32

Norwegian method. I know we discussed it

22:34

a little bit briefly, but one

22:36

of the things that I was surprised about reading

22:38

your book is how much zone

22:41

one training is included in the

22:43

Norwegian method. And you

22:45

know, as someone who has been sort of trying

22:47

to figure out their zones and how that

22:49

corresponds to heart rate levels, it's

22:51

pretty clear that it's very

22:53

hard to run in a zone one

22:55

heart rate range. And I'm just

22:58

curious like how that's sort of possible for

23:00

runners when it's, it's almost like you kind

23:02

of have to be like speed walking to

23:04

get into that zone. Like I'm just curious

23:06

how you think about that study that, um,

23:09

that Siler did, uh, and he published it.

23:11

Uh, it was great timing because it came

23:13

out like the last month that I was

23:15

working on the books. I was

23:17

able to pull some stuff from that. Um, and for those who

23:19

haven't read the book and are familiar with the study, he took,

23:22

going back, I think almost 25 or 30 years. Um,

23:25

and he took a bunch of Norwegian coaches from,

23:28

uh, cycling, swimming, rowing,

23:31

triathlon, running, uh, and basically just asked

23:33

them for all of their, their training

23:35

data from all of their lead athletes,

23:37

uh, so that he could feed it

23:39

into a computer and see essentially, you

23:41

know, where they're, where their

23:43

zones were. Um, I will say

23:45

that the runners were, uh, like, uh,

23:48

the majority of their training was more,

23:51

is zone two. And, and like the upper,

23:53

the zone one stuff was a lot of

23:55

that was coming from the triathletes, the swimmers,

23:57

and surprisingly the rowers. Um, and I don't

23:59

know. a ton about rowing training and Norwegian

24:01

rowing training because I'm not from that world.

24:05

But I did, in college,

24:07

we used to share a facility

24:09

that I was on the cycling team, we used

24:11

to share a facility with the rowers in the

24:13

winter and we do indoor training right next to

24:15

them. And I do remember

24:18

that it was like they would get on

24:20

there and they would be doing nothing for

24:22

like 20 minutes or so. And then

24:24

it would be like three or four minutes of like,

24:26

I'm like, they're going to kill themselves. They're going so

24:28

hard. Their eyes are going to blow out of their

24:30

sockets. So that

24:32

variability in training and I do

24:35

remember just seeing it so much really, I

24:37

was like, they're doing nothing. They're just wasting their time.

24:40

But they would probably think the same thing, seeing

24:42

an elite cyclist just going out and pedaling for

24:45

six, seven hours just in

24:48

zone one, super easy. So

24:51

I think I was also surprised when I

24:53

saw those results that it was

24:55

such a huge value of zone one where

24:57

we all been told that the

24:59

Norwegian method or really any endurance method that

25:02

zone two is very, very

25:04

in right now. And that's the most

25:06

important place to be. They did find,

25:09

especially with the track leads, the swimmers,

25:11

the rowers, a little bit, the runners

25:13

as well lumped in there that they

25:15

are doing a lot, a lot of time

25:17

and very, very, very, the lowest intensity is

25:19

possible, like you're saying. And

25:23

yeah, that's something that just anecdotally, a lot

25:25

of the Norwegian athletes kind of communicated to

25:27

me. A lot of the workouts are just,

25:32

take for example, when Gustav Eden is at

25:34

home in Bergen, he lives quite a long

25:36

ways over a mountain from Bergen. But when

25:38

he wants to go swim, he'll ride his

25:40

bike. It's like 35 miles to town,

25:43

just super easy down a mountain, do a

25:45

swim and super. And so he's getting like

25:47

70 miles of zone one, just super easy,

25:51

taking nothing out of him, but just adding more

25:53

value, more stimulus. And

25:56

yeah, I think if you're looking to get

25:58

in more easy training. One

26:01

thing that I did notice a lot,

26:03

especially the Norwegian triathletes, just try

26:05

to make your commutes a workout, that

26:08

do everything via bike. They'll

26:11

even do an easy jog to

26:13

get someplace. It's just constantly getting

26:15

in more and more value in most

26:18

of it at a surprisingly very,

26:20

very low intensity. Keeping

26:22

in mind that their zone one is very

26:24

different than a lot of other people's zone

26:26

one, and it still would look like an

26:28

actual workout for most people.

