Are continuous tempo runs dead?

Not true. Have run very well at every distance from 5k and up training exclusively in that zone.

I agree that it's good for mental strength, but what high schooler needs to be prepared to run at a fast but not all out pace for 20-40 minutes? A good high schooler will run no longer than 15:xx minutes, while a great high schooler will run no longer than 14:xx minutes.

So you can run a 14 flat 5000 (4:30 per mile) training exclusively off 5:30? Moran

If I'm feeling a bit under the weather, I might change out a session and run 10k at marathon pace instead. It makes me feel like I'm at least doing something worthwhile. But I only have tempos in my programme if I'm training for a marathon, and they'd be long tempos at MP, usually 10+ miles

Absolutely wrong. Jakob’s HM does not attest to anything. He was sick 2 weeks before the HM and was the furthest away from his base training after trying to peak for the 1500m. Try again with a better source of evidence.

👆🏾This!! Heat and sense of pace is the reason I do the same.

Isn't this roughly the pace for the weekly bread and butter sessions for Tim Moriau's athletes (Kimeli, Hugo Hay, Richard Ringer etc). Eg sessions like 3x4km [2 mins easy] at M+10 (~1.5mmol) are typically featured every single week until the final few weeks before a race.

Doesn't NAU do a tempo run ("Sub-T" or whatever they call it) pretty frequently?

I think tempos have value if done right, i.e. not raced. I like to do them on a hilly course for more variety, or do a fartlek like Mona where the rest is a float.

This is so common, even on something as basic as strides. The top runners appropriately going 80% is such an enticing invitation to the b, c & d level runners to run with the fast guys that day.

There are many who take direction and can hold back when you tell them a couple times. Some people need to get injured to figure out that they need to do their own 80%. And some never figure it out.

For middle distance, perhaps, but the long tempo is alive and well for the 5k and up.

You get roughly the same physiological benefits from 5x5:00 as 20 minutes at threshold, but I believe tempos serve an important roll in mental conditioning. If you can make yourself feel quite uncomfortable for 30-40 minutes at a time weekly, you will be more mentally prepared to feel very uncomfortable for the duration of a 5k or 8k or 10k on race day, and will feel relatively more comfortable at half marathon or marathon pace seeing that you are doing your tempos at 50-60 minute race pace.

If there are people who suddenly stop running continuous tempo runs, it's their own fault. Have fun. There's no question that broken-up tempo runs have their place. I myself have only just painfully realized the difference. After getting back into distance running with broken-up tempo runs like 8 x 3 min/1 min slow jog, I did a 30 minute tempo run yesterday. There's a big difference in running continuously, it´s more demanding. If there's one thing that gave me strength in the past, it's the long, hard tempo run.

Why are you talking about muscle tension for tempos? Lol

I'm a faster twitch, 800 type & have always responded really well to longer tempos & lots of easy aerobic runs. It wasn't until after college when I got into heart rate training that I realized I was running them way too hard though. In practice they turned into glorified races between teammates.

Both in high school & college my times would get better coming off of summer during the building mileage & tempo runs phase. Then intervals start soon & couple weeks later my times would slow down.I'd peak once intervals replaced tempo runs in practice. Interval training days were never the hard days for me either. I could run 400 repeats all day, while my ST teammates are keeling over. Now I'm in my 40s & all I do is easy runs & couple medium distance tempos & I feel it still works well for me.

I've no idea.

My last 5k was 5:36 pace and I know that when I did runs at 6:30 pace in the past it didn't improve my fitness. I did parkrun all the time and I simply didn't improve.

True, but try to get anyone outside of your top runners to do this and you're going to see a lot of blowing up or jogging (mostly jogging). Part of the issue is that slower high schoolers don't go beyond threshold effort during a 5k. We build up to 10 min tempo intervals, but only after doing a lot of 5 min intervals to get used to the effort. I think that's a good compromise.

It's almost as if tempo pace is only one variable among many in a training program!

