From a practical standpoint, 20 minutes is good for the simple reason that you can warm up, stretch, do a couple of striders, do the tempo and warm down all in 1 hour. When you're in school this may not be a big deal but when you have other commitments getting a good workout in 1 hour is a good use of time.
Tyler Durden wrote:
http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=5615&PageNum=1
Did anyone still debating what it is bother to read this article?
Simple logic, I think: long enough to incur a training effect (as the effort isn't that high for a competitive runner), but short enough as to not create a training "hangover" for more than a day.
So, 20 mins. is a stimulus that helps you improve, but that doesn't tear you down like hard repetitions or hills, or LFD.
So as a miler/5k guy should I be doing solely 20 minute tempo's as the consensus seems to be they provide the best stimilus.
Still many advocate longer tempos...is there any difference?
Saba Joe wrote:
So as a miler/5k guy should I be doing solely 20 minute tempo's as the consensus seems to be they provide the best stimilus.
Still many advocate longer tempos...is there any difference?
SJ, because you are a miler/5k type, I don't think you should shorten your tempo run. 20 mins. will provide you with the skill to run with good form/concentrate for longer than your race distance.
As for lengthening them, I don't see the need, as I think you'll want your track work to achieve a race-specific tearing down/adaptation process. This is what you have to monitor closely in order to prevent overtraining/injury.
fsdafsda wrote:
physiologically, if you run right at the lactate threshold, your blood lactate will be rather stable for 18-22 minutes, after which it will begin to rise more rapidly, resulting in complete exhaustion after about 50 or 60 minutes. That's why.
No, that's bunk too. Fat metabolism will increase towards the end of a 50-60 minute run, and blood lactate will decrease.
Average_Joe wrote:
[quote]wellnow wrote:
It can't believe I am about to say this but "wellnow" is right this time.
Average_Joe, that's not a compliment. I'm the only letsrun poster who actually bothers to research lactate metabolism and a lot of other physiology subjects properly. If you don't know that by now, then either you haven't been paying attention, or your head is so full of fizzyology dogma that you can't see the wood for the trees.
A Daniels LT or tempo run lasts about 20 minutes and is run at roughly the pace you could race for 60 minutes. However, if you hang in for 60 minutes, you're racing, not training. Daniels believes runners should understand the difference between training (builds you up) and racing (tears you down). This seems a reasonable approach to me. We should train to race. We shouldn't race in our training.
Daniels fan wrote:
A Daniels LT or tempo run lasts about 20 minutes and is run at roughly the pace you could race for 60 minutes. However, if you hang in for 60 minutes, you're racing, not training. Daniels believes runners should understand the difference between training (builds you up) and racing (tears you down). This seems a reasonable approach to me. We should train to race. We shouldn't race in our training.
All training tears you down. Rebuilding takes place when you rest.
malmo is very insistent that trying to run for 20 minutes at 60 minute race pace is a very stupid idea for most runners. He recomends setting off somewhat slower and speeding up if you feel good. He has a point.
If you had a choice between being personally coached by malmo or JD, it would be preferable to choose the man who is good at math, not the man who thinks he is good at math.
JD has done some great research, but he doesn't apply it in the best way.
wellnow wrote:
malmo is very insistent that trying to run for 20 minutes at 60 minute race pace is a very stupid idea for most runners. He recomends setting off somewhat slower and speeding up if you feel good. He has a point.
If you had a choice between being personally coached by malmo or JD, it would be preferable to choose the man who is good at math, not the man who thinks he is good at math.
JD has done some great research, but he doesn't apply it in the best way.
Also practically speaking....my bet is that very few runners have done hard run over 30 minutes unless they were racing. So they have no reference point to compare a 20min "tempo" to something longer or more progressed.
The best "tempo runs" I've ever done, and this is nothing more than the feeling of a workout, have been 6-9 miles starting around marathon pace or a tick slower and speeding up to half-marathon effort or faster. The last mile is then balls out.
So for a 2:32/1:10 guy it would look sort of like: 6:00, 5:45, 5:45, 5:30, 5:20, <5:10 or longer: 6:00, 5:45, 5:45, 5:45, 5:45, 5:45, 5:30, 5:30, <5:10.
For the most part, if I tried to start at a pace and keep it consistant it was always a struggle in training VS building up to that pace. Struggle meaning the pace would at some point slow down and I'd have to work hard the next mile to speed up.
