Tempo Runs useless...

I hate the word tempo for some strange reason. Sounds too PC for me.

My view is that Daniels threshold idea is somewhat akin to Goodhart's Law or Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. E.g. it moves location when you try to act upon it. Look at a 15:00 5k guy, threshold pace is 3:40-45, so what! To get that guy down to 14:30 it is reps from 150m to 1k that is going to make the difference because that athlete needs to handle running faster than current race pace. But in order to handle more reps he/she needs to have better endurance hence more mileage. It is work either side of threshold that is probably more important.

To understand what a perfect temporun is you must think threshold. And all upper body building is not waste of time even for a distance runner. Doing situps and pushups and some strength for the backmuscles is good for the running style .

To develop pure speed it is like you say......but....squats with weights for real legpower is very good. A friend of mine,a former olympic weightlifter, lowered his 100m time from 11.7 down to 10.8 just by doing squats......no running at all!

Fartlek ("speedplay". In its original a Swedish invention by Holmer) can be a funny way of just play out with different paces and recovery in different jogging time . But is Fartlek a good way to develop the 3 most important factors for running results? No way! The great coach Woldemar Gerschler once got the question: "Why don`t you use Fartlek in your coaching?" He answered: "It`s not EXACT! ".

COACH J.S

There is nothing special about the 1h pace. And there exists no special "threshold". It's a fantasy by exercise physiologists and gullible coaches that training at paces in the area where lactate consumption increases will create miracles. Same with "VO2 max". There is nothing special about paces associated with this physiological measure. Nothing.

Everything is continuous (not necessarily linear though). Just look at an interpolated curve of the world records. If something were special about paces around "threshold" or "VO2 max" this curve would have sharp deflection points at the half marathon and the 3k. But there aren't any such quirks in the curve. As the race distance increases, pace steadily decreases. (There's a deflection point between the 400m and the 800m though.)

If your race lasts 30 minutes, running at paces near your 30 min pace will make you improve. It's that simple. And that's why Renato's training works. He builds up support paces around the target pace and then moves on to race pace towards the end of the cycle. All while maintaining the other paces.

[quote]Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

I hate the word tempo for some strange reason. Sounds too PC for me.

My view is that Daniels threshold idea is somewhat akin to Goodhart's Law or Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. E.g. it moves location when you try to act upon it. Look at a 15:00 5k guy, threshold pace is 3:40-45, so what! To get that guy down to 14:30 it is reps from 150m to 1k that is going to make the difference because that athlete needs to handle running faster than current race pace. But in order to handle more reps he/she needs to have better endurance hence more mileage. It is work either side of threshold that is probably more important.[/quot

Threshold pace 3.40-3.45 for a 15: 00 5 k guy ? Have never heard of before.

More like 3:15-3:20.

The Wizard

Hi Renato:

You once described the training of Marcello Fiasconaro including 10K 5x a week on grass in 33 to 35 min. What would you call that, if not tempo? I can't find the original thread but here is a copy:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5285642

Also, how would you incorporate the tempo that you described for a 400-800 runner ("the ability to run 3 km at VO2 max is a TEMPO RUN") into a sample of a few weeks of training?

Thanks in advance!

J.S wrote:

[quote]Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

I hate the word tempo for some strange reason. Sounds too PC for me.

My view is that Daniels threshold idea is somewhat akin to Goodhart's Law or Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. E.g. it moves location when you try to act upon it. Look at a 15:00 5k guy, threshold pace is 3:40-45, so what! To get that guy down to 14:30 it is reps from 150m to 1k that is going to make the difference because that athlete needs to handle running faster than current race pace. But in order to handle more reps he/she needs to have better endurance hence more mileage. It is work either side of threshold that is probably more important.[/quot

Threshold pace 3.40-3.45 for a 15: 00 5 k guy ? Have never heard of before.

More like 3:15-3:20.

The Wizard

I heard Daniels claim that the threshold pace was what you could keep up solidly for an hour, also I had heard that it was the indifference point between purely aerobic and lactate accumulation. 3:15 is a little fast for a 15 minute 5,000m runner especially for training. Somewhere in between these times might be about right but this 15 minute runner may really be an 800m specialist. In which case this is a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME!!

