Tempo before hard reps

Yes. I know there are a lot of coaches that just do straight reps, but more are starting to have mixed workouts, especially in the beginning of season. Examples are mile repeats at threshold pace, followed by some 200's, 300's or 400's.

Yes. As part of marathon training I will do 10k at something close to marathon pace/effort followed by 4 miles of work on the track. I don't consider it a warm up though; just the first part of the workout.

Isn't that what tinman does? Does a tempo run finished with some longer and shorter reps? Hypothetical workout would be 6k tempo+ 5 x 1k + 5 x 300m . correct me if I am wrong.

Yes, Tinman does a variation of this. If I am correct, in the base phase and transition phase, he sticks mostly with tempo and CV effort, with a few 10-20 second short hills or sprints after, at 800 to 1600 effort. In race season, he'll do a few less CV intervals and finish with 3-5 x 400 at mile pace or 3-5 x 800 at 2mile pace. I am not sure how he structures these workouts and how much he does them, but I think these are examples.

I also have heard that the Bowerman Team does a lot of threshold reps, followed by faster stuff.

Tinman time wrote:

Isn't that what tinman does? Does a tempo run finished with some longer and shorter reps? Hypothetical workout would be 6k tempo+ 5 x 1k + 5 x 300m . correct me if I am wrong.

That’s a hell of a workout that I’m almost sure Tinman would not prescribe.

The most common example of a Tinman workout would be like 5x1k @ CV + 4-6x200m hills or track reps at mile pace.

But a lot of people do tempos then harder reps, whether as part of a cut down workout or as a straight tempo then other reps.

For example I know BTC last year did a 4 mile tempo then 4xmile with 90s rest. I don’t know the paces but I’d guess it was something like half marathon and 10k pace, respectively.

My college coach had us do this as well. For long distance (1500/5k, 5k/10k) guys we'd usually do about 10-15 minutes at 6:00 to 5:50 pace, finish at the track and do interval stuff on the track. The short distance (800/1500) would usually do 1.5 to 800 meter tempos. As the season progressed the tempos would get shorter for both groups and the intervals got more race specific.

The last few weeks the long distance guys wouldn't do more then a mile tempo followed by race specific intervals and the short distance guys wouldn't do more than 800.

It was a good way to get some leg turnover going. Especially if we were feeling sluggish after a long day of classes.

Tempan wrote:

Has anybody tried doing a small bit of tempo running as part of a warm up before a hard track session

You will get best results if separate workouts with different purpose. When you do that you will get most out of it.

- Magic Wizard -

You actually don't have to do many reps. Start the tempo slow and pick it up for say 5m/8km and then do a 1km flat out or maybe two. This will rock you into great shape.

Tinman would not do a tempo, then 1000's at CV, then 300's at mile pace. This would be way too big of a workout. He would, however, do the 1000 meter CV reps, followed by a few mile pace reps. At the beginning of the season, the mile pace reps would be short. As the season goes on, he would add distance to the mile pace reps.

5-7 1000's at CV followed by some 10 - 20 second hills

3-5x1000 at Cv, followed by some 200's, 300's or 400's.

These are great workouts, that build strength, while finishing fast and strong.

Personally I like to do these mixed type workouts from mid-season onwards. As the people I coach are approaching their goal races, race pace intervals become a higher focus as opposed to strength work such as tempo runs and hills. However, tempos runs are what gave them the strength to run fast in the first place so it would be asinine to totally phase them out. I will start workouts with a 10-12 minute tempo to stimulate that system and then give them about 2:00 rest before the intervals approaching race pace.

Never get too far away from one system, but change fractional utilization of each system at different periods in a macro-cycle.

Peaking wrote:

Personally I like to do these mixed type workouts from mid-season onwards. As the people I coach are approaching their goal races, race pace intervals become a higher focus as opposed to strength work such as tempo runs and hills. However, tempos runs are what gave them the strength to run fast in the first place so it would be asinine to totally phase them out. I will start workouts with a 10-12 minute tempo to stimulate that system and then give them about 2:00 rest before the intervals approaching race pace.

Never get too far away from one system, but change fractional utilization of each system at different periods in a macro-cycle.

When doing this kind of workout, with a tempo and then reps, do you do less reps than the traditional workout. Instead of 12x400, would you do 12 minute tempo, followed by 6 x 400's at mile ?

Would do something like 2 mile tempo + 3 x (4 x 400)

Tinman expert here. No one here understands how he prescribes CV workouts so far.

For example for a 35 min 10k runner:

15-20 minute warm-up, INCLUDING 5-7 minutes at tempo! Normally 10 min easy, 5-7 min tempo, 2-3 min easy, then NEXT.

5x1000 in 3:30 followed by

5x30 sec hill charges (mile effort) followed by

5x15 sec strides (800m effort) and a LONG cooldown (15 min+).

The easy running at the start is supposed to warm you up for the tempo (use Tinman Tempo pace per his calculator which is roughly MP) WHICH warms up you for the CV WHICH warms you up for the even faster reps.

As you get closer to main competition, he even adds in VO2MAX intervals between the CV and the sub-race pace stuff, like 5x600m at VO2MAX pace.

So YES, very short Tempo running is IMPERATIVE in workouts to warm you up for them!

thanks for the great info

I've never been a client of his, but have read many things that he has written regarding his training and advice. Most of the advice I saw did not include a tempo, except for a 3 minute tempo to warm up, for the high school kids. He also has a range of mileage for the reps, considering the athletes overall milage and ability. I do agree, that for the advanced runner, he probably has them do a tempo before the CV reps and pace reps.

Tempan wrote:

Has anybody tried doing a small bit of tempo running as part of a warm up before a hard track session

I took this to mean doing a few minutes at tempo pace as part of the warm up. Not “A tempo workout + speed reps”.

So maybe the OP meant:

15 minute warm up with last 3-5 minutes around tempo pace. Or even 15 min warm up- Drills- 3 minutes tempo- few hard strides- start the workout.

For big workouts, I usually naturally close the the last few minutes of the warm up around tempo pace to at everything flowing. (When you work and are pressed for time or simply don’t like doing tons of drills is also a good way to get warmed up fast.) 15 minute run progressing at the end- A skips and skipping focusing on driving into the ground, ankle pops, legs swings, Couple strides = great 20 minute warm

Tempan wrote:

Has anybody tried doing a small bit of tempo running as part of a warm up before a hard track session

I thought this was normal. I generally do 2 miles easy followed by 800 tempo, 400 5k pace, then 2x200 at mile pace as a warm up before any track workout or race. Pretty standard stuff.

The ingebrigtsens do 3-5 x 1:00 tempo before their races as part of warm up

Katelyn Touchy does this! See the rather terse interview with Jonathan Gault