Train like a Norwegian

When Jakob Ingebrigtsen started winning Olympic golds, everyone wanted to know how he trained. A lot of the answer goes back to Marius Bakken, a Norwegian doctor and two-time Olympian who ran 13:06 for 5000 m. After 20 years and more than 5,500 lactate tests, his advice comes down to this: do lots of running just below your limit, instead of a little running right at it.

Run a bit slower, a lot more often

Coaches have long set threshold runs at about 4 mmol/L of blood lactate, the pace people call “comfortably hard”. In the late 1990s, Bakken tried backing off. When he ran his sessions at about 2.3–3.0 mmol/L, he got much better results.² He calls this the Golden Zone: “hard enough to adapt, controlled enough to repeat.”³

Why would slower be better? A 2023 review that Bakken co-wrote gives the reason: you don’t get as tired, so you recover sooner and can fit more good sessions into each week. Breaking the work into intervals also lets you run fairly fast without losing control.¹

When Bakken tested Kenyan runners in 2000, he noticed they already trained this way. Their hard sessions sat at lower, steadier lactate levels than the Norwegians’.²

Keep easy days easy

People talk about this part much less. Most of the week is easy running, which Bakken puts below 70% of maximum heart rate.² This is where most of us go wrong. Easy runs creep up to medium, hard days get pushed too hard, and you end up tired all the time without getting much fitter.

What sub-threshold feels like

Elite runners prick a finger and measure their lactate. You don’t need a meter. These rough guides are good enough:

• Effort: about 6 or 7 out of 10. Hard work, but you’re in control.
• Talk test: you can say a short sentence, but wouldn’t want a conversation.
• Pace: for most club runners, around half-marathon pace or a little slower.
• The finish: you finish feeling you could have done one or two more reps.

If you’re gasping and fighting through the last reps, you’ve gone too fast.

Sessions to try

Bakken’s intervals run anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes, with short breaks in between.² Three to start with:

• Long: 5 × 6 min, 1 min easy jog between
• Medium: 8 × 3 min, 1 min jog
• Short: 20 × 1 min, 30 sec jog

Once a week, add what Bakken calls an “X-session”: a few short uphill sprints of 8–10 seconds. They build speed without leaving you wrecked.³

A simple week for the rest of us

Elite runners do “double threshold” days, with two sessions in one day. Bakken says that only makes sense once you have years of high mileage behind you.³ If you also have a job, college or a family, one session a day is plenty:

Day	Session
Monday	Rest
Tuesday	Sub-threshold: long reps
Wednesday	Easy 40–50 min
Thursday	Sub-threshold: short reps
Friday	Rest or easy 30 min
Saturday	Easy run + hill sprints
Sunday	Long easy run

Start with about 20 minutes of sub-threshold running per session and build up over months, not weeks.

For elite athletes

The full version, as the review describes it, is three or four lactate-guided threshold sessions and one faster session each week, with easy running taking the total to 150–180 km.¹ You’ll want a coach, a lactate meter and years of steady mileage before you try it.

Training in Indian cities

• Heat and humidity: in May or during the monsoon, the same pace takes a lot more out of you. Run by feel or heart rate, not by the pace on your watch, and go out at dawn.
• Pollution: on bad AQI days, do the session on a treadmill. Bakken used treadmills himself because they made his sessions easy to control and repeat.²
• Find a flat loop: a park, a track or a quiet stretch of road helps you hold a steady effort.

Training in the hills

• Altitude: in places like Pauri, at around 1,800 m, the thin air slows your sub-threshold pace, especially in the first week. Go by feel, not pace.
• Find the flattest stretch: constant ups and downs make steady running impossible. Use a track or the flattest road you can find, and time your reps instead of measuring them in distance.
• Use the slopes: save the hills for your weekly sprints.

References

1. Casado A, Foster C, Bakken M, Tjelta LI. Does lactate-guided threshold interval training within a high-volume low-intensity approach represent the "next step" in the evolution of distance running training? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2023;20(5):3782. doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20053782
2. Bakken M. The Norwegian model. mariusbakken.com/the-norwegian-model.html
3. Henderson J. Marius Bakken delivers the ultimate guide to the Norwegian Method. Athletics Weekly. 30 April 2026. athleticsweekly.com

For more depth, see Marius Bakken's book The Norwegian Method Applied (2026). This article is general education, not personal coaching or medical advice. If you're new to running or have a health condition, check with a doctor before adding hard sessions.