Can you run tempo/steady everyday?

I assumed the OP meant faster than MP. 30-60s slower definitely isn't tempo, maybe "steady".

I had a college teammate who wasn't allowed to do intervals because he always burned out doing them, so instead he ran steady to tempo every day. He ran 30:XX and sub-15 off that, though his speed and kick were nonexistent.

Your second question is the million dollar one and could elicit a lot of opinions. I would not consider 30-60 seconds per mile "of" (I assume you meant "off") marathon pace as tempo running which I understand is sort of fast, faster than easy running at least. It's your marathon pace, even in an actual marathon there's almost no hard breathing. "Steady" is pretty self defining, pretty much the same pace or effort or close to it for your entire run. You can run steady fast, steady moderate, steady easy. I'd characterize what you say you're doing as steady easy, maybe sometimes steady moderate bit I wouldn't call it tempo for the reason I gave. That said, you can find examples of people who run very well on nothing or almost nothing but steady/easy. Check out Joe Henderson's LSD

book.

If you want an example of what I'd consider steady tempo I'd look at people like Clarke, Clayton, Nenow, for almost all of his career, Jack Farrell's runners, etc. Clarke did what we might call steady progressions runs. He ran with a group around a horse race track, all starting together at an easy pace and would pick up the speed as the run progressed. Guys would drop back as the pace got too hard. Ron would usually be under 5:00 pace over the last 2-3 miles. So he was running under his marathon pace, about 5:20, for much of the run and wasn't too far off of 10,000 pace for some of it.

So yes, it can work. The entire group that he ran with trained like this and a few of them made national teams and two of them other than Ron got to the Olympics. It's what I did to get myself from 4:34 to 2:35 in the marathon and it was how most of the guys in my club trained, at least five of whom got into at least one Olympic Trial Marathon.

It's fallen out of favor in recent years. I can't say exactly why but I suspect the fascination with exercise physiology and it's emphasis on hard day/easy day running and the importance of intervals is a factor. And coaches really don't have much use for it because it doesn't leave them much to do.

Can you please explain this part? What do you mean by it's what it got you to 2:35?

HRE wrote:

So yes, it can work. The entire group that he ran with trained like this and a few of them made national teams and two of them other than Ron got to the Olympics. It's what I did to get myself from 4:34 to 2:35 in the marathon and it was how most of the guys in my club trained, at least five of whom got into at least one Olympic Trial Marathon.

Tempo runs wrote:

Why easy + hard is better than steady/tempo?

Why effort modulation has better results?

colder and wiser wrote:

That would be like a 2:50 marathoner doing all his running at 7:00-7:30/mile - which is, actually, pretty typical. Probably a bit too fast for easy days, but this is basically what 75% of young male runners do. (Unless you mean 30-60 seconds faster than M pace, which means a 2:50 marathoner doing all his running at 5:30-6:00/mile, which would mean a marathoner with utterly crap results for all the fast running he's doing.)

Running steady rather than easy pace every day is sub-optimal training because it does not allow for enough modulation of effort. You need some easy running in there to recover enough to go hard in workouts occasionally.

Stress, then recovery. You run at a variety of paces. Running a little faster than regular paces and then stepping back to recover is the way to go..

Running the same pace every day gets you really good at running that same pace. How do you expect to improve? This will get you fit in the short term maybe but it doesn't really move the needle down the line.

A 2:35 marathoner is likely a 15:30 5k. That is 5 minute pace. So are you claiming that you run 5:30 pace every day on a tempo run? I doubt it.

Faster is better wrote:

A 2:35 marathoner is likely a 15:30 5k. That is 5 minute pace. So are you claiming that you run 5:30 pace every day on a tempo run? I doubt it.

A 2,35 marathon is 3,40/km. The 5k equivalent is around 3,20/km (the "Horwill rule"). That´s a 16.40 5k. A 15,30 5k runner who can´t manage a faster marathon than 2,35 is severely undertrained for the distance.

Donavan Brazier has a PR faster than 15:30. He could Tran forever and not run 2:35.

