Tempo's for 3K-5K focus

Ingebrigtsen brothers train for 1500, but do 2 days a week double threshold workouts with various intervall workouts. In the base phase the third hard day a week is 20x200m hill work + even a 5th threshold workout in the evening.

So when someone are that successfull with that much emphasis on threshold work I would really consider using the effort around LT more in the quality work. I do not know how they work closer to the season, but for long term development LT is obviously important in their training philosophy. In Norway there is a huge amount of runners triathletes, etc that also use this kind of thinking and aim for a lot of around threshold work since it is quite fast to recover and the benefits are high.

But I would consider doing LT work much more varied than just a tempo. Long intervalls, short, medium, alternations. Under LT at LT, over LT, alternate under/over, progressive, etc. Just being creative and having control of the lactate level during the workout

During base phase the hill workout is the only "specific" 1500m race pace workout, which transitions into speed workout closer to season. They of course move into more specific 1500m speed work too then.

Hill work like that has benefits for more than 1500m since it is strengthening for any distance really.

Combining some VO2 max work (3k/5k specific pace) with LT work is also no problem.

Training for distances of 3k-8k (xc) gives you a wide variety of options as to which type of tempo / threshold sessions to utilize.

Obviously for marathons and half marathons, the longer slower sub T / M paced stuff would be most valuable and for 800/1500 threshold and cv paced stuff would be more valuable. Youre kind of in a sweet spot distance wise where you will see direct racing benefits from any of the sessions you choose. Just keep cycling through all of them but do the stuff you like mpre frequently.

Nice breakdown, thanks CoachB.

Power = work/time

Work = force x distance

Increase your instantaneous force (weights, bounding up hills fast, sprints).

That should also reduce the time to do a specific amount of work.

Or, as so many distance runners chose, seek to increase the amount of force than can be applied over a given distance.

These runners are usually not fast, so the work they do for a short period of time is expected to be much less than a sprinter is capable of doing over that same short period.

Think of force x distance as a vector product, such as mile splits over a 5 or 10 mile training run or a 5k or 10k race.

Two paths:

First path is to increase instantaneous force, so that runs or repetitions are a lower percentage of max effort.

Second path is to extend the distance over which a relatively high % of instantaneous force is applied.

Lydiard's system focused on the 2nd path, and is popular with distance runners because the target time interval has to increase substantially as the target distance gets much longer.

Oregon's system was focused on the 2nd path.

If OP runs with good power each stride, then an emphasis on the 1st path is optimal.

Fast distance runs that are usually 4-7 miles, fast-paced ladders for interval workouts, 8 x 400 rather than 12-20 x 400, etc.

If OP shuffles along on the training runs, then the 2nd path is better., and medium-paced repetitions during interval workouts is preferred. Run 2 x (8 x 400) with shorter rest, and only about 5 min jog between sets, or do a couple of ladders rather than just one fast-paced session of laders.

I alternate, one week doing long-ish continuous tempos (4-10 miles, adjusting the pace according to the distance), the next week doing threshold intervals (6x1 mile off 60 seconds, 3x2 miles off 2 minutes, etc) at HM or 10k pace. The other workout in each week will be speed based (sprints or VO2 max intervals). Not exactly groundbreaking stuff but it works for me

IMO hard 4 mile tempo is an ideal 5000m workout. The 2nd most applicable workout to the event besides long race-pace intervals. Honestly, it can even get a little out of tempo zone and into more like 4 miles at 10k pace at its most difficult. 16 intense laps on the track will teach you to lock in for 3k-5k.

6-10 mile tempos can be beneficial as well for aerobic support and mental toughness, but can be really taxing and difficult to recover from. Better off with more frequent moderate efforts IMHO.

for reference, 15:00 5000m runner might do their 4 milers in 20:20-21:00, and long tempos at 5:20-5:30 pace.

Interesting approach. Do you use power as a measurement of effort?

stank wrote:

IMO hard 4 mile tempo is an ideal 5000m workout. The 2nd most applicable workout to the event besides long race-pace intervals. Honestly, it can even get a little out of tempo zone and into more like 4 miles at 10k pace at its most difficult. 16 intense laps on the track will teach you to lock in for 3k-5k.

6-10 mile tempos can be beneficial as well for aerobic support and mental toughness, but can be really taxing and difficult to recover from. Better off with more frequent moderate efforts IMHO.

for reference, 15:00 5000m runner might do their 4 milers in 20:20-21:00, and long tempos at 5:20-5:30 pace.

This is a good post, the only thing missing here is "periodization" or rather "when to use which tempo?".

The longer, slower tempos make most sense in the early weeks of a build-up, to really work on endurance, high end aerobic work and the fat-burning system. As races get closer, the faster and shorter tempos will be more useful, since they are more specific (but also produce more lactate, and use more carbs in % than fat compared to the slower tempos).

What works really well is to use longer races, like 10k-HM (10 mile would work great too but they are rare) in the early phase to get the long tempos in (so no all-out racing, but tempoing through the race), and then you can do some 5k races as "fast tempo" in preparation for key races. That's more fun than just doing them by yourself on the track all the time, and many LRC users are good enough anyway to win most low-key 5k races while tempoing them at 10k or threshold effort.

Effort per unit of time.

clac wrote:

Power efficiency wrote:

Interesting approach. Do you use power as a measurement of effort?

Effort per unit of time.

Is it possible to work on system 1 and system 2 at the same time? Or better to stick to only one?

I'm interested in your post, any place to read more about it?

Power efficiency wrote:

clac wrote:

Effort per unit of time.

Is it possible to work on system 1 and system 2 at the same time? Or better to stick to only one?

I'm interested in your post, any place to read more about it?

People are often doing 1 and 2, so the emphasis on 1 or 2 is the difference.

If someone is very fast--sprinter--probably system 1 with very little system 2.

If someone has very little speed, mostly 2.

Bounding when running distance is fairly indicative, and I noted over the years that the distance runners tend to glide. Not just because of efficiency over the long run, but because they lacked spring in their step even when running short intervals.

As to somewhere to read about this, Lydiard and the Oregon system under Bowerman and Dellinger are pretty good examples over system 2.

For a strong emphasis on system 1, the Bud Winter workouts for Tommie Smith are quite focused. The Bud Winter workouts for Lee Evans were a little less of system 1, and some more of system 2, but still strongly system 1.

tempo's what?

I would say LRP is correct for the most part

Base phase tempos should be slower, usually around marathon pace. Once these become too “easy” work on progressing the last 2 miles or so down to your actual threshold pace.

The tempo runs at threshold become more important closer to the peak race. Stuff like 4 miles straight. The thing is once you get into the final 8-10 weeks of 3k-5k training, threshold is not as important as vO2 and faster paces reps. So while you might do a 4 mile tempo 2-3 weeks out, your emphasis shifts. There’s a time and place for everything. I usually break it up into three 8 week periods.

First period-threshold 1-2 times per week.

Second period-Threshold once every 2 weeks

Third-every 2-3 weeks.

So you have to get creative with threshold stuff. It’s a lot easier to break it up into intervals, you can even through in a mile or two before any vO2 workout.

If you’re dead set on doing a tempo run, you could include it as part of your long run.

I was talking to a coach a couple years ago and he said that he has done studies on his athletes and their specific race pace acts as a kind of threshold, so doing a lot of 5k pace work acts as a kind of “threshold” where lactate doesn’t spike as much if you’re running 5k pace or slower than it usually would. I’m still figuring out how to apply this, but it’s interesting to think about.

But tldr, 6-8 miles @ marathon pace is the longest you really need to go OR 4-6 miles @LT