What is the purpose of running a tempo?

Let me ask it to you this way: Should your varsity buddies actually run this workout 30-45s faster than they are so that it would be impossible for you to stay with them? Or are they getting something out of it by running it at the tempo pace?

Aerobic development is a big part of long-term success, and aerobic strength of your body lasts longer. You'd have to tell me your 5K PR and how long you are running these tempos and at what pace for me to really tell you what stimulus you're getting. But you're probably doing more of a VO2_max workout, which gives you benefits for a week or two.

Basically, you're sacrificing long-term for the short-term. You also increase the risk of burnout and injury.

If you need any other motivation to stick at your pace, another way to look at it is that as you develop your threshold pace, it'll make running faster than that new and improved threshold pace much easier.

You may be trying to hold on with your buddies, but you want to run beyond HS and continue to develop, why not do what has been proven to work? What do you really gain from trying to run faster than you should when it's just a workout?

The goal of a tempo is to sit right on that threshold instead of crossing it. You’ll get the same lactate and aerobic benefits from racing it, but you’ll suffer from a higher breakdown of muscles and it’ll take longer to recover, not to mention the risk of mental burnout from “racing” at least twice a week.

If your watch has a heart rate monitor, try and maintain a HR 10-15 bpm lower than where it would be during a race to start.

Tempos destroy your blood PH. Don't do them.

Alright, so it is aerobic development. I am thinking 85% of maximum heart rate for the tempo today, does that sound about right? or would it be closer to 90%? I am willing to learn the right way of doing things :)

CopperRunner wrote:

The goal of a tempo is to sit right on that threshold instead of crossing it. You’ll get the same lactate and aerobic benefits from racing it, but you’ll suffer from a higher breakdown of muscles and it’ll take longer to recover, not to mention the risk of mental burnout from “racing” at least twice a week.

If your watch has a heart rate monitor, try and maintain a HR 10-15 bpm lower than where it would be during a race to start.

Yeah, I have a heart rate monitor. Thank you for the explanation!

Sham 69 wrote:

Tempos destroy your blood PH. Don't do them.

Moran.

Continuous tempos blow. Tempo intervals with short rest is where it's at.

i never learned how to run a tempo right until after college, because you really need to learn to run it alone. When you run with someone else you tend to run someone else's pace not yours. I am using the term tempo and steady state as one in the same.

For me, the tempo pace is not a pace anyone else can prescribe. I have to find it for myself. How do you do this? You start out at a moderate pace, with a brief or even no warm-up. The first first 1-2 miles is the warm-up. I never worry about the pace of the first mile - it is just whatever pace it turns out to be. After the first mile i gradually start to pick up the pace...i am looking for the most efficient pace (effort to speed ratio). I want to go fast but still be breathing controlled. I want to feel like i could keep this pace up for 10 miles, and sometime I do.

the trick is learning how to push and pull. Pushing is when the pace feel like you want to go faster, so you do. and pulling is when you realize you need to pull back and slow it down, and you do. the process of riding the line is a steady state. I might go through 5-10 cycles of pushing and pulling in a normal steady state.

Regarding times and expectations: DONT try to run the same pace each time. i went back and looked at my training log from my best year ever (which incidentally consisted on almost 80% steady state runs and i improved 1:45 for my 8K race distance over a 9 month period) and noticed some days i was quite fast and others were quite pedestrian. and i was ok with that because i was listening to my body and only running what it gave me on each day. For example, one day i might run 10 miles at fast as 5:20 pace....two days later i am running 8 at 5:40. a week later it might be 6 miles at 5:10, only to be followed by 10 miles at 5:45. or a longer day of 13 at 6:00. It is not about the time, it is about the effort!

Don't be a slave to the numbers. Listen to your body and run the pace that your breathing gives you. the more you train at or around this threshold the more you will improve.