26:30

Yeah, those elite runners have pretty

26:32

high paces and even heart

26:34

rates in zone one. So it's

26:36

not exactly comparable to your average

26:39

runner like me and you. Might

26:41

be a lot of- I'm a big fan of

26:43

Morgan Pearson, the triathlete and runner

26:45

who's in Boulder by you. And

26:48

he posts so much on Instagram and so much data

26:50

of he'll be running like a 640 mile zone one,

26:55

and it'll be like a heart rate 115. I'm

26:57

like, I hate you so much. That'd

26:59

be amazing. That is like my hardest run. If

27:02

I'm under seven minute mile, like I'm dying, like

27:04

that is such a hard run for me. And

27:06

that is his absolute, that's as easy as he can

27:08

run. But yeah, just

27:11

know that zone, when you see them

27:13

training these elite athletes training that much

27:15

in zone one, just know that it's

27:17

very different than your zone one for

27:19

sure. Yeah, I'm trying to think like

27:22

how your average runner could adapt some

27:24

of these principles to their own training

27:26

to get more out of their training,

27:28

to get better performances for themselves. And

27:30

it seems like more

27:32

easy volume is a

27:34

pretty simple suggestion. And

27:38

we may also go so far as to say, if

27:42

you can't do a lot more running volume

27:44

than some cross training might be a really

27:46

good idea here. And the value with cross

27:49

training is that you can actually stay in

27:51

zone one. It's a little easier. A lot

27:53

of runners can't run in zone one. Their

27:55

heart rate immediately jumps up to a zone

27:58

two territory, even if they're... going as slow

28:00

as possible. So I think, you

28:03

know, some cycling, especially on like an indoor,

28:05

you know, spin bike or something like that,

28:07

super easy to control effort and heart rate.

28:09

Would that be a fair look at, at

28:12

one of the ways in which we can

28:14

adapt this to, to our training? Absolutely. And

28:16

I think you're starting to see a lot

28:18

of runners, um, at the, at the elite

28:21

level and at the, you know, the sub

28:23

elite level, you know, higher performing, amateur runners,

28:26

um, really starting to see, uh,

28:28

indoor cycling, especially as a very,

28:30

you know, an essential part of

28:32

their training, um, because

28:35

yeah, you can, you can almost

28:37

essentially like double your, your hourly training

28:40

value without interjecting almost any cost. Um,

28:42

and you might even be helping

28:44

strengthening some things that you've been ignoring for years

28:47

and years. If you know, you've been a long

28:49

time runner. Um, and yeah,

28:51

I think that is kind of the, um, part

28:54

of, yeah,

28:56

especially for triathletes, if you're, um, if

28:58

you're one of the one big takeaway, um,

29:00

you know, the one thing, if

29:03

you ask any of these athletes or any of these coaches,

29:05

what are most amateur athletes, uh,

29:07

doing wrong, they would, they're probably excited to be

29:09

spending a ton, a lot more long rides, like

29:11

just there is, you can, you could be riding

29:14

15 hours a week if you have the time.

29:16

And if you do it smart, you can, you can keep

29:19

doing that and you're not going to be costing yourself for

29:21

weeks and months on end. Um,

29:23

and then just the, the controlling the

29:25

intensity is not, um, and that all

29:27

often means doing, um, you know, if

29:29

you're doing an interval workout, maybe one,

29:32

one less is often better than one more.

29:34

There's this kind of this attitude, especially this

29:36

sort of Western American attitude of do one

29:38

more rep, go harder, go deeper. Um,

29:41

and, uh, yeah, especially, uh, um,

29:44

you know, someone like Yaka, he's constantly telling, uh,

29:47

saying that's what he thinks his competition does

29:49

wrong is, is burying themselves in training

29:51

and constantly feeling that need to do one more,

29:54

um, and that over the longest period of

29:56

time, doing one less and, and kind of

29:58

keeping things controlled. is probably

30:00

going to be better. So

30:03

yeah, more easy volume and don't

30:05

beat yourself up if you start to think,

30:07

or maybe one less is actually better for

30:10

me than one more on

30:12

the higher end stuff. Yeah, it almost seems like

30:15

it's better to be more conservative with workouts

30:17

and intensity and to do a little bit

30:19

less than you think you should or a

30:21

little bit easier than you think you should.

