The Norwegian Model Revisited

Kristiansand, April 21, 2025

The original article on the Norwegian model of lactate threshold training was written in 2022 and hasn’t been changed since. It was written to provide a descriptive overview of the system.

Recently, it has once again been brought into the public debate, connected to the Ingebrigtsen trials, where their father reiterated that the model described had no influence on the training methods used by the Ingebrigtsens :

Their father and coach Gjert Ingebrigtsen, stated in court: “This system is mine and only mine. No one has influenced it, internally or externally. If anyone believes they have contributed, they are free to show it. Until then, it is solely mine,” (article in VG.no).

This is not correct, a point even noted by his son Henrik in a 2020 podcast (38:40 and onwards), and further elaborated on in an article in Stavanger Aftenblad , in addition to the original article.

To provide deeper insight and historical context, I revisited my training diaries to trace the origins and evolution of the model’s structural elements. My hope is that this retrospective offers additional useful perspective.

More than anything, I want to shed light on how a shared commitment to learning, adaptation, and mentorship shaped the training model described.

Over the years, I’ve had the great privilege of learning from some of the most insightful and generous minds in running.

What follows is a chronological reflection—closely tied to the original article—along with some thoughts on how this type of training can be effectively adapted for the summer months. This is a topic many have asked about, but which I hadn’t addressed in detail until now.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read the original article to understand the background. For further context, there’s also an English summary of the podcast I Det Lange Løp, titled “Marius Bakken – In the Long Run.”

A Touch of Double Threshold Training

In the early 1990s, my main focus was the 800m and 1500m. In 1995–96, I spent a year at York High School in the U.S. as an exchange student under legendary coach Joe Newton.

That year marked my first real exposure to high-mileage training. His high school runners regularly ran upwards of 160 km (100 miles) per week.

Coach Newton’s high mileage philosophy was shaped by Arthur Lydiard, a close friend and fellow coach with whom he conducted clinics.

Newton would also focus heavily on bulks of interval training combined with the high general training load, including the exact 25 x 400 meter session we would do every Wednesday, later transferred over and extensively used in the Norwegian model as a standard session there as well.

Moving forward, before the 1984 Olympics, Newton had also worked with Sebastian Coe. As a young runner, Coe was my role model. Through Newton, I was introduced to his father and coach Peter Coe, who introduced me to short double threshold sessions during the winter of 1995–96. That experience would go on to shape the direction of my own training.

Excerpts from an example-week of that can be found in the original article.

Even back then, I was struck by how effective the approach was with doing that type of doubles. I kept returning to it, refining it with time, and eventually building it into the foundation of the model.

Furthermore, Peter’s philosophy of training at multiple paces showed me the value of structured variation within a consistent framework even for threshold training.

Peter and I remained in touch until 2002 through emails, his visits to Norway, and stays in Chelsea, London. There I stayed in Sebs old room and ran some of Sebastian’s routes— including an overgrown hill by the Thames, which was one of my first experiences with hill training.

One of the main benefits of hill running is the specific tuning into higher end training above the anaerobic threshold, with large recruitment of muscle fibers, without the wear-and-tear that often accompanies flat, high-speed sessions.

Peter Coe used two main hill formats: long efforts (600–800m) and shorter, steeper sprints (180–200m).

I tested both during my time in London and from looking at my training diary I would come back to this type of work, testing it over and over again – but would run into muscular trouble doing it systematically. Instead, I adapted the sessions to flat terrain—a decision that worked better for my physiology.

However, I believe I was an exception to this.

Eric Toogood later cleverly reintroduced the Coe style short-hill running to Bjørnar Kristensen and it is now the common “X element” in what is often referred to as the standard winter week on the Norwegian model of lactate acid training : it keeps the muscular system going, trigger some but not too much of the anaerobic elements while at the same with have an absolute focus on developing a high anaerobic threshold.

For most, that type of hill running during base training is for sure worth testing out.

Bob Kennedy, 12:58, and the Kenyans

After returning from York, I spent a year in Norway before attending Indiana University. There, I trained under Sam Bell, the collage-coach of Bob Kennedy who was the first non-African to break 13:00 in the 5000 meter.

In the fall of 1997, I trained with Kennedy on Indiana’s cross-country course. He had just come off a rest- period following a demanding international season, while I was building toward cross-country peak. This allowed me to join him in interval sessions, again getting insight information from one the pioneers.

At the time, Kennedy was training with a group of Kenyans, including former 3000-meter world record holder Daniel Komen (who has since been surpassed by Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s fantastic 7:17 world record performance).

