Training Insights From Norwegian Long Distance Runners: Ingebrigtsen brothers, Sondre Moen, Marius Bakken, Ingrid Kristiansen.
IngNorwegian long-distance runners are on the rise in athletics scene in the last two to three years. Especially the success of the three Ingebritsen brothers and the former European marathon record holder Sondre Moen. But already Ingrid Kristiansen was an outstanding runner from Norway in the 1980’s who has broken several world records from 5000m to marathon. She ran for example 14.37 in 5000m and marathon in 2.21.06 in 1985 and trained with a heart rate monitor and controlled her training by heart rate zone, which was very unknown in the 80’s But also Marius Bakken from Norway ran in the early 2000’s 13.06 in 5000m and he trained in very scientific way, by measuring lactate almost in all his training sessions.
Beginning with Ingrid, who won the London marathon in 1985 with a WR and came from cross country skiing, I want to bring the connection of the training philosophy from cross country skiing in Norway and her training approach in running up. In Norway cross country skiing is a national sport and has far more importance and financial support than long distance running. But the training for both sports has a lot of similarities in terms of distributions of intensity and training volume, as well the movement itself. For example, one of the best cross-country skiers in the world, Therese Johaug, just won recently the Norwegian 10.000m championships on track in 32.20 without specific preparation. Only 30 sec shies of the qualification standard for the world championships this year in Doha.
During winter Ingrid but also other Norwegian runners are forced to train a lot indoors on a treadmill, or to do cross-country skiing, because of the cold weather conditions there. Ingrid trained in her peak weeks up to 170 to 200 kilometres per week and did a lot threshold training likely the Ingebritsen nowadays. This could vary from 2 times 15min or 3 times 10min in lactate threshold zone to different forms of intervals like 2000m times 5 and so on. In my opinion Ingrid implemented the knowledge of the more scientific advanced training of the cross-country skiers in Norway in her own training. Running in general, especially in the east African countries like Kenya and Ethopia isn’t yet on the professional standard like cross country skiing in Norway. Of course, the runners from Kenya and Ethopia are the fastest in the world, but more because of their natural gifted talent and the perfect training environment, than professionalism of their training process but that’s a different topic.
Ingrid Kristiansen trained from 18.11.1985 up to 26.10.1986 in average 155 kilometres per week, which included 7.4% cross- country skiing, which is very specific anyway. 88% around of the total volume (6701km) were aerobic training. 4.7% were lactate threshold training, which was 3.10 to 3.40 min/km in her case, depending of the period of the season and length of the intervals. 3.5% were aerobic and only 0.37% anaerobic capacity training and the rest were competitions (3.6%), strides (0.12%). She did as well 65 plyometric workouts lasting around 10 to 15min and 37 strength trainings lasting as well around 15min. It’s obviously that most of her training was of course aerobic to support the threshold, anaerobic work and races. The key part was lactate threshold training, controlled by measuring lactate and heart rate.
But what does lactate threshold training means exactly. To answer this question, I want to come to the next successful Norwegian runner, Marius Bakken who held the 5000m national record of 13.06, run in 2004, which was broken recently by the great Jakob Ingebritsen in London Diamond league with the second place in 13.02 and a blistering last lap against the Ethopian Hagos Gebriwet. Marius had a 3.38 in 1500m and as well a 7.40 in 3000m on the track. Marius used to have a very scientific approach as well in training and was known for measuring lactate every single session.
Marius wrote long time ago on a message board by himself an explanation of running threshold training in the most accurate way. Against what most literature say, he recommends staying at around 3mmol lactate during the sessions and not at 4mmol. The figure 4mmol is based on athletes who don’t have a long background in endurance training. The better someone is endurance trained, the lower the figure can be. It can vary from 2.2 to 3.3 lactate. According to Marius this is approximately 80 to 87 % of the maximum heart rate of the athlete. In the case of Marius, the threshold before he ran 13.06 was at around 2.53-2.54 min/km and at around 88% of the maximum HR. Its possible to push this threshold heart rate higher, when you are in top shape. The threshold pace is usually between the half and marathon pace for a top athlete.
It’s also important to consider the length of the intervals, if you want to run exactly at your lactate threshold. Marius used 6min intervals as reference, if the training intervals are only 3min he could go down around 1-2 seconds per kilometre and if they were 10min, he added 1-2 sec/km to hit the exact pace. It is to be expected that the Ingebritsen brothers use this knowledge of their country mates in their own training as well.
Following training aspects about the Ingebritsen are cited from different sources like the Let’s run platform, their own interviews and IG profiles where they post sometimes pictures of their watches, like after a 20k long run in 3.40 min/km. As known Henrik Ingebrigtsen the oldest brother doesn’t train right now with the two other brothers Filip and Jakob, as he has been struggling with some smaller injuries and isn’t at the same level like the other two. Nevertheless, Henrik ran this year 13:15 in 5000m and the national record in 3000m in 7:36.85, which was an impressive performance. Henrik was 2012 1500m European champion and in my opinion the experiences of Henrik play a big part in their brothers’ recent success. All three Ingebrigtsen brothers are coached by their father Gjert Ingebritsen.
The three Ingebrigtsen brothers train, depending on the season at different locations in the world, but they train a lot in high altitude like Flagstaff and St. Moriz in Switzerland. Gjert, their father coach, said one time that the natural speed of all three isn’t that high, but they train to improve their speed endurance, and this is crucial for success in long distance running but also in middle distances like the 1500m, what is the prime event of all three of them. Jakob is currently ranked number 2 in the world, just behind the extraordinary Timothy Cheruiyot from Kenya, who just claimed the Diamond Trophy for a third consecutive time and seems to be unbeatable for the upcoming WC in Doha. Timothy ran as well a 1.43.11 at 800m in the national trails in Nairobi (1700m altitude).
But Jakob I. is a hot contender for a medal. It is to be expected that the 5000m is the distance most suitable for Jakob. The last lap in London DL, where he ran 13.02, was around 54sec and showed his incredible ability for this event and that he could break 13min in a different paced race already.
Please note: this article was written by a European coach familiar with the Ingebrigtsen’s training. The article hasn’t been edited to correct grammar or brevity but rather published as submitted.