30:24

But on the flip side to that, maybe

30:26

be a little bit more aggressive

30:29

with higher volumes, more easy training,

30:31

et cetera, so that you're always

30:34

doing this more capacity-building aerobic development,

30:36

which is sort of like always

30:38

making these deposits in the bank

30:41

and constantly growing that principle you

30:43

have because your aerobic system can

30:45

theoretically always continue to be developed,

30:48

whereas you can't always push your

30:50

anaerobic fitness. So it's a much

30:52

more long-term way to train. Yeah,

30:55

yeah, I think for most people,

30:59

we might have these very short-term

31:01

goals, like I want to perform at this race

31:03

this year, but if you're

31:06

an amateur athlete, your goal should just, you

31:08

really don't have those kind of time

31:10

constraints. Your goal should just be to get as fit

31:13

as you can over the longest period of time. And

31:16

yeah, I think once you kind of have that

31:18

approach, you can start to pull back and realize

31:20

that the way to do that over years and

31:23

years is to not just push

31:25

myself, bury myself on this one day for

31:27

essentially no reason. There's

31:30

just, you're just doing that to kind of

31:32

assure yourself that you've got some fitness, but

31:35

the real fitness, that's

31:38

mind over the longest timeframe

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33:23

Now I know we just said we

33:25

maybe should be more conservative

33:28

with intensity, yet a hallmark of

33:30

the Norwegian method is running two

33:32

workouts in one day. Is

33:34

this appropriate for your average runner?

33:37

Should anybody who, say

33:40

someone's listening to this, they want to run

33:42

a marathon in a couple months, they're

33:44

running 30, 35 miles a week,

33:47

is this an approach that's a good idea for them?

33:50

Where's the gray area around here that we should

33:53

explore? Yeah, that's a good question. I

33:55

think if you're in that 30 to 35, if you're under 40, I think that's

33:57

a good idea. I

34:00

don't think that you need to be considering doubling.

34:03

I don't think that, I think

34:05

if you're, if that's where you can

34:07

get to then, and you

34:09

wanna add more, you should be looking at running more

34:11

days probably than

34:14

doubling up. I think that the

34:16

runners who maybe should be considering it are

34:19

right around like, if you're at 50 miles and maybe

34:21

you're struggling to add more value, and

34:23

which is kind of where I'm at right now, my big

34:26

goal this year was to, I've been pretty steadily

34:28

running 40 miles a week through the last few

34:31

years and not had much of a problem, but

34:33

like just getting to 50 seemed impossible. And

34:36

so I did start to do a couple, I

34:38

did one double run a week, most weeks, just

34:41

as a way to increase

34:43

that value while not adding an extra day so

34:45

that I could have an extra day where, I'm

34:48

just doing an easy ride instead of

34:50

a, another moderate

34:53

run. And I think

34:56

that the value in doubling is,

34:59

one in getting in more value, but

35:02

two is in building out better rest periods

35:04

so that you can ultimately, if

35:07

I can have a day off then before my long run, that

35:09

I might be able to just add a couple more easy miles

35:11

at the end of that long run, and

35:13

that all adds up. So I would

35:16

say for most people, like if

35:18

you're under 50 miles, if you're under

35:20

40 miles a week, then the double threshold probably

35:22

shouldn't be on your radar. If you're between 50

35:24

and 60, and you're

35:26

kind of in a rut in terms

35:29

of trying to add more, or you're

35:31

just at a plateau in your performance, it

35:34

might be worth a try. Yeah,

35:36

if you're 60, 70, like running those big numbers,

35:41

I've always said, I come from a swimming

35:43

background, and I know there's so much of

35:45

running that I still need to learn so

35:47

much about, but I've always said that I

35:50

don't think that runners double enough. I think that that's where

35:52

they're really missing out, is that this idea that you can't

35:54

run twice a day, and

35:57

I think that's such a big part of

35:59

the Norwegian. method and the success of athletes

36:01

like Jacob is that you

36:03

can definitely run twice a day and you can

36:05

do it almost every day as long as you're

36:07

controlling it and doing it smart and

36:10

probably have been doing it for a while. He's been doubling

36:12

almost every day since he was 12, 13. So

36:18

it's different than someone who's kind of new to

36:20

running, being like, okay, I'm going to try to

36:22

double up today. But

36:25

yeah, I certainly don't be afraid to

36:27

double, but yeah, the trick with doubling

36:29

is definitely in the control, especially in

36:31

that first session. Yeah, I think this

36:33

is where you try to opt for

36:35

that easy zone one, zone

36:37

two effort and try to err on

36:40

the conservative side so that you're not

36:42

turning what should be

36:45

an easy run into a more

36:47

moderate, potentially zone three effort. Because

36:50

whenever you're adding mileage,

36:52

I've always thought like step one is just

36:54

to do the mileage. It's not to do

36:56

it at any kind of pace or effort.