Those conversations sparked an interest in Kenyan training methods and runners—an interest I would later explore firsthand while training in Kenya.

One key takeaway was the idea that perceived effort among Kenyan athletes is more finely tuned and controlled compared to most non-African runners. He was absolutely right. I later confirmed this through actual lactate testing of Kenyan athletes at training camps, which helped refine the accuracy of my own training approach, as described in the first article.

My final summer training plan would later include elements inspired by the talks with Kennedy —specifically a session of 1000 meters followed by 300 meters —but controlled by lactate rather than just pace : structurally similar, but functionally different.

The session Kennedy did was a 6 x 1000 meter session followed by 300 intervals. He would generally do this at 3k pace. At the end of this article I will touch into some thought on how summer training can be done using the models framework as a winter base and in there you can read more about that session.

Basically, 4 days before races I would do a series of 4-6 x 1000 meters followed by 3-7 x 300 meters. I would then run close to 3k pace and look at the curve of lactate during the session. The session before my 5k personal record in Rome was 2.32.8, 2.32.3 and 2.32.3 for the first three 1000 meter intervals, with a lactate acid curve between interval 2+3 almost flat. From my experience this was one of the most potent ways of actually knowing where you were in terms of performance. In addition to that, if you were losing shape it will also show for sure – with a sharp lactate curve going uphill at critical points of the session whille the pace staying the same.

Although I left Indiana after just one year, witnessing the training of the world’s fastest non-African runner up close gave me invaluable insight into a high-performance environment. It also helped me recognize that this particular training model—especially during the critical base phase—didn’t align with my own strengths and needs.

Mileage, Continuous vs. Interval Training

When I returned to Norway in late 1998, my former coach Per Halle welcomed me back. A 13:27 runner and 1972 Olympic finalist (7th in the race where Viren won, with Prefontaine in 4t), Per had coached me on and off from a young age. He lived just a few hundred meters from my family home.

We talked at length about my training struggles. Eventually, we made a bold decision: I would copy his exact 1972 training diary for the 1999 season. That experiment ended with a 13:22 5000m. I followed it session by session, moving the mileage up til 180 km per week from January 1999 to mirror him.

While going through Per’s old diaries, I came across another interesting detail. After his strong 1972 season, he had twins—including Gunhild Halle Haugen, who would later run 31:47 for the 10k.

With a full-time job and less available time, he had to compress his training—often running to and from work, including the hard training days.

As a result, many of his harder sessions shifted from traditional intervals to more continuous efforts. You could clearly see the negative influence this had on his performance leading into 1973, reversed again in 1974.

This aligned with what I had observed in Peter Coe’s training and later confirmed through lactate testing. While continuous efforts have their place, intervals offer a higher return relative to muscular load—a key insight that stayed with me.

That principle stuck with me for the rest of my career—and eventually became central to the model.

It also taught me to consider the cost of a session, not just its minutes of intensity. That perspective led me to prioritize intervals, particularly through double threshold sessions, to push the training ceiling without compromising muscular system and wearing it down.

An interesting point here is that isolated studies show the opposite : the “effect” of continuous effort vs. interval in isolation seems greater. However, this is missing an important point : the limiting factor in terms of load comes (mostly) down to the muscular system in running. So you need to weight the sessions effect vs. actual load and try to fill as much as possible of the “correct” training while balancing the muscular system.

Lactate Testing

In the winter of 1999, I got involved in a project run by the Norwegian Athletics Federation, involving Espen Tønnessen, Ørjan Madsen, and Frank Evertsen.

Evertsen had a deep and unique understanding of lactate threshold training and in-field lactate testing, as well as years of experience working with Kenyan runners.

You can find more on his research [here] and [here], as well as in an article he published on my own site in 2000.

That winter, we gradually began field-testing lactate on some sessions through the project, and by 2000, we were applying it in every session.

Since age 14, I had been doing biannual lactate profile tests at physiologist Mosers labs in Tønsberg. These were used to control training zones by heart rate, but I had never used lactate testing during actual sessions.

This changed the game—it allowed for much more precise session control and evaluation.

From 2000 to 2002, Frank and I worked closely together. It was a rich period of experimentation and knowledge-development and sharing. We could build it on my previous experiences and structural understanding, refining it into a system that was now closely monitored/adjusted by lactate data.

We tested various threshold formats, guided by Frank’s expertise. He also introduced me to the concept of muscle tone, via his colleague Johnny Høgseth, which became a vital factor in managing training load.

Lastly, he introduced me to altitude training—leading to my first trip to Kenya in 2000. That allowed for even higher threshold development and gave us the chance to observe and cross-test Kenyan training intensities firsthand, as referred to above.

