That said, as an older runner I find the absolute best bang for my buck workout I can do is 8-10 miles at 45-60 secs slower than 5k pace. It is challenging but not all out and if I just do one of these a week with no other workouts I make huge gains in fitness.
Just curious, does anyone else agree with this?
My 5k is 5:40 pace so I would be doing 8 miles at 6:25 pace.
It's a long MP tempo. Good workout, and the recovery cost isn't too bad. I don't know if I'd call it the best bang for buck, but it's a completely reasonable workout.
It's a long MP tempo. Good workout, and the recovery cost isn't too bad. I don't know if I'd call it the best bang for buck, but it's a completely reasonable workout.
Kristiansand, April 21, 2025 The original article on the Norwegian model of lactate threshold training was written in 2022 and hasn’t been changed since. It was written to provide a descriptive ove…
"This aligned with what I had observed in Peter Coe’s training and later confirmed through lactate testing. While continuous efforts have their place, intervals offer a higher return relative to muscular load—a key insight that stayed with me.
That principle stuck with me for the rest of my career—and eventually became central to the model.
It also taught me to consider the cost of a session, not just its minutes of intensity. That perspective led me to prioritize intervals, particularly through double threshold sessions, to push the training ceiling without compromising the muscular system and wearing it down.
An interesting point here is that isolated studies show the opposite : the “effect” of continuous effort vs. intervals in isolation seems greater. However, this is missing an important point : the limiting factor in terms of load comes (mostly) down to the muscular system in running. So you need to weigh the session effect vs. the actual load and try to fill as much as possible of the “correct” training while balancing the muscular system."
Do pros benefit more from tempo intervals because they already have enough muscular load with the volume and speeds they're running, that they actually need to try to minimize additional load? Whereas for hobbyists we're often limited by available time, so we benefit from getting in the mechanical load where we can?
The purpose of the tempo run isn't to accumulate a certain amount of volume at a certain pace, it's to accumulate a certain amount of volume at certain lactate levels. The Norwegian method uses intervals over continuous tempo runs because the intervals allows you to accumulate a lot more volume at lactate threshold with a lot less fatigue. It's really as simple as that.
I've been doing lactate threshold intervals around 5:55 to 6:05 pace.
I've tried 45 minutes to 1 hour at 6:20 to 6:30 pace. It makes no difference to my parkrun times (that is how I test my fitness). I wish it worked because it's an easier pace, but it doesn't.
I've been doing lactate threshold intervals around 5:55 to 6:05 pace.
I've tried 45 minutes to 1 hour at 6:20 to 6:30 pace. It makes no difference to my parkrun times (that is how I test my fitness). I wish it worked because it's an easier pace, but it doesn't.
Can anyone explain this...
The paces you provided are kind of irrelevant without knowing your PRs. 6:20 to 6:30 might be too fast for that 45 minute period. Maybe not fast enough. Maybe there are other factors at play.
I've been doing lactate threshold intervals around 5:55 to 6:05 pace.
I've tried 45 minutes to 1 hour at 6:20 to 6:30 pace. It makes no difference to my parkrun times (that is how I test my fitness). I wish it worked because it's an easier pace, but it doesn't.
Can anyone explain this...
The paces you provided are kind of irrelevant without knowing your PRs. 6:20 to 6:30 might be too fast for that 45 minute period. Maybe not fast enough. Maybe there are other factors at play.
Physiologically, you can get more training stimulus in breaking up your threshold run into intervals AND I agree that HS kids are likely to run them wrong. However, here are a couple of caveats
1. HS kids need to know how to run the engine hot for 20-40 minutes without blowing up. Breaking threshold sessions into intervals does not accomplish this.
2. Even adult runners still can benefit from the mental aspect of locking in for a continuous tempo run.
If you break a tempo into intervals, it’s an interval workout. Tempos should split the difference between intervals, and over distance running.
When I was in HS school, most kids could figure out the right pace for a tempo. It seems runners have now become dependent on their genius coaches.
It seems like nobody does continuous tempo runs anymore. Everything is broken-up into repeats of 1k to 2 miles. College, high school, even the pros are doing this now, probably influenced by Jakob. I always felt that tempos were a huge part of my improvement from high school to college. Starting with 4, working to 6 and then eventually 8 mile tempos. We always did these at a very comfortable pace, like 5k + 1 minute (which seems slow but we did these in trainers on dirt over hills and it wasn’t meant to be a difficult workout).
What's a tempo? In high school our coach had us doing about 99% interval training. I was injured for three years (I still ran with a serious injury but cut my mileage and stopped racing whilst trying to figure it out, this was in the 1970s and I had no money for sports medicine doctors IF there were any). So as I re-trained for track & field, I did 5 miles as at a fast pace everyday. Then in the one year I did race we did not have a full-time distance coach and I quit doing distance. I just rested so I would not get hurt during the 10 X 400s every other day! If you asked me what a tempo run was, I would not have had an answer for you.
Now a sub-4 mile is common place on the college scene because of all the technology in the sport AND the SHOES! That stinks for us old guys.
I had to double check to make sure I did not write this post. I do not think there were many sports medicine doctors. One guy told me to "run more it's good for you."
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