Last Tuesday, I did my first track workout in years: 3 sets of 2 x 800m on a 4:20 pace, with a 30-second recovery between reps and 3 minutes between sets. I laced up my shoes and headed to the track with a plan.

I hit the line for the first interval, finished, and glanced at my watch: 3:51. Thirty seconds too fast. Crap.

I walked through my brief recovery and started again. Rep two: 3:54. Crap again.

After a 3-minute walking break, I stepped back on the line for the second set. Just 400 meters into the next rep, I was absolutely toast. I took a 30-second walk and tried one more time, but by the next 400 meters, I was practically walking. Realizing the day was a wash, I packed it in and jogged home.

The Trap of the “Kinda Hard” Run

The first thing that ran through my head on the way home was, Wow, did that suck. All this technology on my wrist, and I still can’t get it right.

But as the frustration settled, a memory from a couple of years ago flashed into my mind. I was out on a long run when I crossed paths with one of the competitive runners I coach. She looked over at me and asked, “Is this a Zone 1 run?”

I jokingly answered, “I’ve never been able to find Zone 1.”

And there it was. The fundamental truth I had been preaching to my athletes for the last five years was the exact thing I was failing to do myself. Nearly all of my daily mileage had drifted into that seductive Zone 2 to Zone 3 gray zone. I wasn’t running easy enough to recover, which meant when I stepped onto the track last Tuesday, I was already carrying deep, residual fatigue. (It also didn’t help that I paced the first 800m like an idiot).

The Norwegian Twist: Too Hard, All the Time

As it turns out, my track blow-up perfectly demonstrated the exact physiological trap that Marius Bakken discusses in the introduction of his book, The Norwegian Method Applied (forwarded by Steve Magness).

For years, my personal coaching philosophy has been that runners train too hard on their easy days, and as a direct result, are forced to train too easy on their hard days because they aren’t recovered enough to hit their true targets.

Bakken, however, introduces a slight, fascinating twist. He argues the reality is even worse: standard training models actually cause athletes to run too hard on easy days AND too hard on hard days. They blow past their optimal threshold limits during quality sessions, accumulating massive autonomic fatigue and high acidosis, while simultaneously grinding through recovery runs at a “kinda hard” pace.

While our diagnoses differ slightly, Bakken and I land on the exact same conclusion: runners spend far too much time in an unproductive, exhausting gray zone where they are simply too tired to produce real physiological adaptations.

The Plan

To fix my own training and refine my coaching, I am going to spend the next few weeks reading, evaluating, and putting Bakken’s Norwegian Method into action.

This is going to be an ongoing, chapter-by-chapter exploration of the science of sub-threshold training and lactate dynamics. Check back here to see how the experiment goes—and whether I can finally find my Zone 1.

Ready to achieve your personal best, guided by a coach who understands running from the inside out? Hire Coach Burger , an elite private running coach and retired Doctor of Chiropractic, who combines championship-level training with a professional mastery of human biomechanics.

Coach Burger brings an unparalleled understanding of functional movement and injury prevention to every session. This clinical approach ensures that not only do you train harder, but you train smarter and safer. Coach Burger’s core coaching philosophy is that most runners run too hard on their easy days and too easy on their hard days, ultimately failing to maximize their potential.

This strategic and biomechanically sound methodology yields exceptional results across all disciplines: Coach Burger’s athletes include twelve State Champion hurdlers, a State Champion 4x800m Relay Team, and eleven All-State distance runners (XC, 1600m, 3200m) as well as recreational runners from the 5k to the marathon. Whether you are targeting a marathon, improving track speed, or seeking an injury-proof running career, choose the coach with the clinical expertise to build you into a true champion.

You can reach Coach Burger at [email protected].  Look for his website runnersedgecoaching.com to launch soon.