36:59

And let's get comfortable running way

37:01

slower than what you're probably used to,

37:03

but for a lot more volume. And

37:05

eventually, over time, you'll be able to

37:07

run a normal pace at those volume

37:09

levels. But at the beginning, it's

37:11

so much more valuable just to be able to

37:14

train your body to handle the mileage. And you're

37:16

probably going to have to do it at a

37:18

slow effort first anyway. Yeah, yeah. And I think,

37:20

yeah, that's the way we used to always

37:23

build into a swim season too, was that

37:25

get up your volume first. And it

37:27

was always a couple months of just

37:30

long, boring, slow distance, so that

37:32

you could get up to swimming 1500 meters in a single day. And then,

37:37

yeah, then work on doing it faster. But

37:41

yeah, I don't want to say that

37:43

it's volume over all else, but that

37:45

is definitely a key

37:47

tenant of the Norwegian method. And

37:50

certainly something that, yeah,

37:53

for most amateur runners, if

37:55

you want to focus on one thing, I

37:58

think that that's definitely the best place to start. It

38:00

is an endurance sport after all. So if you're going to

38:02

focus on anything, it might as well be on the endurance

38:04

side of things. Let

38:06

me ask you a little bit about injury

38:10

prone runners. And we've talked

38:12

about double threshold. We've talked about running

38:14

twice a day. I think all these

38:17

things can be beneficial if

38:20

they are done strategically and in

38:22

the correct way. For a runner

38:24

who can't seem to stay healthy,

38:27

would you recommend maybe getting in those

38:29

doubles with cross training? Maybe a run

38:31

in the morning and then a bike

38:34

or something similar like the elliptical perhaps

38:36

in the afternoon? Yeah, and that's a

38:38

great way to do it too. Because

38:40

one thing with the Norwegian triathletes is

38:43

they never double the same sport in the same day. And

38:47

if one of those sports is running, that's usually

38:49

the first session. Because the kind

38:52

of like you were saying, the elliptical or the

38:54

cycling, there isn't as much gravitational

38:56

cost, there isn't as much muscle damage. So if

38:58

you're more injury prone, it

39:01

can be a great way to recover from that

39:04

from that hard running session, that first session of the

39:06

day. So yeah, absolutely.

39:08

I think that, I hate the elliptical,

39:10

I'm sure you do. I think most

39:12

runners do. So,

39:15

and I think that maybe is why a lot

39:17

of people are gravitating towards the bike and indoor

39:19

cycling. And there's just a more fun component to

39:21

it. But yeah, the elliptical

39:23

is an absolutely awesome tool. And

39:26

any of the athletes that I talked to,

39:28

who one of the great parts of the

39:30

Norwegian method is that it, at least for

39:32

the three most prominent athletes featured is that

39:35

they're not injury prone. And this method has

39:37

seemed to keep them so healthy, aside from

39:39

Jakob had Achilles flare up and

39:41

Gustav as well last year. The

39:46

reason that they've been able to get to this point is

39:48

that it's just been steady, steady training for years and years.

39:52

But yeah, I think that, yes, don't

39:55

be afraid to get on a stationary bike. Don't be

39:57

afraid to love the elliptical. elliptical

40:00

has saved my life so many times when I've

40:02

had injury come up a

40:04

couple months before an Ironman or before a marathon

40:06

and just kind of have to suck it

40:08

up and realize that you can actually

40:10

maintain your fitness really, really well if

40:13

you can mentally get

40:16

on it and get used to it.

40:18

Yeah, that's a whole other psychological workout,

40:20

the elliptical. Especially for any kind of

40:22

high volume, right? Yeah, I think it

40:24

takes like a serious injury to get... I

40:27

know I've talked to a couple athletes who have

40:29

had huge performances at the Ironman World Championship coming

40:32

right off of a running injury and you talk

40:34

to them and they're like, you know,

40:36

I had this stress fracture two months ago and

40:38

it's two hours a day on the elliptical and

40:40

you need that something really horrific to happen to

40:43

be like, okay, this is my only option. And

40:46

yeah, it can be... Those little

40:48

injuries can sometimes be a godsend for athletes

40:50

because it sort of forces them to pull

40:53

back and maybe prevents them from doing more

40:55

damage. I want to double

40:57

click on something interesting that you said

40:59

earlier, which was the fact that a

41:01

lot of the high profile Norwegian method

41:03

runners are not particularly injury

41:05

prone. And I think that is a

41:07

testament to the training approach. And it

41:10

very much reminds me of a point

41:12

that Brad Hudson made in his book,

41:14

Run Faster, which I love. It's one

41:16

of my favorite running training books, but

41:19

he said the risk for injuries is

41:21

a lot higher when you're building mileage.