ElGuerroujFan wrote:

CopperRunner wrote:

The goal of a tempo is to sit right on that threshold instead of crossing it. You’ll get the same lactate and aerobic benefits from racing it, but you’ll suffer from a higher breakdown of muscles and it’ll take longer to recover, not to mention the risk of mental burnout from “racing” at least twice a week.

If your watch has a heart rate monitor, try and maintain a HR 10-15 bpm lower than where it would be during a race to start.

Yeah, I have a heart rate monitor. Thank you for the explanation!

Others (like CopperRunner) can speak better to HR than I can. But one thing I always try to ask myself for when I'm doing a lactate threshold run is, "Could I hold this pace for 60-70 min?" Usually these workouts are run with around 30 total minutes (usually 4 -5 X 1 mile or 2-3 X 2 miles, but sometimes run all at once) at the threshold pace.

If it's a long "slow" tempo (where there's a total of 60ish minutes at target pace), I'll ask myself if I could realistically hold this pace for 2 hours.

You have to be really honest with yourself here and know your body. If you're still getting to know what you can handle, HR is a good metric to also have, but it can't hurt to ask yourself the questions!

From a training stimulus standpoint:

5k race = V02 max workout

5k tempo = lactate threshold workout

V02 Max = maximum oxygen you can use as energy while running

Lactate Threshold = improving this increases the pace you can run before your body produces more lactate in the blood than it can buffer. Lactate accumulation causes fatigue and that heavy leg feeling.

In other words, lactate threshold is like your stamina bar in a video game and you add points to your stamina bar by doing tempo runs.

You need both V02 Max and lactate threshold to run well, but you only need a few weeks of V02 Max workouts ( 3k - 5k races or workouts at those paces), but you can do tempo runs pretty much year round.

i agree wrote:

Tempo intervals with short rest is where it's at.

Yes. 1000s, 1200s are s**y.

Depends on who’s calling it a tempo. Jack Daniels defines a tempo as a threshold run (T pace). Hanson’s define ‘tempo’ as marathon pace.

What’s the pace your coach is prescribing? Closer to 15k or marathon pace? If 15k , then it’s a threshold workout; if marathon, it’s working your high-end aerobic, trying to move your LT curve out & to the right.

Unless it’s intentionally a multi-paced workout, which are great at the right times, speeding up doesn’t ‘help’ to target the systems the workout is aimed at. Better to stick to plan over the long haul. Easier said than done, I know 😁.

HTH

To run almost as hard as a race but not get depressed with the result because you can brag that it wasn’t a race but just a tempo...haha jk

robert678 wrote:

Lactate Threshold = improving this increases the pace you can run before your body produces more lactate in the blood than it can buffer. Lactate accumulation causes fatigue and that heavy leg feeling.

In other words, lactate threshold is like your stamina bar in a video game and you add points to your stamina bar by doing tempo runs.

Lactate does not cause fatigue. The purpose of tempo runs is to increase mitochondrial respiration.

running fast relaxed thats basically what it is. you should not strain at all, if you do take jog for a minute or two and go again maybe a bit slower. you should feel like you're just floating

Tempo is not a very precise term. I think it encapsulates threshold work (which is slightly faster than HM pace) as well as sub-threshold work (which is marathon pace +/- 10-15 seconds).

I loved tempos. Probably one of my favourite workouts.

I'm not sure that the specific benefit of tempo runs is known. Also, some runners respond well to them and others don't (eg Malmo isn't a proponent of tempos, at least of LT type tempos). When I was training hard tempos worked for me and I didn't care why.

Hans Geisler wrote:

To run almost as hard as a race but not get depressed with the result because you can brag that it wasn’t a race but just a tempo...haha jk

Haha, this describes a couple guys on the team back in college to a T. I've known plenty of people that ran faster tempos than they did 8ks/10ks during XC. It's cringe.

If done properly, they're great. They should never feel like you need an IV drip after them. I've anecdotally done great since off of tempo intervals and will likely not go back to the "8 mile tempo at 5:20s" days (pain).