Hi Renato! Of course you are right there when you describe "Tempo runs" ,and I`m with you in that. Your mathematical way of deciding the different paces in a SPECIFIC TEMPO RUN is as someone mentioned here in this thread very close to Lydiards "power level tempo run" with full,3/4,1/2, 1/4 "power tempo run".

This way of training system you use needs exactly as you say "stairs", and all the stairs must be used for the system to function at its best.

The system is one of the very best in history and has produced a lot of great runners.

A problem I can see with the system is that it with a couple of phases and a lot off different "stairs" and mathematical % of different paces and distances, at a first view for the common runner looks to be quite "complicated". The runners who is in the system are fulltime runners most of them, and they are pounding out high mileage weeks.

What I have found out is that one don`t have to "complicate" the chase for reaching individual highest capacity and the very best race results.There is only the need for mainly 3 "stairs" and consistent doing them week after week,year after year in a lowmileage concept.

COACH J.S

J.S wrote:

What I have found out is that one don`t have to "complicate" the chase for reaching individual highest capacity and the very best race results.There is only the need for mainly 3 "stairs" and consistent doing them week after week,year after year in a lowmileage concept.

COACH J.S

Mr. Canova describes what real world beaters have to do. Ordinary mortals, especially those running quite low mileage, should keep it simple, but effective.

Therefore I like the three types of a tempo run defined by Bill Pierce, Scott Murr and Ray Moss:

short tempo = 10k pace for about 3 miles

mid tempo = 10k pace plus 10 sec/km for about 4-6 miles

long tempo = 10k pace plus 20 sec/km for 8-12 miles.

Obviously these "short tempo" runs (or 2x3 miles or 3x2 miles) are race specific work and most would not consider it as tempo runs in the classical sense. But it makes sense to me. The other ones (mid and long tempo) are powerful producers of aerobic fitness.

These "short tempo" runs make sense to you my friend.....but.....it`s just a sense. Not a fact backed up by scientific knowleadge and experience.....to train correct is not by "I feel it`s correct.." or " I guess it`s correct.." ....one have to know by scientific proof and great former experience to back up that the way one training is correct.

COACH J.S

J.S wrote:

one have to know by scientific proof

COACH J.S

Fraud alert!

Mr Canova describes what his world beaters do and have done.

There are other world beaters during history and now that do it in another way.

I think "ordinary mortals" love to get proof that it can be done another way then pounding out highmileage weeks.

COACH J.S

First I didn`t understand what you ment with " fraud alert" ......but I checked it up and saw it was one have to proof once identity and proof that don`t use different accounts. What proof do you want? I don`t think there is a "ghostwriter" that can write about running and training like I do? Maybe? Maybe not?

COACH J.S

The more I thought of this " the ability to run at Vo2 max is a TEMPO RUN" for a 400-800m runner coming from 400m. I also wonder what mr Canova ment with that? To do such a workout at 3000m for a 400-800m runner is more like an all out Timetrial and not a Tempo run?

COACH J.S

There is no reason to take my post as personal attack, really. Obviously you are a coach, I am not and I am not so ambitious to get a good Letsrun-trashing.

Anyway, I dare say that it works what is written above.

I don`t take it as a personal attack.....it`s okey.We have an interesting discussion going on here. :)

There is a lot of different workouts and paces that works for some develop.

But the very best is to back up the training with proven exact individual best paces.

COACH J.S

hip hip hooray wrote:

Therefore I like the three types of a tempo run defined by Bill Pierce, Scott Murr and Ray Moss:

short tempo = 10k pace for about 3 miles

mid tempo = 10k pace plus 10 sec/km for about 4-6 miles

long tempo = 10k pace plus 20 sec/km for 8-12 miles.

Obviously these "short tempo" runs (or 2x3 miles or 3x2 miles) are race specific work and most would not consider it as tempo runs in the classical sense. But it makes sense to me. The other ones (mid and long tempo) are powerful producers of aerobic fitness.