We even experimented with extreme days—up to four-five sessions in a single day—mixing threshold and sprint components.

A Typical Training Day (2000–2002)

Looking back at my actual training logs/notes, a typical structure during that time looked like this – at altitude:

Monday: 8 x 1000m at 5–8 mmol lactate
Mid-week: Long threshold on Wednesday or Thursday, or both days.
Saturday: Shorter, faster efforts (e.g. 200m intervals) often combined with threshold in the evening
Sunday: A single run, never exceeding one hour

Also, in both the fall of 2000 and 2001 I would do heavy experiments with high threshold load to see where the “limit” would be.

At this time I would also periodize training with two weeks harder, one week easier – later I would change that into a more flat system based on more data.

Tuning the Current System

After a difficult 2002 season, I was once again training alone when the coaching relationship with Evertsen was brought to an end.

I tried returning to my earlier training model in the fall of 2002 and 2003, but with limited success—running 13:35 at best, compared to my 13:09 PB and 9th place finish at the 2001 World Championships.

Recovery became harder after the 2002 struggle, and I began experimenting again to further optimize the system.

Some key changes followed :

I removed the 5–8 mmol 1000m sessions in the winter entirely
Reduced volume in single threshold sessions, but doubled up with systematic double threshold training several times weekly over long periods of time
Structurally flat weeks

Sidenote : The idea of using structurally flat training weeks was inspired by Alex Stanton, Paula Radcliffe’s coach. I got in touch with him in the fall of 2003, thanks to Ståle Jan Frøynes, who kindly helped make the connection. Alex and I spoke over the phone. I shared my training approach at the time, and we compared notes. While I was following the common cycle of two hard weeks followed by one easier week, Alex described a more even, consistent structure—where each week looked quite similar, with adaptation more over the the full training cycle (winter, spring, and summer) but still using altitude as an element of variation. The shift to a flatter weekly structure brought a greater sense of control and stability to my training. When paired with an increased focus on double threshold sessions, it allowed for steady progress without the same risk of overreaching. It was a simple but powerful adjustment.

Adjusted the lactate levels slightly down from previous levels

During this period, I worked with Leif Olav Alnes—sprint coach to Geir Moen (10.07, 1994 European Champion) and later Karsten Warholm (400m hurdles world record, 45.94).

Alnes had helped me with sprint and explosive training since 2000-2001 and had also influenced my thinking around clustering hard sessions based on his experience with sprinters as explained in the original article.

Before the 2003 season, I asked him to join me during training sessions. It was a long process of convincing, but eventually he said yes after going through with him precisely what I needed help with. He is one of the brightest training minds out there.

His systematic approach helped structure the training week more precisely thereafter, together with Ståle Jan Frøynes (jokingly what he called a fanclub of two at the time) Frøynes had been with the team since 1999, following the development of the training but also with a great understanding on distance running in general and he now took a more active part to try change the system into the most effective possible.

I would throw out structural ideas and Alnes would use his understanding of load vs. recovery to help balance the training weeks.

Alnes would again share his experience with the sprinters and it in particular helped me back down on the total load of threshold on each session and instead keep an focus on double threshold, with somewhat shorter threshold sessions.

Again and speaking of knowledge transfers, Alnes still use lactate acid testing on Warholm – they do once a week a standard 2 x 20 min threshold session. For those interested, see this article which also talks about the heavy blocking/ clustering of training they do : An Inside Look at Karsten Warholm’s Revolutionary Training : “Karsten does some “tempo runs” on the easier days to increase volume and endurance. An example session is 20 x 2 mins on, 1 min rest on the treadmill. Just like the double threshold training, Leif monitors Karsten’s lactate levels after every 2-minute repeat, making sure he is not pushing himself too hard. Lactate is one of many measurements monitored during a tempo run to make sure Warholm is in the correct effort zone.”

By winter 2004, everything clicked. Reviewing my training log/diary from that time, it was the first time I followed what would later be recognized as the typical Norwegian model week during the base period, session by session :

Weekly structure from February 2004 (South Africa, Dullstrom at Altitude)

Monday: 2 easy runs, zone 1
Tuesday AM: Long intervals (6 x 2000m, lactate 2–3 mmol)
Tuesday PM: 20–25 x 400m (lactate close to 3.0)
Wednesday: 2 easy runs, zone 1
Thursday AM: 4 x 10 min intervals (lactate 2–3 mmol)
Thursday PM: 10–12 x 1000m intervals (lactate near 3.0)
Friday: 2 easy runs, zone 1
Saturday AM: 10 x 200 meters 26-28.
Sunday: Long run, never longer than 16–18 km

Total load : 180 km weekly

I reached a personal best of 13:06.39 in Rome (2004), the fastest 5000m time in Europe that year under sub-optimal race conditions compared to my previous personal record races.