Train.

high school xc coach wrote:

Salazar also had Farah and Rupp at less than a minute slower than M pace. Not sure if it was the same for all of his athletes.

Worth noting that M+60' for a 13:00 5K runner is equivalent to M+90' for a 19:30 guy. That is a bit on the quick side, but you could run at that pace quite a bit. You'd still want to mix in some faster days and some recovery runs, however.

As others have suggested, best to get the physiological explanations from a good book than from us. But there's no shortage of evidence out there if you really want it.

That's what I have been doing since last May. Coming back to the sport after a long hiatus. With a family a 50h rotating work schedule. Finding days for hard workouts is quite difficult. After reading the no interval success thread I decided to follow Tinman suggestions. 5/6 moderate days with a longer faster run every 10/15th days. Eventually added some strength and core work on 2 of those days after the run. Started at 4 miles averaging 7:30/45 at 80% hr. At the moment running 7 miles at 6:50/40 at the same hr. I found changing routes with different elevation keeps me motivated and away from boredom. Is it perfect? Far from it. But I can get out when I have time. Don't worry about being ready for a workout and what having a bad one would mean.

The Dirty Duck wrote:

high school xc coach wrote:

Salazar also had Farah and Rupp at less than a minute slower than M pace. Not sure if it was the same for all of his athletes.

Worth noting that M+60' for a 13:00 5K runner is equivalent to M+90' for a 19:30 guy. That is a bit on the quick side, but you could run at that pace quite a bit. You'd still want to mix in some faster days and some recovery runs, however.

As others have suggested, best to get the physiological explanations from a good book than from us. But there's no shortage of evidence out there if you really want it.

In other words, I don't know what I'm talking about but that's what the books say.

Sorry but no.

Faster is better wrote:

Donavan Brazier has a PR faster than 15:30. He could Tran forever and not run 2:35.

Lol. Put your money where your mouth is. Given the right financial incentive 2:35 he will run.

My life from about 15 to 24, in a nutshell.

Tempo runs wrote:

Can you please explain this part? What do you mean by it's what it got you to 2:35?

HRE wrote:

So yes, it can work. The entire group that he ran with trained like this and a few of them made national teams and two of them other than Ron got to the Olympics. It's what I did to get myself from 4:34 to 2:35 in the marathon and it was how most of the guys in my club trained, at least five of whom got into at least one Olympic Trial Marathon.

I'm not sure I can explain it any better. I went from 4:34 to 2:35 by doing almost nothing but steady runs that were mostly a few seconds on either side of my marathon pace. Does that help?

HRE wrote:

Tempo runs wrote:

Can you please explain this part? What do you mean by it's what it got you to 2:35?

I'm not sure I can explain it any better. I went from 4:34 to 2:35 by doing almost nothing but steady runs that were mostly a few seconds on either side of my marathon pace. Does that help?

This is another thread were the OP does not define exactly was s/he means by tempo/steady. And the result is a confusing discussion.

I have the feeling OP thinks tempo and steady is the same.

Tempo runs wrote:

The Dirty Duck wrote:

Worth noting that M+60' for a 13:00 5K runner is equivalent to M+90' for a 19:30 guy. That is a bit on the quick side, but you could run at that pace quite a bit. You'd still want to mix in some faster days and some recovery runs, however.

As others have suggested, best to get the physiological explanations from a good book than from us. But there's no shortage of evidence out there if you really want it.

In other words, I don't know what I'm talking about but that's what the books say.

Sorry but no.

It sounds like you have all the answers. Who needs book learnin'!

No. So you ran 1 hour per day at 6 minute pace?

Faster is better wrote:

No. So you ran 1 hour per day at 6 minute pace?

Depended on what year we're talking about. Could have been six in later years, could have been eight in early ones, rarely as little as an hour a day.

The old school way of doing 80 billion miles a week? OVER. Now everybody's going into these lower volume, higher intensity workouts. And look what happens to these fields -- they continue to get faster and FASTER.