These are quite intense. Rather for short term, aerobic power work close to competitions.

U.N.O. wrote:

These are quite intense. Rather for short term, aerobic power work close to competitions.

Absolutely. You are right, it is for the final weeks prior race day. I have always been in trouble to get used to it, on the other hand it is plain and simple and there remain no unanswered questions if one can handle these three kinds of tempo runs plus the other stuff like long runs or interval workouts.

There are 2 totally different topics in this thread.

1. The term TEMPO being used as an approximation for LT or highest steady state.

2. The term TEMPO being used to describe a certain percentage of race pace for a given distance.

Personally, I've always used the term TEMPO to describe training that is specifically designed to create efficiency at or near LT pace. I feel like most American coaches use other terms if they want to describe other paces (for instance Renato's 800m runner doing a 3k TT would probably be described as AEROBIC POWER training by many American coaches).

It is true that tempo (LT) training is only a piece of the puzzle, but it is a very important one. One of the physiological factors that is most important for a distance runner as he progresses from undeveloped to more and more developed is the ability to run at ever greater speeds while keeping blood lactate below a certain threshold (4 mmol/dl is a commonly used indicator). The way that I explain the need for tempo (LT) type training to my athletes is that the LT measures what they have "in reserve" during races. The more they have "in reserve" the faster they can run when racing gets real in the final mile. I'll use some of my athletes as an example so that I can give specific times and paces.

Athlete #1 1600m specialist PR of 5:14, 3200 PR of 11:49.

Athlete #2 3200m specialist PR of 11:48, 1600 PR of 5:29

The last tempo run they did this season was a short run designed to be somewhere near LT. Athlete #1 ran 17:51 for 2.75 miles and Athlete #2 ran 18:07 for the same course. Both athletes reported the run as feeling moderately hard and then followed the LT session with a little more work at specific race pace (4 x 300 @ 57 for athlete #1, 3 x 600 @ 2:12 for athlete #2). Since I've always explained the term TEMPO as being a measure of how fast an athlete can go with relatively low blood lactate, it can maybe be assumed that I thought the girls really were running along at 4 mmol/dl during their tempo effort. The truth is, I don't rigthly know what the blood lactate level was on that run. We always do tempo runs by a subjective "feel" rather than by measuring HR or blood lactate. However, I assume that late in the season, after doing lots of VO2 max type work and repetition type work, they both had pretty good lactate buffering capacity and were in fact, well above the 4 mmol/dl threshold on their tempo run. Since they were probably running at well above 4 mmol/dl, they probably didn't really have as much in reserve as they felt.

So, how do I make sure these girls progress in the upcoming seasons? I have them do training that will allow them to run at the pace of their late track season tempo effort, but with blood lactate staying low. This way I know that these girls will truly have greater reserves. Then, when we add training on top of their already higher LT and create greater buffering or as Renato calls it MAX LASS (lactic acid steady state), they will see significant improvements in their racing performance.

Lacking testing equipment, how can I really know what is going on with the girls' blood lactate levels? I can do as Renato says and EXTEND the duration of their efforts. It is a safe assumption to make that if the perceived exertion of a run of 2.75 miles is the same as the perceived exertion of a run of 4.5 miles, then the run at 4.5 miles is done at a lower blood lactate. So, one of my goals during our summer base period, is to get these girls and their teammates to be able to extend the distance that they were running at a pace which was proably above their true LT. They will really have more "in reserve" that they can draw upon in hard races.

Could you purchase a lactate meter? I had the Lactate Pro and it helped to learn the feeling when running at LT. I used it in a way that in the warm up I ran 2km, pace increasing every 500m, the last 500m was run at a pace that I assumed to be very close to the LT. It wasn´t the same every day. If I got it right, I used that pace in the workout. But if I was right at the LT (or above) after the 2km progressive run, I knew I had to slow down a bit for the rest of the workout. Checked the lactate levels also after the workout, often even in the middle of it. I was surprised often. After a couple of years I sold the lactate meter and ran those based on by feel, and a HR monitor. But even if you don´t use it often, it´s a great tool to use occasionally to control the aerobic fitness of your runners.