What happens if I do 2 tempos a week for 12 straight weeks?

Do 1 tempo and 1 speed workout per week instead, you'll get the best of both from that. Also don't just do the same tempo workout every time, do some fartleks. Fartleks have been a blessing for me...I went from 26:36 to 25:43 in a year over 8k (eventually ran 1:55 and 3:58 that year - from 1:57 and 4:03 the year before) because we started incorporating more fartleks. You'll be able to surge in a race and maintain it successfully.

This is essentially what I do for the last 12 weeks of my marathon training cycle, whi is based on Daniels' plan. It is, however, preceded by 6 weeks of vo2max work.

Like others say, it would be great hm/marathon training, but is suboptimal for races under 15k.

Really depends on the variation of the tempo...If you continuously do, say, a 5 mile tempo at 5:45 pace twice a week for that long, Many will tell you that's not a good idea.

I would recommend a standard tempo and a long run tempo (or long progression run) per week

Each week for 6 weeks try to extend the overall distance of the standard tempo. Once you have gotten to the longest tempo, for the next 4 weeks increase the intensity (try to average a faster pace). the last 2 weeks, run something similar to the distance and pace of the first two week tempos.

Also once a week, maybe throw a 3-5 mile threshold effort in the middle or end of your long run.

These are just a few decent ways to not peak and actually gain something from running "Two tempos a week for twelve weeks"

temporunner wrote:

Will I burn out or will I see big improvements? I'm basically peaking for a 4 mile thanksgiving race and I'm starting my tempos tomorrow. I'm thinking a short 3 mile tempo on Tuesday and a longer about 5-6 mile tempo on Friday. What do you guys think?

In my opinion, an intensive workout, like tempo, should not be longer than the daily average distance.

If you respect this rule, your weekly intensive work will be less than 20% of weekly mileage, as it is widely recommended.

However, 12 weeks is too much. After one month of 20% weekly intensive work, the benefits will fade until the results will be the opposite.

The safe limit in your case would be to do 2 tempos/week, one of 3 and the other of 5 miles if you already run 70mpw. And no other intensive work (fartlek, intervals, etc).

George Ilie wrote:

In my opinion, an intensive workout, like tempo, should not be longer than the daily average distance.

If you respect this rule, your weekly intensive work will be less than 20% of weekly mileage, as it is widely recommended.

However, 12 weeks is too much. After one month of 20% weekly intensive work, the benefits will fade until the results will be the opposite.

The safe limit in your case would be to do 2 tempos/week, one of 3 and the other of 5 miles if you already run 70mpw. And no other intensive work (fartlek, intervals, etc).

Again, this depends on what kind of tempo you are doing. If you're doing HM/MP "tempos", those don't necessarily have to be intensive.

Throwing in a 3 mile HM/MP in the middle of a 10 mile run isn't going to hurt you at all but may help a lot.

duck runner wrote:

Again, this depends on what kind of tempo you are doing. If you're doing HM/MP "tempos", those don't necessarily have to be intensive.

Throwing in a 3 mile HM/MP in the middle of a 10 mile run isn't going to hurt you at all but may help a lot.

By definition, tempo run is at a pace above the lactate threshold, so it is intensive.

Um, no. Tempo is a broad term describing a range of paces/efforts generally ranging from marathon to 15k pace.

Correct. Anyone giving a strict definition of what a tempo run is, is not the best person to take training advice from.

indeed wrote:

Correct. Anyone giving a strict definition of what a tempo run is, is not the best person to take training advice from.

Allow me to smile a bit :)

You just said that someone confused is the right person to give advices.

If you said that on purpose, you've been subtle.