The is a rewrite. Unfortunately the firt attempt didn't go through.
I'm talking about the "tempo run." For those of you who already do it, this is nothing earth shattering or new. For the rest of you, this is your chance to make breakthroughs in your training.
In my observation, the tempo run seems to be very underated by many many athletes. Some people understand the importance of a long run. They get it. They feel like they have really accomplished something when they come home and the spouse says "you ran how far?!!" On the other end of the spectrum people go out to the track and hammer out 800 meter repeats (often too hard). They see very quick results (25 seconds faster than I was a month ago!!) and definitely feel the gains of the pain!
But what about the tempo run? Frankly I think it gets over looked by many people because it doesn't *seem* like a very productive workout. It's not real interesting, you don't run particuarly far or fast, and you normaly don't hurt a whole lot when it's all done. Yet, it may just be the most important workout you can do.
A "tempo run," as I use the term, is very simply a 20 to 40 minute sustained run at your lactate threshold (LT). Your LT is essentialy the pace at which your body begins to produce significantly more lactic acid making it harder and harder to run faster. People with high lactate thresholds do very well in endurance events (like Lance Armstrong).
EDIT: It's actually run at MLSS (Maximum Lactate Steady State) which is much faster than you Lactate Threshold.
Without taking into full account individuality, your LT pace should be roughly the pace that you can maintain for a 1 hour long race. For some it will be a 10 mile race. For others it may be a 10K.
WHAT, WHEN, and HOW OFTEN? Simply run (after a warmup) for at least 20 minutes at this pace. For those with a heart monitor, you should be somewhere between 85-92% of your max. Nevertheless, this run should feel comfortably hard. When you finish you should feel winded yet feel like you could have run several more miles at that pace.
This workout is very very important and should be done to some degree (typicaly once a week) througout most of the year. You won't see very immediate results, but the long term benefits are priceless.
I definitely recommend it for distances up to HIM (there is a pretty valid debate as to the tradeoffs of intensity vrs more aerobic running for the IM). I also recommend it for marathoners who are not merely looking to "finish" but to actualy "race" (finishers may benefit more from a second long run during the week).
HIGH VOLUME? INTERVALS? and now a TEMPO RUN?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!
Read very, very carefuly. When doing your run training, you want to spend some time building up your weekly mileage first. Once you are comfortable running these miles you can then add in a 20 minute tempo run. Eventualy you may extend this to 40 minutes (some go even further). Only after you've gotten yourself in good shape and your races are approaching should you add in interval training, and some may not want to add it in at all (slower runners, injury prone, those training for IM). The Interval training shouldn't last for more than several weeks and the sessions should not be killers.
Anecdote: My third year of college my coach started to have us do tempo runs very regularly. We did them before, but not religiously. It was after he had a long lunch meeting with the coach from Georgetown that he finaly decided to have us run a 6 mile tempo run every Thurdsday morning from September through April. To this day he says that was when his program really turned around.
Runtraining15
-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485
I'm talking about the "tempo run." For those of you who already do it, this is nothing earth shattering or new. For the rest of you, this is your chance to make breakthroughs in your training.
In my observation, the tempo run seems to be very underated by many many athletes. Some people understand the importance of a long run. They get it. They feel like they have really accomplished something when they come home and the spouse says "you ran how far?!!" On the other end of the spectrum people go out to the track and hammer out 800 meter repeats (often too hard). They see very quick results (25 seconds faster than I was a month ago!!) and definitely feel the gains of the pain!
But what about the tempo run? Frankly I think it gets over looked by many people because it doesn't *seem* like a very productive workout. It's not real interesting, you don't run particuarly far or fast, and you normaly don't hurt a whole lot when it's all done. Yet, it may just be the most important workout you can do.
A "tempo run," as I use the term, is very simply a 20 to 40 minute sustained run at your lactate threshold (LT). Your LT is essentialy the pace at which your body begins to produce significantly more lactic acid making it harder and harder to run faster. People with high lactate thresholds do very well in endurance events (like Lance Armstrong).
EDIT: It's actually run at MLSS (Maximum Lactate Steady State) which is much faster than you Lactate Threshold.
Without taking into full account individuality, your LT pace should be roughly the pace that you can maintain for a 1 hour long race. For some it will be a 10 mile race. For others it may be a 10K.
WHAT, WHEN, and HOW OFTEN? Simply run (after a warmup) for at least 20 minutes at this pace. For those with a heart monitor, you should be somewhere between 85-92% of your max. Nevertheless, this run should feel comfortably hard. When you finish you should feel winded yet feel like you could have run several more miles at that pace.
This workout is very very important and should be done to some degree (typicaly once a week) througout most of the year. You won't see very immediate results, but the long term benefits are priceless.
I definitely recommend it for distances up to HIM (there is a pretty valid debate as to the tradeoffs of intensity vrs more aerobic running for the IM). I also recommend it for marathoners who are not merely looking to "finish" but to actualy "race" (finishers may benefit more from a second long run during the week).
HIGH VOLUME? INTERVALS? and now a TEMPO RUN?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!
Read very, very carefuly. When doing your run training, you want to spend some time building up your weekly mileage first. Once you are comfortable running these miles you can then add in a 20 minute tempo run. Eventualy you may extend this to 40 minutes (some go even further). Only after you've gotten yourself in good shape and your races are approaching should you add in interval training, and some may not want to add it in at all (slower runners, injury prone, those training for IM). The Interval training shouldn't last for more than several weeks and the sessions should not be killers.
Anecdote: My third year of college my coach started to have us do tempo runs very regularly. We did them before, but not religiously. It was after he had a long lunch meeting with the coach from Georgetown that he finaly decided to have us run a 6 mile tempo run every Thurdsday morning from September through April. To this day he says that was when his program really turned around.
Runtraining15
-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485