Light Tempos - why not for every run?

I think there are a variety of valid training methods each suited for particular individual strengths/weaknesses. If you listen to your body, it will speak to you and tell you what you need to do to train it to achieve the best results. If you feel like running a light tempo frequently, your body might be telling you that you will respond to this type of training. Try it and see if it works.

When I was younger, I responded well to hard tempo or interval sessions three times a week. I noticed a change at around the age of 44 - I found that I respond better to milder but more frequent sessions.

I trained like this in high school, you can get fast like this but it will limit you in your top-end speed.

You'll constantly be under-recovered, so you'll never feel extra strong to run that super fast race, or hit speed workouts at super fast paces. Everything is "pretty good". You can get to a point where your "pretty good" is way better than most people.

I got to the point where I was in high school running 8-10 miles per day, everything was about 5:40-5:55 pace per mile. I made a point to run sub 6 minute pace every day. My speed workout days were my races in the 800/1600/3200. I ran 9:05 3200 and 4:14 1600, but I had no kick because I was never sharp due to being worn down from pretty quick paces every day and never worked out that fast since my normal running was in the upper 5's. Eventually I started running 'smarter' in college because college coaches know a thing or two. I did take it up a level once I took my easy days a little easier so that I could have better workout days and better race days. We're talking 13:40's and 7:50's for 5k/3k, so that is decent improvement over 9:05/4:14.

yiftertheshifter wrote:

Running is primarily an aerobic activity, even an 800 is something like 60% aerobic. You run the risk of running too fast on these runs and minimizing aerobic benefit which should be the majority of your training.

I'm a strong believer in base but where did you get this figure? I think the mile is 60% aerobic.

Lots of interesting and helpful comments. To the comment above, was this style of training successful for you in longer distances (i.e., ones where you are closing as opposed to kicking?)

yiftertheshifter wrote:

letsmythologize.com wrote:

What is 'aerobic benefit'?

Increase in the stroke volume of your heart (pumps more blood), increase in the the activity and number of enzymes that transport oxygen out of the bloodstream and into the muscle, and the number of mitochondria in your muscles. Basically your body gets better at using oxygen. The purpose of tempo/threshold training is to get your body better at clearing lactic acid once you get into oxygen debt.

Except they do not talk about it being "lactic acid clearing." It has more to do with micro muscle fiber breakdown and also pH levels in the blood.

3hr-marathoner wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

Speed work does not make you faster. Recovery from speed work makes you faster. Your body doesn't complete its recovery adaptations in just 24 hours.

Juice Springsteen wrote:

If you weren’t doing any other workouts, that would be fine.

These answers. You need to go easy for a day or two afterward a hard day or else all the hard days do is tear you down. It's funny because tearing yourself down can actually make you faster in the short term because it will make you lighter and tougher but there's a limit to fast you get just being light and tough. To continuing improving you really need to be stronger and more efficient that requires recovery.

Yes, it takes time...watch Symmonds videos on You Tube.com.

Easy days easy, hard days hard

Bob Schul Country wrote:

Schul must be daft wrote:

Tempo almost always means a hard sustained effort. Many coaches further specify an intensity (eg lactate threshold pace) and duration.

Like Bob said, the word tempo doesnt mean anything when it means multiple things. "lite tempo", "hard tempo", moderate tempo"........just use aerobic, LT, VO2. Those mean somehting

Like I said, Schul must be a total idiot. You can say the same thing about any type of workout. Eg if I tell you I'm going to do intervals, a long run, fartlek, a progression run, etc. without further info you don't really know much about what run I doing.

TempoPete wrote:

If I’m capable of doing light tempo speed (5K plus 45-60 seconds) for most of my runs, should I? Consensus seems to be that this is dumb, but why lower the quality? I’m still getting in interval work and faster pace stuff.

I think the answer can be summed up with three points:

1. Unless you are a 13:00 5000 guy, 5K+45 seconds/mile is not an easy tempo, it's just a tempo. If you are a sub-16:00 guy, 5K+60 seconds might be an easy tempo.

2. If you run everything at easy tempo pace, you aren't getting the benefits associated with more volume at slower paces.

3. If you run everything at easy tempo pace, you aren't getting the benefits associated with faster paces.

I probably confused the original question by referring to 5K pace + 45 seconds. I haven't run a 5K in years so I honestly have no idea where I'd land. I really only race the longer distances.

Basically, what I'm talking about is doing all of my runs at average paces of around 6:15 which is more like half marathon + 45 seconds.

1/2 marathon (5:30) + 45 sounds challenging, but far enough from a tempo that it wouldn't be crazy to run a lot of your runs at that pace -- especially if it feels good and you aren't feeling work down by it on workout/race days.

I run with my (faster) son most days and end up doing most of my miles at about that pace out of necessity. It doesn't feel optimal, but it works out okay. I am still able to improve.

TempoPete wrote:

If I’m capable of doing light tempo speed (5K plus 45-60 seconds) for most of my runs, should I? Consensus seems to be that this is dumb, but why lower the quality? I’m still getting in interval work and faster pace stuff.

So steady state pace? Had a guy who did that almost every training and long run. Stress fracture.

I've read and forgot a lot of (summarized) science on this topic over the years. But here's the intuition:

- You want to recover optimally from your speed work. Truly easy days allow you to do this, while also promoting other aerobic capacities.

- If you run at medium intensity on days between your harder workouts, you won't recover optimally from these workouts. So you won't make the most out of them. Moreover, you might not even improve the other aerobic capacities as well as with easy training -- you'll be going slightly too fast to stay completely within that aerobic zone.

It's hard to appreciate this. Medium-intensity runs feel great. But if you want to improve, you ought to reign yourself in on the easy days.