41:24

And yeah, I mean, it makes

41:26

intuitive sense because you're continuously adding

41:28

stress to your body over a certain

41:31

period of time. And so the

41:33

chance that something breaks down is

41:35

a lot higher. But it's

41:37

also this idea that you can

41:39

maintain a certain volume much more

41:42

easily than build to that volume.

41:44

And it seems like these Norwegian

41:47

method athletes kind of

41:49

stay at a relatively high

41:51

volume pretty consistently and don't

41:53

have these wild swings in

41:55

mileage levels or volume. point

42:00

of writing the book and interviewing all these athletes.

42:03

Do you find that that seems to be

42:05

the case? Absolutely. Yeah.

42:08

Especially with the three big ones, if you want

42:10

to call it Gustav, Christian, and Jakob. In

42:14

terms of overall hours and in

42:16

volume, it's really not a huge

42:18

shift throughout the entire year. There

42:22

will be a couple of weeks, the tail

42:24

end of their important parts

42:27

of their season where they'll pull back. That's

42:29

more of just a mental reprieve, especially because

42:31

they're all racing so much. Yeah,

42:35

I wrote about in the book and I

42:37

remember the first time that Christian and Gustav

42:39

showed up at the Kona and they were

42:41

essentially doing an Ironman

42:43

a week before the race out on the race

42:45

course. They split it up over two days. Just

42:48

all these reports of like no one previously

42:50

would ever have thought of it. That would

42:53

be so crazy. The reason it wasn't

42:55

crazy for them is it was still a little

42:57

reduction in what they've been doing. They were still

42:59

tapering off of where they've been. Their volume

43:02

is so high that that wasn't a huge

43:06

workout for them. It was really insane. All the other

43:08

athletes looking at it, but they had

43:11

the last last because they knew that they

43:14

had been up at 30, 35 hours even. To do a workout like

43:18

that felt relatively easy.

43:20

The same for Jakka,

43:23

his weeks are remarkably

43:25

consistent. He's got his

43:27

key workouts each week

43:29

and the volume is really

43:31

consistent. The only thing that's really changing throughout

43:34

the year as he gets closer to his biggest

43:36

races is the amount of intensity that

43:39

he allows himself to do and the amount

43:41

at or near race pace that he's doing.

43:45

But yeah, that's definitely none of these

43:47

athletes are okay. My season's over. I'm

43:49

taking four weeks off of

43:51

training. I'm not going to go into a beach. I

43:55

know when I started covering triathlon and getting into

43:57

endurance, you had a season. had

44:00

a break, then you had a build. And yeah,

44:03

for most of the athletes who subscribe

44:05

to this method, that is not at all how they're

44:07

framing their season. It's a, let's stay

44:09

really, really close to our peak, almost

44:12

all year long. And when we need a teeny

44:14

tiny little break, we'll do that. But no,

44:17

there's, there's not much of a, not much downtime, not

44:19

much of an off season for sure. Now,

44:21

I want to play the devil's advocate here because

44:23

this makes physiological sense to me, but I'm sure

44:26

a lot of listeners might think that this sounds

44:28

like a grind. Like we're saying

44:30

you've got to, you know, maintain a high

44:32

volume year round, might

44:34

be difficult for your typical

44:37

adult who has responsibilities. What

44:39

would you say to the person who thinks

44:41

that this might be unrealistic? I would say

44:43

you are completely right in the most

44:46

of the highest performing athletes

44:48

that are featured in this book. I think

44:50

in the first page or second page of

44:52

the introduction, I even say like you cannot

44:54

do, you don't have the capacity

44:57

at a time, the resources that these guys

44:59

do. All you can kind of do

45:01

is take

45:03

what they're doing. And if you think there's some value

45:05

is try to model it to something that will work

45:07

for your lifestyle. Because yeah,

45:09

I only, the only person who's

45:11

lifestyle I've really gotten to see is Christian

45:13

and it's not sustainable for 99.9999% of the

45:16

world. He's a very, very unique person, very

45:18

singular focus

45:24

and is able to kind of build

45:26

his entire life around being

45:28

the best triathlete on earth. And

45:31

I think Yacka, you've seen that too.

