I hate tempo runs

Calm down. Looks like you are running your tempos too hard. Perhaps you could run an up tempo fartlek instead.

Devastator wrote:

Calm down. Looks like you are running your tempos too hard. Perhaps you could run an up tempo fartlek instead.

This... or run them slower like you're supposed to... or don't do them

I'm with you dude, tempo runs are the worst

If you hate tempo runs, it probably means it's the type of workout you'll benefit from the most. You have some options to get more out of it.

Break up the tempo run into 2-3 parts with a 2-3 minute jog in between. Rather than a 20-minute killer tempo, do 10-10, or 9-7-4.

Work up to it. If 20 minutes total is no fun, start with 5. Add a minute or two every week. In 10 weeks, you'll be looking forward to your weekly tempo run.

try this wrote:

If you hate tempo runs, it probably means it's the type of workout you'll benefit from the most. You have some options to get more out of it.

Break up the tempo run into 2-3 parts with a 2-3 minute jog in between. Rather than a 20-minute killer tempo, do 10-10, or 9-7-4.

Work up to it. If 20 minutes total is no fun, start with 5. Add a minute or two every week. In 10 weeks, you'll be looking forward to your weekly tempo run.

To add on to this good idea of breaking-up your tempo run & since you said you like speed work, try something like this:

*10 minute warm up

*2X10:00 @ tempo pace w/ 2:00 rest

*full recovery

*6X200 w/ full recovery

*10 minute cool down

Here, you get a good aerobic workout (that you dislike) AND a touch of speedwork (that you enjoy). It's the best of both worlds!

Good luck!

Sounds like he's not doing them hard enough actually.

Agree with OP on hating tempo runs.

Also agree with poster who says this means it's probably something that I'd most important and will yield biggest benefits.

Don't agree that his hatred stems from doing them too hard. I am pretty judicious about locking in right pace, and they kill me too. By the end of a 20 minute tempo I am counting down the time before it's over.

Definitely agree on breaking them up. A good rule of thumb is 1:00 of recovery for every 5:00 at tempo pace. I'd also suggest passive recovery (not jogging) as jogging even for a minute flushes out the waste products from your muscles and the point of the training session is to adapt to the buildup of those waste products.

I would break all of them up though. Aside from the physiological adaptation, there is a psychological benefit from forcing yourself to focus for 20 minutes straight, especially when you are feeling taxed. Few better ways to prepare for race day.

One other thing to consider is to stretch the tempo out to a 30 minute tempo run at about 8 seconds per mile slower pace. The net effect of the workout should be about the same (you will produce waste product at a slower rate, but for a longer time). But again, I wouldn't do this all the time for the reasons in the preceding paragraph.

Or you can break them up even more:

10-20 x 400 @ 10k pace w/jog 100m recovery (less than 60s, should be closer to 40s). The key, as in a normal tempo run, is not to go too fast in the 400s--you want to build up some lactic acid and flush it out in the jog recovery.

You can also do some fast 200s afterward.

BeReal wrote:

I hate tempo runs. I like easy runs. I like fast runs. I like speed work. I like hill runs. I hate tempo runs. I hate hate hate them. If you want to go easy go easy if you want to go hard go hard but nooo sometimes you have to do tempo work. Bulloks. I hate hate hate tempo runs. But what can you do? Every single week. at least once a week. Tempo tempo tempo blah blah blah.

Dont ever run a 1/2 marathon or a full. Its basically a tempo run.

kimani wrote:

Or you can break them up even more:

10-20 x 400 @ 10k pace w/jog 100m recovery (less than 60s, should be closer to 40s). The key, as in a normal tempo run, is not to go too fast in the 400s--you want to build up some lactic acid and flush it out in the jog recovery.

You can also do some fast 200s afterward.

I think this would be fun to do, but I question the benefit.

As a fundamental issue, I view the purpose of the workout to be to adapt to the accumulation of lactic acid (those with a certain perspective can substitute in the appropriate deleterious by product) and to adapt to clearing it.

With such short bouts of work (80 to 90 seconds), you really don't have enough time to build up lactic acid during any interval and by clearing it with jogging and such a long recovery (relative to the duration of the interval).

I am also not sure that the manner in which you are clearing lactic acid in this workout (to the extent any ever really builds up in the first place) leads to adaptation. I am a little less confident on this point, but I would think that you want your body to adapt to clearing lactic acid while it is still being produced rather than clearing it after production has started. As a general matter, it clears pretty quickly for everyone once you stop running, so clearing it that way in a workout doesn't seem to add much.

