What kind of Tempo run?

warmup 3 miles, run 5 miles at current half-marathon race pace, cooldown 3 miles.

The goal with tempo is to just get rolling, check your breathing, you should be breathing hard but still relaxed. It takes a little tinckering to figure it out but basically you want to breathing once every two strides or so and you should be able to talk (not carry on a conversation) for most of the tempo with it becoming slightly more difficult throughout the time. Rather then go on distance try going for time like 20 mins tempo or 2 x 15 mins with 5 min recovery.

I think that 5 miles at current half-marathon pace is WAY to hard for a tempo run.

malmo,

May I ask what you WOULD suggest for a tempo run? I'm just curious because the five mile workout is what I have been doing lately, and I would like to know the negative aspects of the workout and how I could begin using a different one. Thanks for any help.

-Matt

5 miles at 1/2 mary pace? Please. If you can't do that 3 times a week you've got problems.

If you can do that three times a week your 1/2 PR is crap.

Somewhere along the line the tempo became the "sacrosanct tempo run", which became and end in itself, and runners such as yourself ended up running them way to hard. You should be able to run tempo runs (3-8 miles) three to five times a week. If you were to look through my training logs you'd never see the words "tempo run" yet I'd have run them every week.

What pace? If it feels hard and it feels in control, then it's a tempo run. If you are not in control, it's not. Your body will tell you everything you need to know - just listen.

A good way to run is 20 laps on the track at a pace you don't have to look at your watch every 200 to make sure you're staying on pace. You should be able to "feel"it.

I think there might be a distinction between one runner choosing half-marathon oace and another going slower. A 1:11 half-marathoner might be able to comfortably run 5:25 pace for 5 miles 3 times a week, but a 1:02:30 man might be pressing too much at 4:45 pace. I lived with a guy who ran 1:02:58 and I know his tempo runs (the Barton 6 miles for you Ann Arbor guys) never went below 5:00 pace. More like 5:05 pace. And that sure wasn't 3 times a week.

On your easy days, when warmed up, just hit it. Generally I prefer to pick a spot on my loops, usually with a slight downgrade to start, get my internal metronome going with a song in my head, and just go. Get into the groove, get the forward lean going, feel your legs and arms and breathing in synch and let your legs run. Each mile faster than the last, until I hit that last mile, or so, I feel like I'm flying - with little effort. If you've never felt this way before, trust me, it's highly addictive - you'll want more.

In spite of all of the efforts of some to make it complicated, tempo runs are not rocket science.

a lot of good advice... from what i know, a tempo run is "technically" about 10 seconds per mile slower than 10-k race pace. however, a lot of it is intuitive - its just a hard but controlled pace. this may or may not be 10 seconds below 10k pace.

Thanks. Lately I've done a lot of my tempo stuff on the track, just to ensure that I keep the "right pace". Perhaps that "right pace" has created mental barriers for me, as opposed to judging by effort. I can see the advantage of this: going into races without worrying about dying after a few miles because it's too much faster than "LT pace". Plus, it's funner this way. Easy runs get boring, and a few tempo runs a week should make things more exciting.

-Matt

malmo wrote:

If you can do that three times a week your 1/2 PR is crap.

Hee Hee :)

Go run for 60-90 minutes. Start to feel good, increase the pace. Feel better? Increase again. Increase up until you know any more increase would leave you out of control (start to not feel good, legs not flowing). Do you feel that? The cold air whisping through your nostrils, the fluid movement of your legs stroking the concrete. That is a tempo run. The only time you should really "care" about the actual pace of such a tempo run is in preparation for an upcoming race of say 10-15 miles where you want to do some specific race pace work which would just happen to fall around "tempo" pace. Think less, run more.

Alan

malmo's 3 times per week "tempo" = "running to the barn". Running to the barn can be accomplished several times per week and is not nearly as hard as the aforementioned "tempo run" at half-marathon pace.

We're discussing 2 different workouts here. I usually only run one "tempo" (at half-marathon pace) per week.

I think it's just semantics...

Go out and run hard every session.

Using fall cross as an example, during base-building periods, *men should do a five-mile tempo run every three weeks. If you run 4:50/mile for 10K and you're close to PR shape, the very first, mid-summer tempo run should be about 5:30-35 per mile. Three weeks later, the next one should be about 5:15-20 per mile. The third one should be at about 5-flat per mile. Then race your first low-key race in two weeks. After which, your tempo runs should remain at about 10 seconds per mile slower than 10K pace which is arguably at 10-mile to a very fast half-marathon race pace. If each five-mile effort gets 5-20 seconds faster overall that should be a sign of increased fitness. *Women are better off with four-mile tempo efforts, as they race more 5Ks in college. If 10K or longer is their event, this doesn't apply.

Once the season arrives and school starts in late August, some of these tempo runs should get interesting, say 10-minutes at tempo pace, 10 minutes 'recovery' at 75 seconds per mile slower than tempo pace. Repeat times three. Eventually you get to dropping these tempo efforts down to mile and kilometer repeats for fall cross. But still do one five-mile tempo during a period when you are not racing for a few weeks but still staying sharp. If you get a wild hair and have a nice break coming up before a big race, do a seven-mile tempo run instead of five.

Not semantics DougC. Let me make this clear: if you are running a 5 mile tempo run at half marathon pace you are running it WAY too hard.

So you disagree with Pfitzinger on the importance of running at your "LT" pace, which roughly corresponds to your current half-marathon race pace. I assume you think that you can get similar benefits from running slower more frequently (3x per week)? Would you approve of running mile or 2 mile repeats at half-marathon pace as an interval workout? On a slighty different topic, what do you think of DeHaven's 20K "marathon pace" runs? He runs those almost every other week when building toward a goal marathon.

Thanks,

Doug

Yes I disagree with Pfitzy (of course his 1/2 PR is too slow so I see where he's coming from) and I think 20k runs at marathon pace (DeHaven) every two weeks is fine. I wouldn't do them but I see them as the right piece for DeHaven's puzzle.

Does that make sense to you?