45:33

He's got a family now, his life is changing

45:35

a lot, but

45:37

still it's a very, very singular

45:40

focus is to when he wakes up each

45:42

day is to what he has to do.

45:45

So yeah, if you can, if

45:47

you're lactate curious and want to see how that

45:49

can affect your training and benefit

45:51

you, if you're like we talked

45:54

about at that threshold where maybe you

45:56

can be doing double threshold

45:58

sessions, then go for it. for it, but

46:01

yeah, as far as completely adopting

46:03

this lifestyle and never being off

46:05

of 25 hours a

46:07

week of training, I don't think

46:10

that's realistic for basically any of us. So

46:13

yeah, you don't have to go... And something

46:16

I repeat throughout the book is there

46:18

are levels to this method and don't feel like

46:20

you have to go all in. I

46:22

think that there's a lot of unique

46:24

takeaways in starting this project

46:26

and writing this book. I started

46:29

playing with lactate for the first time,

46:31

playing with double threshold sessions, more

46:34

is just the curiosity. Heat

46:36

training as well. There's

46:38

a lot of cool stuff going on with heat monitors.

46:42

Take what you can, but yeah, little

46:45

bits and pieces that'll fit your lifestyle. Don't

46:47

overhaul your lifestyle at all. Yeah, that's

46:50

encouraging because this sure does seem like

46:52

a lot of work. But one thing

46:54

that I think I'm going to start

46:56

doing is doing more

46:59

double sessions with the bike. I'd

47:01

love to get an indoor bike and just

47:04

keep that in my garage so that at

47:06

nighttime, maybe after my kids go to sleep,

47:09

I can get in another 30 to 60

47:11

minutes on the bike and maybe

47:13

put on a movie or something that and

47:16

just get in that extra volume. But

47:18

speaking of modeling this approach and

47:21

finding some pieces that work for you, is

47:24

there anything that maybe we haven't

47:26

discussed or haven't discussed enough that

47:28

you would like to add that

47:30

your typical runner might be able

47:33

to add or change within their

47:35

program to benefit from the insights

47:37

learned from these Norwegian athletes? Yeah,

47:40

I think the two components that

47:43

two of the later chapters in the book

47:45

were a heat and altitude. Obviously,

47:50

I don't get much

47:52

time in altitude and that

47:55

for a lot of people like me, it

47:57

would be impossible for me to do an

47:59

actual altitude camp. And

48:02

that's kind of one thing that if

48:04

you really want to do altitude training,

48:06

you need three to six weeks minimum

48:08

to really benefit from it. That's different

48:11

if you're living at altitude,

48:13

obviously. But

48:15

the heat training is really

48:17

interesting. And the Norwegian

48:19

approach to heat, and this is

48:21

pretty specifically on the triathlon side,

48:24

the runners obviously competing in a

48:27

much more controlled environment and honestly haven't

48:29

done as much, haven't spent any time

48:31

really focusing on the heat aspect. But

48:35

yeah, just finding that heat can be your

48:38

friend. Olaf has

48:40

referred to it as a poor

48:42

man's altitude. So someone like me who's from

48:44

a place where it can get really hot,

48:46

but we're 700 feet above sea level. Don't

48:50

shy away from using

48:53

heat to benefit your training. And if

48:55

it's middle of summer and I know

48:57

it's going to be 95 degrees one

48:59

day, I'll be up at 4.30

49:01

in the morning trying to avoid the

49:03

heat at all costs. And even if you're not

49:06

training for a hot race, that's

49:08

not necessarily the best way to

49:10

go about things. Someone asked me

49:13

the question a couple of weeks

49:15

ago, would I be better off getting up in the morning

49:17

and running nine

49:20

miles when it's 60 degrees? Or should I

49:22

just run seven when it's 90 later

49:25

in the day? And I was just like, as

49:27

long as you're not overdoing it, you're physiologically probably

49:29

getting a lot more stimulus out of running a

49:31

couple of miles less later in the day when

49:34

your body has to go through a lot more stress essentially

49:37

to get through that run. So yeah,

49:40