Given those two things, I always make my rest on cruise intervals passive rest instead of jogging. I want the lactic acid to still be there when I start my next cruise interval so as to maximize the opportunity for adaptation.

Flushing out what waste products? This sounds like pseudoscience.

The bottom line is, if you are unable to handle a straight tempo, do a fartlek instead. You can adjust the pace of the recovery segment to suite the shape you are in. If you have never done a fartlek/ tempo, give it a few weeks and you will adapt.

You are doing them too hard as well. My guess is you take a 2 mile race and use a table to come up with a tempo pace. Wrong. You need a 15k, 10 mile or HM race to figure your tempo pace. If you just don't have one and aren't likely to get one, you have to try different tempo paces until you find one that you are pleasantly tired when you finish.

If you ran 10 min for 3200 last spring, try 6:00 pace for your first one. Make sure you run both 3 x 100 stride and a 400 in 90 seconds before you start. Run the tempo as 6:08 (92 sec 400s), 6:00 (90 sec 400s) and 5:52 (88 sec 400s) on the track. If you are counting the seconds until you are done, run last one in 6:00 not 5:52. If you counted the seconds and bailed to a 6:00, run the next one as 6:16, 6:08, 6:00. If things went ok at 6:08, 6:00, 5:52, next time run 6:08, 6:00, 5:52 and one more 400 at 88 without stopping. You should be able to add one 88 sec 400 every week or two until you are running, 6:08, 6:00, 5:52, 5:52, 5:52.

Stick with adding to the 5:52 pace until your 3200 time improves to 9:52. You don't need to speed up the first two miles or go beyond 20 laps. Once your 3200 improves enough, you can go to 5:48 pace. You can not rush your improvement by running your tempos' faster.

"Don't agree that his hatred stems from doing them too hard. I am pretty judicious about locking in right pace, and they kill me too. By the end of a 20 minute tempo I am counting down the time before it's over."

I get why you would think this, but you are not correct.

I am a master's runner and I race across lots of distances (from the 5k (15:29 last season) to the marathon (2:30 last year)), and they are all pretty much in line with a tempo pace in the low 5:20s per Jack Daniels' calculations.

I also simulate tempo efforts on an elliptical when injured, using heart rate (between 99% and 92% of max heart rate) as a guide. The subjective feeling of stress during the elliptical sessions is similar to the subjective feeling of stress during my road tempo sessions.

The only time the subjective feeling of stress is lower is during cruise intervals on the track.

And I definitely adjust my pace to try to match the appropriate subjective feeling, especially since I deal with lots of heat and humidity; finding myself slowing to the low to mid 5:30s pretty often.

I think some folks just find training different systems to be harder than other folks. For me and the OP, that involves lactate threshold. For others it might be harder to train for running economy or vo2max.

Devastator wrote:

Flushing out what waste products? This sounds like pseudoscience.

Daniels goes into a fair amount of detail on how lactic acid is produced as a byproduct of your muscles burning glucose to produce energy in the absence of enough oxygen. I use more nebulous terms because there seems to be a growing consensus that it isn't the lactic acid itself that has a deleterious effect, but some other byproduct of the chemical reaction (I cannot recall offhand what that byproduct is).

If It is pseudo science, it still has traction on some fairly well established mainstream sites:

And for what it is worth, I am fairly experienced with running tempo pace. For my marathon training cycle I ran over 85 miles at tempo pace across 17 weeks.

For me, it is definitely VO2max. I have little to no difficulty with tempo runs. VO2max intervals, however, are tough. In my understanding, they should be the toughest of any type of training stimulus.

Clearly, training based on physiology alone has not worked and there is a massive gap in understanding the connections between actual performance and physiological parameters, so I would not put much stock in physiological predictions. I'm pretty sure Frank Shorter did not care about any of this when he won his marathon Gold after hammering the 10k finals AND HEATS!

Don't get me wrong, mile repeats at 5k pace are always daunting for me; but I know that is going to be the case. Ialways find tempo runs to hurt more than they should proportionately, even if they don't hurt as much as the mile repeats. Does that make sense?

Okay.

I actually agree with Smoove about tempo runs. There's just something about going "comfortably hard" to me that isn't fun. I prefer to go hard, very hard, race, easy, very easy, but not comfortably hard. There's something about that "kind of hard but not quite hard" that irks me and makes me want to go do something else instead. Saying that.... I'm more of a fast twitch guy who is dramatically worse as we move up past 5k.