Yes the problem starts with your (very poor) intensity description.

Just think a moment if its the same effort for a 15min 5k runner, versus a 25 min 5k runner!?

It really depends on if you’re talking about a Daniels tempo, supposedly run right at LT2, or a tempo the way most coaches have historically used the term—a continuous run at any of a range of moderately hard paces.

The Daniels tempo fell out of favor a long time ago and was never universally adopted. There are a number of problems with it. One is that it’s just really, really hard. 20-40 minutes at LT feels pretty close to a 100% effort if you don’t have the context of a race to hype you up. In fact, a common test for determining your LT2 heart rate is to just run a 30-minute time trial, solo, as hard as you can. Your average heart rate for the last 20 minutes is supposed to be your LT2.

Another problem with the Daniels tempo is that nobody knows what their LT2 pace is. The tables are not reliable because there is very wide variation in % of VO2max where people hit LT2, and that’s especially true for younger runners. 1-hour race pace is also not reliable because even collegiate runners typically aren’t strong enough to hold LT2 for an hour. Even if you did a step test in a lab, you’re probably getting at best an estimate that’s within 10 seconds of your true LT2. (For a lot of reasons I won’t go into right now, lab tests for LT have very poor accuracy.) Then consider that LT2 varies day-to-day. This is why the biggest innovation in the Norwegian method (though it’s not that new, and it’s not even unique to running) is the regular use of lactate testing in workouts to monitor intensity. They know you can’t just plug in a pace and expect it to be reliable every day for a month.

Broken tempos make it less important to hit LT2 exactly. You can err on the side of going slightly too fast because the lactate clears quickly in your short rest intervals. That way everyone ends up with a slightly oscillating lactate curve that should average out pretty close to LT2, but nobody is getting steadily accumulating oxygen debt, as happens anytime someone does a straight tempo even 5 seconds per mile too fast. And, yes, you can get more total volume in.

As for slower tempos in the neighborhood of aerobic threshold, these are, if anything getting more popular. These are the slowest paces at which you elevate blood lactate above baseline and reduce muscle oxygen content. I won’t go into too much detail here, but it is believed that both changes are signals for peripheral aerobic adaptations that don’t happen in response to merely easy running. In other words, it’s the easiest “quality” running you can do.

Another great benefit of these slower tempos is that they allow you to get more workouts in per week. Many, perhaps most athletes, cannot really handle 3 hard workouts per week. Making one of these workouts an aerobic threshold tempo gives you that extra stimulus without going too deep.

Aerobic thresholds are not so hyper-sensitive to exact pacing. You have a pretty wide range of paces where you’re in the general zone, and going 10 seconds/mile too fast isn’t going to suddenly turn the workout into a monster. This makes them appropriate for large programs where it’s hard to customize workouts for everyone, it allows groups to run together, and it gives athletes flexibility to vary the pace depending on whether they’re feeling strong or weak on a given day.

Finally, aerobic thresholds can be done indefinitely. Daniels tempos need to be carefully periodized, but you can run at your aerobic threshold once or twice a week, just about every week of the year.

Of course, nobody knows what every other coach is doing, but in recent conversations I’ve had, a number of pro and college coaches have told me that they think an important recent development in training (at least in the US) is an increased emphasis on aerobic threshold rather than anaerobic threshold.

Excellent post 800 dude. "Tempo" is a vague and unhelpful term, and should be deleted from endurance athletes vocabulary. As noted above, we really have two important thresholds as endurance athletes. LT1 and LT2. Running 20 to 30 minutes at LT2 is essentially a race prep workout for a 15k to half marathon race. It is not a workout that you can effectively do year round, especially when you are in a high volume phase of training when you are carrying large amounts of fatigue. However, running 3 to 8 minute intervals at LT2 with shorter rests allows you to train at threshold paces even in a heavily fatigued state. Most elite runners these days seem to be doing their long runs at or slightly below LT1. This is going to be around 5:30 to 6:10 pace for a 27 to 29 minute 5k runner