Coming Full Circle

In 2022, I was contacted by the family of my former coach, Per Halle, to help mentor his grandson, Simen Halle Haugen—a 13:37 5K runner—with his training. I worked with him over a full-year cycle thereafter closely monitoring his training.

During this period, he became integrated into the Ingebrigtsen training group during their altitude camps in Sierra Nevada, where he consistently participated in their structured daily sessions – following as a blueprint the same weekly structure and sessions that had been developed 18 years earlier..

They would do the Tuesday morning 2000s, 400 meters evening, the Thursday morning 10 minutes, the evening 1000s before the “X element” on Saturday, for 180 km weekly.

Controlled by lactate sitting right between 2-3 mmol/l confirming a true example of a successful knowledge transfer.

Post-script

So, what about summer training using this type of training?

The goal of summer training, in my mind, is to find the optimal crossover between preserving the anaerobic threshold, sufficiently triggering the anaerobic system, recruiting the necessary muscle fibers, all while keeping the muscular system in balance.

The strength of the explained model is that it helps build a very high anaerobic threshold while significantly reducing muscular risk compared to other approaches. This directly addresses some of the limiting factors you often see in performance.

However, the model’s weakness is closely related: because the muscular system is consistently kept in balance through threshold work and lactate control, you need to be careful during this period to avoid trying to adapt to harder efforts too quickly.

The relative change in effort—transitioning from a base phase using this model to harder track work—is much more pronounced than for someone who has consistently done 1–2 harder track sessions year-round.

So, it’s important to take a gradual, safe, and controlled approach—with regular checkpoints along the way.

Summer training should focus on finding how low you can allow the anaerobic threshold to drop during this period, and how far you can stretch muscle recovery and tone before needing to return to normal levels in time for a tough (track) workout.

A smart way to approach this is by using lactate measurements—even in summer. There are various ways to implement this, depending on the distance you’re targeting.

Here’s a very basic example:

For a 5K–10K runner with a lactate threshold level of 3.0, and with the first race in June and a peak in August, you could begin adjusting training in late April or May with shorter track intervals of 300–400 meters, aiming for a lactate level of 6–8 initially. You’d measure every interval and ensure that the lactate curve isn’t too steep at the same pace. If it is, back off and allow more time before the next intense session.

You would then gradually increase the length of the intervals to, for example, 1000 meters at the same lactate range, eventually incorporating both shorter (200–400 meter) and longer intervals with lactate levels of 7–10.

During this phase, double threshold sessions are reduced to single threshold work, with only occasional doubles. Shorter threshold sessions with a lactate level near 2.0 can be done after races or the morning after to maintain some volume.

You may also include 2–3 x 2000-meter threshold runs as part of the warm-up, just to maintain volume. Based on lactate tests, I clearly saw the positive effect of putting the system in that state even before a race or hard effort and did this before all major races.

During this period, I would always do a standardized threshold run two days before races to ensure the system was functioning well, cross-checking this with heart rate and pace. A properly high heart rate, strong pace vs. lactate, and a muscular system that felt right were all good indicators that things were aligned in terms of aerobic system and threshold.

It was for sure green light.

In addition a standard test run at race-pace like the above 1000 meter session inspired by Kennedy is also smart, to make absolute sure that the system workout well even at an effort in that range.

You could then use races for higher-intensity work or intervals above 10–12 mmol/l lactate, but these require longer recovery periods between efforts to avoid placing excessive stress on the system. In my opinion, the tolerance to that kind of work is highly individual.

Personally, I occasionally did sessions like 4 x 400 meters in 55–57 seconds leading up to my personal best in the 1500 meters—but I used that type of training sparingly. I also noticed that after those sessions, recovery took much longer before my system felt properly balanced again, so did the measurements show.

Later in the summer, once you’ve already raced a few times, it can be a good moment to return to altitude. A short stay—just 7 to 10 days—is usually enough to lift the anaerobic threshold back up before the next competitive phase.

At that point, the muscular adaptations from earlier high intensity training are still present. You then quickly improve your pre-altitude threshold paces, and on top of that, you gain the benefits of the post-altitude response. This creates ideal conditions for peak racing and personal bests.

In summary, summer training doesn’t need to be overly intense or complicated – as long as you progress gradually, stay aware of the threshold pace you need to maintain, and include proper checkpoints along the way.