I think that heat science is really interesting and

49:42

something I would like to explore

49:44

a lot more if any of your

49:46

listeners are interested in the core monitor

49:48

out of Switzerland that I mentioned in

49:50

the book. It's a really, really cool

49:52

device and something

49:55

that the Norwegian triathletes and

49:57

cyclists are obsessed with. And

50:00

even, I think if you talk

50:02

to the triathlon clan, they

50:04

haven't moved on from lactate, but so much of the

50:06

focus now and the science and what they're learning is

50:09

so focused on core

50:11

body temperature. So

50:13

yeah, don't be like me and run away

50:15

from the heat. It can be your friend,

50:19

especially if you don't have the advantages of

50:21

altitude or training like that. What

50:23

are some practical ways to incorporate heat

50:26

training into your training program? Is

50:29

it running every run outside at

50:31

noon during the summer so

50:33

that you're just suffering through long runs and

50:35

faster track workouts and things like that? No,

50:38

that's why you

50:40

have to be very delicate with

50:42

it. And it's also, I think the reason that

50:44

we're learning so much so fast is that it's

50:46

something that we haven't been really able to study

50:48

because in a lab setting, it's so

50:51

controlled as to what you can put an athlete through.

50:53

You can't just put them in

50:55

150 degrees sauna and then basically try to kill

50:57

them. But

51:00

yeah, the core model, what

51:02

they use, they're basically looking

51:05

for, it's about 90 minutes a

51:07

week in your, I can't

51:09

even think of the zone. They have a term for your

51:11

heat zone. And that depending on what you're training

51:14

for or where you've, the kind of training you've

51:16

been doing, that might be somewhere between, we're doing

51:18

85 to 95 degrees, so hot, hot training. But

51:24

they would recommend not going, it's

51:27

capped at 90 minutes. And that's

51:30

where you can get a benefit

51:32

of essentially like an altitude camp

51:34

of added blood volume. That's the

51:36

biggest benefit without

51:39

sort of putting in way

51:41

too much cost. And just, if you're doing

51:43

way, way too much heat training, there's the

51:45

obviously dehydration, a whole bunch of nutrition issues

51:48

come into play. And you

51:50

could screw up your entire week or your entire month.

51:52

But yeah, if you're just getting started, I would look

51:55

to maybe a couple of hot sessions a week in

51:57

the summer. Basically what I summer

51:59

is I would, you know,

52:02

my Tuesday and Thursday morning runs, which I would

52:04

normally do super early and when it was as

52:06

cool as possible, I would wait until the middle

52:08

of the afternoon when the sun's out and do

52:11

those as hot as possible and cut back the volume

52:13

a little bit if it's, you

52:16

know, especially if you have to. There's a,

52:18

I'm not great in the heat. I think that's why I'm

52:20

so interested in this kind of training is the, I

52:23

think that I have a long way to go essentially,

52:26

is to, so I think that, yeah,

52:28

a lot of people have been avoiding the heat. If

52:31

you're like me and you say, I'm really bad in the

52:33

heat, it's probably maybe because you've been avoiding it like your

52:35

entire life. So maybe

52:37

just interject a little bit and you'll

52:40

find that you're not bad in the heat. You

52:42

just, your body hasn't been trained for it. Do

52:44

you think there's much value in, in passive heating

52:47

situations like using a hot tub or a

52:49

sauna in place of going for a run

52:51

in the heat? That's a great question and

52:53

something I definitely want to research a bit

52:56

more. And I know, I'm sure you follow

52:58

David Roach, ultra marathoner, and I know that's

53:00

something that he's explored a lot. I'm

53:03

fascinated with his training, especially with regards to heat. Cause

53:05

I know that that was such a big focus for

53:07

his last two races. So

53:10

yeah, I think that there's certainly, I would

53:13

think just physiologically, yes, especially

53:15

like maybe finishing a run

53:18

and then immediately going, whether it's a

53:20

sauna hot tub immediately applying some heat.

