Norwegian Singles Method
Three controlled sessions a week, everything else easy. Here's how it works, and a calculator that builds your week from the time you have and a recent 5K.
Build your week
Your weekly running time, how many days you can run, and a 5K from the last six weeks (a raced parkrun counts).
The full method needs at least 5 h 12 a week (312 minutes): enough for three sessions without shortchanging the easy running. If you have less, down to 3 h 44 (224 minutes), you get a gateway instead: a slightly gentler week, and a path of small steps that builds you up to the full method.
What is the Norwegian Singles Method?
It's a way of training built around one idea: do a lot of running that's hard but controlled, and keep everything else properly easy.
Norway's elite distance runners are known for "double threshold" days: two measured sessions just under threshold in a single day, several times a week. That suits a full-time athlete with time to recover. The Norwegian Singles Method, developed by James Copeland (sirpoc84 on the running forums), keeps the principle and fits it into one run a day: three sub-threshold sessions a week, with easy running in between.
Copeland took himself from an 18-minute 5K to 15:01 in his forties, and a large online community has grown up around it. The method is set out in full in Norwegian Singles Method: Subthreshold Running Kept Simple by James Copeland and Asha Zimmerman, which is worth reading if you take it up.
Why sub-threshold?
Your lactate threshold is the effort where lactate starts building faster than your body clears it: roughly what you could race for an hour. Just above it, fatigue climbs quickly and you need days to recover. Just below it, you still get a strong aerobic stimulus, but you're fresh again in a day or two.
So instead of one or two very hard sessions a week, you run three moderate ones, week after week. Over a year that adds up to far more quality running than a program that leaves you flat after every workout. Consistency does the work.
The rules of a singles week
- Three sessions, three rep lengths
Short reps of about 3 minutes, medium reps of about 6, and long reps of about 10, with an easy day between each.
- About a quarter of the week, no more
Rep time adds up to 20–25% of your weekly running. The rest, including warm-ups and jog recoveries, is easy.
- Easy means easy
Conversational, around 60–70% of max heart rate. Easy days are what let you run three sessions a week.
- The long run is just a longer easy run
About a fifth of the week, at the same easy effort. It's not a second workout.
- Same week, again and again
No planned down weeks and no big jumps. Hold a volume for about a month, then step up by a small amount.
- Paces from a current 5K
Not an old PB. Retest every four weeks or so and update your paces.
How the calculator builds your week
Everything scales from your weekly time, so no two volumes need a separate plan.
- Sub-threshold budget. A quarter of your weekly minutes, split as evenly as possible across the three sessions.
- Session sizes. Each session climbs a fixed ladder as your time grows. Short reps add reps, then lengthen to 4 minutes. Medium reps add reps, then lengthen. Long reps lengthen from 10 to 12 minutes, then add a fourth rep. A session never shrinks when you add time.
- Every session is 10 minutes easy, the reps, and 10 minutes easy. Recoveries are 60 seconds for short reps, 90 for medium and 2 minutes for long.
- Long run is 22% of the week. The easy runs share what's left, and the long run is always at least 10 minutes longer than any of them.
- Days. Sessions on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, the long run on Sunday. The 6-day week drops Monday's easy run and shares its minutes out.
| Session | Pace | From | Up to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short reps | 15K pace | 8 × 3 min | 12 × 4 min |
| Medium reps | Half marathon pace | 4 × 6 min | 6 × 8 min |
| Long reps | 30K pace | 3 × 10 min | 4 × 12 min |
Under 5 h 12 a week: the gateway
Three full sessions need at least 78 minutes of reps, so the full week starts at 5 h 12 (312 minutes). Between 3 h 44 and that, you get a gateway week: smaller short and medium sessions, and the long-rep day is run at marathon pace (2 or 3 × 10 minutes), which is noticeably gentler. Add about 10% every four weeks and you reach the full week within five months.
Under 3 h 44 there isn't room for three sessions while keeping easy runs worthwhile. Build your easy running first.
Pace and heart rate
Each rep length has its own pace, taken from the race you could run at that effort. Shorter reps are a little quicker because there's less of them. All three sit just under threshold. The calculator predicts each race pace from your 5K with the Daniels–Gilbert equations (the model behind VDOT), then gives a band of 4 seconds per km either side.
- Short reps (3–4 min): 15K race pace
- Medium reps (6–8 min): half marathon pace
- Long reps (10–12 min): 30K race pace
- Gateway steady reps (10 min): marathon pace
Pace is the target and heart rate is the guardrail. Use your threshold heart rate as a ceiling you stay under. Hot days, hills and wind all push heart rate up, so slow down to stay under it. The session should end feeling like you could have done another rep.
Don't know your threshold heart rate? The race calculator gives your threshold pace, and the setup guide shows how to find the heart rate.
Moving up
The method rewards patience. Most runners keep improving for months at the same weekly volume, just by updating their paces. Step up only when the 5K stops improving.
- Every 4 weeks: run a 5K time trial or parkrun in place of the short session. It counts as that week's session.
- Faster: stay at the same volume with the new paces.
- Levelled off, and you did 90% or more of your sessions: add about 5% to your weekly time.
- Missed a week: repeat the week. Missed 2–3 weeks: come back at about 85% and ease in. A month or more: start again at about 70%.
- Racing: a 5K needs no taper. Longer races get a short one and a quick return to normal training.
Questions
- Is the Norwegian Singles Method only for fast runners?
- No. It was built for people with jobs and families who can run once a day. Every pace comes from your own 5K, so a 30-minute 5K runner does the same sessions as a 17-minute runner, just at their own speed.
- How many hours a week do I need?
- About 3 h 45 a week (224 minutes) for the gentler gateway week, and 5 h 12 (312 minutes) for the full three-session week. Below that, easy running builds more fitness than squeezing in sessions.
- Can I run the sessions on different days?
- Yes. What matters is an easy day between sessions and the long run at the end of the week. Never put two sessions on back-to-back days.
- What if I go over threshold heart rate?
- Slow down. Heart rate may reach your threshold near the end of the last rep of a long session, but it shouldn’t go over. If it regularly does, your paces are too fast: retest your 5K.
- Do I need a taper for a 5K or parkrun?
- No. Race it in place of that week’s short session and carry on. Longer races get a short taper: the race week for a 10K or half, about two weeks for a marathon.
MyRaceHub's calculator follows the principles of the Norwegian Singles Method as described by James Copeland and Asha Zimmerman. It is independent and not endorsed by the authors. The sessions and paces here are our own.