Also, you don't need exact mile markers. Find a loop that's around 2miles. Run it hard, repeat, try to increase speed each lap, continue until you can no longer increase speed without "racing".
Alan
It's been said above, but bears repeating, the 20 minutes at 1 hour race pace is the clear and concise definition of "tempo run" that Daniels used in the first edition of Running Formula. He claimed this is near optimal for improving the athlete's lactate turnpoint for reasons I won't belabor. It is a workout that a relatively inexperienced coach (including self-coached athletes) can give to a relatively inexperienced athlete and quantitatively observe whether it is being done as prescribed. If for no other reason than this that definition of "tempo run" has great utility. It's also been noted above that in the second edition of Running Formula Daniels added a table of pace adjustments for constant-paced runs of 20 to 60 minutes.
An issue with the term "tempo run" outside of the Daniels definition is that one must be very clear about what one means when they use the term and if the definition includes intuitive sensations, it's impossible to tell if two people are talking about the same thing even if they use the same pile of words. That's not to say that going by intuition is either a good or a bad thing from an ultimate performance benefit perspective, just that it's hard to quantify just what the workout is supposed to be.
wellnow wrote:
malmo is very insistent that trying to run for 20 minutes at 60 minute race pace is a very stupid idea for most runners.
Why would it be a "very stupid" idea?
wellnow wrote:
malmo is very insistent that trying to run for 20 minutes at 60 minute race pace is a very stupid idea for most runners.
jimibop wrote:
Why would it be a "very stupid" idea?
I'm not sure Malmo ever said that in so many words, but my impression is he favors a more intuitive approach to "tempo runs" and I think it's fair to say he generally favors longer sessions at lower effort levels than the 20 minutes at 60 minute pace model.
Probably best to let Malmo speak for himself without the middleman. Here's a good place to start:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3422852Daniels says that 20 minutes done at your T pace is correct. To run longer than that, at that same pace, tears you down too much. Don't argue with the science of it.
wellnow wrote:
fsdafsda wrote:physiologically, if you run right at the lactate threshold, your blood lactate will be rather stable for 18-22 minutes, after which it will begin to rise more rapidly, resulting in complete exhaustion after about 50 or 60 minutes. That's why.
No, that's bunk too. Fat metabolism will increase towards the end of a 50-60 minute run, and blood lactate will decrease.
I'd like to see a source on that. I'm talking about a 50 minute ALL OUT effort. Like a 10-mile race. Blood lactate will definitely be increasing in the last few miles. At a submaximal effort (say 10mi at marathon pace), blood lactate will be fairly stable, and fat metabolism will contribute a small (or moderate if you have trained for it) part of your energy expenditure.
I'm a little schoolboy too.... wrote:
Daniels says that 20 minutes done at your T pace is correct. To run longer than that, at that same pace, tears you down too much. Don't argue with the science of it.
Daniels doesn't run tempo runs himself so how would he know? 20 minutes at 60 minute race pace is too fast for a tempo run.
Tempo runs can be anywhere from 20-90minutes at a little slower than marathon pace to about halfway between marathon pace and HM pace.(*) If you do them in those zones you will finish feeling invigorated not beat down.
20 min at HM pace is a race not a workout. If you want to do that then find a race and run it.
(*) yes, you can drop down to HM or faster for 2-3 miles without beating yourself down. Anything more than that is reckless.
Average_Joe wrote:
It can't believe I am about to say this but "wellnow" is right this time.
wellnow wrote:
Average_Joe, that's not a compliment.
Ya think?
I'm the only letsrun poster who actually bothers to research lactate metabolism and a lot of other physiology subjects properly.
Yes, so you keep telling us.
...and Average Joe is back to his bickering self^^^
Nice to see you offering some dull comebacks ("you think?" - hahaha) but do you want to actually address the topic, or just have a cat fight?
ON TOPIC, whoever above said that training builds you up and racing tears you down is completely wrong. Training breaks you down. It should be hard. It should be race-specific. Recovery (including both rest and running outside of workouts) builds you up.
stupid letsrunners wrote:
whoever above said that training builds you up and racing tears you down is completely wrong. Training breaks you down. It should be hard. It should be race-specific. Recovery (including both rest and running outside of workouts) builds you up.
"Well" said it first, concisely, and without labeling another poster "completely wrong":
"All training tears you down. Rebuilding takes place when you rest."
FWIW, "So you keep telling us" was a funny retort. (It was also concise.)