53:22

I think that there, it

53:25

would make sense to me where there could be some real

53:27

benefits to that. And again, I

53:29

think there were just at the tip of the iceberg of learning about

53:31

that. And I think that the cool

53:34

part is, is athletes like, like David,

53:36

like Christian and Gustav who are experimenting

53:38

with this and you know, they're learning

53:40

about it faster than the science. Cause

53:43

you know, the science is really only

53:45

studying what these people are doing. So

53:49

I certainly don't know. I think so. And I

53:51

think that we'll know a lot more in the

53:53

coming years. But yeah, if

53:55

any of your followers are not, any of your

53:58

listeners are not following David on Twitter. It's

54:01

like the best endurance book ever just reading

54:03

his tweets and seeing all the experimenting that

54:06

he's doing with his body and really, really

54:08

cool stuff with heat for sure. Yeah, I

54:10

recently interviewed him after his Leadville win and

54:12

course record and learned a

54:15

lot about his approach to the

54:17

training process. He's really big at

54:19

using a hot tub after his

54:21

runs. He'll go for a run

54:23

or workout and then he'll spend

54:26

up to 30 minutes in the hot tub to get

54:29

the benefits of that extra blood

54:31

volume. It seems like it's

54:33

working for him whether he use a hot tub

54:35

or use a sauna. I know that there's been

54:37

a lot of research into sauna use and it

54:39

seems to have incredible general

54:41

health benefits, particularly for

54:44

men. I've seen a lot of studies

54:46

around the health benefits on men and

54:49

unclear on if that is directly

54:51

applicable to women, but I'm sure it's very similar.

54:53

I need

54:55

to get a sauna now, Brad. I know.

54:57

The house we bought five years ago,

55:00

they had a sauna when we made

55:03

a list of things we wouldn't

55:05

mind them leaving. That was the top of

55:08

the list. I was like, if you want to lead the sauna, lead

55:10

the sauna. But now when we got

55:12

there, the sauna was gone unfortunately. Yeah, sauna

55:15

and hot tub are definitely pretty high on my list

55:17

for Yeah, sounds nice. We

55:19

need the wellness backyard

55:21

where we've got the sauna, the

55:23

ice plunge, the workout

55:25

machines and just have a big health and

55:27

wellness party out there. You're in Boulder, right?

55:29

I feel like that's a thing. I feel

55:31

like everyone should have that in Boulder. Yeah,

55:33

I'm in Denver, but close enough. You'd be

55:35

surprised. A lot of people, yeah, they

55:38

do have that. Health shed in the backyard, it must

55:40

be nice. Well,

55:42

Brad, this was super interesting. And I'm

55:44

glad that you've done this deep dive

55:46

into the Norwegian method of training, because

55:48

I think we're learning a lot about

55:51

different ways that we can get

55:53

better results out on the

55:55

road, out on the track. And that's really

55:58

interesting for us mere mortals looking at this.

56:00

the training of elite runners because we can

56:02

always adapt what works for them for us.

56:04

So thank you so much for

56:06

your expertise and your time today. I hope

56:08

everyone checks out the Norwegian method. I assume

56:11

it's available everywhere. Is that right? Yeah. Amazon

56:13

is probably the easiest place for most people

56:15

at Barnes and Noble if you still do

56:18

the brick and mortar thing, which I'd love

56:20

that too. But yeah,

56:22

available now. So

56:24

go get it. Thank you. And Brad,

56:26

if people want to follow you and

56:28

your work, are you on the internet

56:30

somewhere as well? Yes. I'm on X

56:32

or Twitter, whatever we call it now.

56:34

It's at bb.culp. B-B-C-U-L-P. And

56:37

then I am on

56:39

Instagram. I really

56:41

just post pictures of my

56:44

kids and us going fishing. So

56:47

there's not much endurance stuff on there,

56:49

but it's like the opposite. It's Culp bb

56:51

on there. So yeah, you can find

56:53

me in their place. Kids are an endurance sport, Brad. Yeah,

56:56

I did. It's

56:58

funny because we're talking about David Roach. I did it

57:00

back and forth with him on Twitter, talking about how

57:04

you can kind of use them as training. Like

57:06

I had to cut a long run short one

57:08

day, but I blowed it up in a wagon

57:10

and push them around the zoo for six miles.

57:12

So like, yeah, you can certainly, they

57:15

can definitely be a benefit to your training

57:17

if you do it right. Yeah. There are

57:19

some days where I don't do any formal

57:21

exercise. I consider it dad training days. And

57:24

I'll still get in 12,000 steps and be

57:26

very active throughout the day

57:30

because I'm playing with my kids and we're going

57:32

places and we're going for a walk and

57:34

I'm carrying them and everything else. And

57:36

so I think David has

57:38

talked about how that's got to count for

57:40

something because it really is a

57:42

lot of work. Yeah, it might not

57:45

show up on Strava, but that's actual

57:47

stimulus. It's volume that you're getting in

57:49

and yeah, hauling two kids upstairs and

57:51

yeah, it's not easy. Yeah. Wait until

57:53

they're having a tantrum and then that's

57:55

a good core workout right there. Absolutely.

57:57

All right, Brad. Well, thanks. again

58:00

for your time. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you, Jason. What

58:03

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58:05

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58:07

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