Tempo pace for high schoolers

Duty free wrote:

Should I use my 3200m time to calculate that because that's what I mostly raced all season. Online calculators say I should tempo at 5:50ish. Based on experience, is this a good idea? Faster? Slower?

For tempo I'd use the longer race, the 5k in your case, which gets you to 5:50 using the Daniels tables (

). I would use that as a "speed limit" for the first month of tempos and then re-evaluate, with the help of your coach if possible, as you go. Slower (particularly under adverse (hot summer) conditions) is better than faster. Keep in mind that you are early in the training cycle for fall XC and your coach should have you doing faster work as the cycle progresses.

Citizen Runner wrote:

Duty free wrote:

Should I use my 3200m time to calculate that because that's what I mostly raced all season. Online calculators say I should tempo at 5:50ish. Based on experience, is this a good idea? Faster? Slower?

For tempo I'd use the longer race, the 5k in your case, which gets you to 5:50 using the Daniels tables (

http://runworks.com/calculator.html

). I would use that as a "speed limit" for the first month of tempos and then re-evaluate, with the help of your coach if possible, as you go. Slower (particularly under adverse (hot summer) conditions) is better than faster. Keep in mind that you are early in the training cycle for fall XC and your coach should have you doing faster work as the cycle progresses.

Perfect thanks. I checked out that table did you get tempo from Marathon pace?

Start out 1:15 slower than your 1600 fitness and ramp up to :45 slower than your 1600 fitness.

Looks like you were in shape for 4:33-4:36 for 1600, or about 4:35-4:38 for a mile. Probably about 16:05-16:10 shape for 5000.

Therefore, start them around 5:50 and ramp up to about 5:20 by the time you're halfway through the set. Let it come to you, don't force it.

It's the threshold pace. The M pace is much closer to what is sometimes referred to as "steady-state'.

Jack Daniels T pace is really fast, it works in ideal conditions, but not always practical. Especially in the summer, I would favor longer than 20 minutes at slower than daniels T pace. Keep it mentally easy, Tempo runs shouldn't be extremely difficult. Just get comfortable running fairly long at an effort between an easy run and 5k pace.

Just posted this in another thread...

Calculators are silly for determining tempo pace. If you are going in thinking, I need to hit X pace on a tempo run, you have it all wrong. You should let the pace come to you on a tempo run and feel "in the zone," as Malmo says in the thread below.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/f...ad=4440529

35-40 mpw

Do 6-7 miler, with 10-15 minutes easy then 20-25 min at slightly easier than 5k pace, (i.e. if 5k pace is 80% effort, try 70%) or as my coach used to say, somewhere between race pace and daily running pace., then the remainder easy as cool down

Most high schoolers are not yet acquainted enough with their running bodies to determine what the "feel 'in the zone' " is.

Given that most HS runners, run too fast on tempos setting a floor pace is a great idea. I agree with others. Based on your 5k, use 5:50. On any given day you might not be able to hit this.

Learn to trust yourself and not doubt your fitness or subjective feel. If you feel crappy, its probably because something is up, so cut yourself some slack and run slower than 5:50. If you're feeling great, keep the pace controlled at 5:50 anyway. After doing that several times and continually feeling great, then you can consider dropping the pace. If you're doing right you should not feel too daunted by these workouts, but rather look forward too them.

Good luck!

heyyo wrote:

Most high schoolers are not yet acquainted enough with their running bodies to determine what the "feel 'in the zone' " is.

Given that most HS runners, run too fast on tempos setting a floor pace is a great idea. I agree with others. Based on your 5k, use 5:50. On any given day you might not be able to hit this.

Learn to trust yourself and not doubt your fitness or subjective feel. If you feel crappy, its probably because something is up, so cut yourself some slack and run slower than 5:50. If you're feeling great, keep the pace controlled at 5:50 anyway. After doing that several times and continually feeling great, then you can consider dropping the pace. If you're doing right you should not feel too daunted by these workouts, but rather look forward too them.

Good luck!

I'm actually pretty good at getting in a zone during workouts. And I love tempo runs because in the past I've done them correctly. I just know that this summer me and my buddies will be tempoing and I'll try to 5:50 pace and they'll say I wasn't working hard enough because I didn't hit 5:32 for any of the miles. I guess I'll have to deal with them.

But yeah I always look forward to tempo runs and I know if I did them right if I can slow down to a nice easy jog without stopping after the tempo part for my cooldown. I did one this winter at 5:45 and I was in maybe 10:20 shape and I couldn't really jog that well after. I felt right and sore and I knew I did it wrong.

Another thing: I think there are 2 reasons that high schoolers (like myself) tend to screw up tempo runs:

1) classic thought process that faster=more benefit

2) tempos are generally done in the base phase when you're not racing usually at all. I always feel "full of run" during this part and i guess it makes me want to sprint a tempo run.

Thanks everyone for the responses.

heyyo wrote:

Most high schoolers are not yet acquainted enough with their running bodies to determine what the "feel 'in the zone' " is.

This is a lousy excuse.