Now it was my understanding that “Tempo Pace” was first used, in running anyway, by Jack Daniels and referred to a pace that you could hold all out for an hour or somewhat slower than your 10K pace for most of us “mortals”. In most cases, if memory serves, Daniels recommended 20-30 minute “Tempo” runs. However in the last couple weeks I’ve seen training plans referring to “tempo runs” ranging from the usual 20 minute tempo to “Tempo run at half marathon goal pace plus 10 to 15 secs”. I’ve also seen things like “6 mile tempo run”, which is fine if you’re a 30-35 minute 10K’r, but if you’re a 43-45 minute 10K’r that 6 miles at “Tempo pace”, or at least what I thought tempo pace was, will take you 50 minutes to an hour.
So is “Tempo” just a generic term for “Running kinda hard” or is there an accepted standard here?
Run comfortably hard for 20-30 minutes. If you feel wiped out at the end, you’re run too hard. If in doubt, back the pace down until the 20-minutes doesn’t kill you. You can always jack up the pace over time as your body adapts to the stress.
You don’t have to do monster workouts to improve - you just have to be consistent.
And that’s pretty much what I always have done. Just that I’ve had a couple people send me the “What do you think of this plan” E-mails in the last couple weeks. I’ve seen “Tempo” used on pretty much everything from what I call a “tempo” to hour long runs that are just shy of LSD pace. I was second guessing myself that someone somewhere along the way redefined “Tempo”
My marathon race pace is 8 min miles and Daniels says in his charts that tempo for me is 7:20 miles. When I have finished a 20 min tempo run at that pace in the middle of a longer run, I’m real glad to be finished the tempo part.
Daniels T pace, tempo pace, is about 10-15 or so seconds per mile slower than 10k race pace, which is close to 1/2 marathon pace. His tempo runs are usually in the 10 - 20 minute range depending on if you are running 1 effort or multiple efforts. McMillan Running has tempo paces that are 5-15 or so seconds slower than 10k race pace or between just over 10k pace and 1/2 marathon race pace. Something that is over about 20-25 minutes is probably considered a ‘steady-state’ run according to the mcmillan paces.
I generally think of tempo runs as 20 minutes or so. They start to get difficult around 13 or so minutes.
I hear you Matt. Personally I would rather explore the tempo concept from the bottom up than from the top down. And I have never liked somebody telling me what tempo pace “should” be. I think it’s personal.
What I mean is, I would rather start running 20 min tempo runs at slighty faster than LSD pace. Once these runs no longer seem challenging, I would up the pace/effort slightly and wait for another adaptation period. And so on. I would rather do that than start running them too fast (feeling beat afterward) and having to back off.
In the end it all comes down to play and experimentation, which is where the fun is at anyway.
I kinda like comfortably hard as a description. Or maybe moderate with a buzz.
BTW, I’ve always considered tempo pace to be faster than 20 below AT, more like 10-15 below or even closer to LT depending on length of the effort. But maybe I have erred on running too fast.
10-15 beats below lactate threshold heart rate, “comfortably hard” is a good description. Zone 3 if you’re familiar with Friel’s HR training zones. A brief summary of Daniel’s stuff is here: http://www.coacheseducation.com/endur/jack-daniels-aug-00.htm. The adjusted paces you might see in various articles like “tempo + 5-10/sec mile”, or “t-pace - 5-10 sec/mile” would be specific prep workouts for a race like a half-marathon or 5k respectively in this case. Although Daniels in the link above calls some of these in-between stages “quality junk miles,” specificity is always an issue and he’d probably agree in elaboration.
I use the words “TEMPO” “STEADY” “UP-TEMPO” “BRISK” “SMOOTH” “FLOWING” “ROLLING” “CRUISING” “HAMMERING” pretty much too describe a pace faster than easy…sooooo I just throw one out there and dont really care if it really means anything to anyone.