Hey all, I have seen a lot of people advising to do 6 mile, 8 mile, even 10 mile tempo runs lately. I have always done tempo runs with a 10-15 minute warmup and only a 15-40 minute tempo with 40 minutes only after building to that, so it would be deeper into the training plan. I am only towards the beginning of my plan though, so I won’t be doing 40 minute tempos for a little while. I don’t run 4:00/mile pace, so I don’t see myself doing a 40 minute, 10 mile tempo though. My pace for tempo runs is in the 6:35-6:58 range and I usually do it as a progression where I will do the first mile in 6:58 and go lower every mile and if possible I get down to 6:35 on the last mile. Tomorrow I plan on doing 6:58 for first mile, around 6:48 for second mile and 6:39 if I feel good and 6:48 if I don’t for third mile. I will do a 12 minute warmup and a 5 minute cooldown, then stretch. I would call that about a 20 minute tempo run … maybe some would stretch and call it a 30 minute tempo and include warmup.
Is there some new thing that I am missing? Because if I did my tempo pace for ten miles I wouldn’t do any runs for the next 3-4 days. I could do 10 miles at say 7:30-8:00/mile pace, but that wouldn’t be tempo, it would just be a mid-length run or a very short long run.
Try using the Mcmillan calculator to determine your paces. From what I understand a tempo run is hitting the ‘tempo’ pace and sticking to it…a progression run is a progression run it is not a tempo run. Effort should be from 10 to 40 minutes and should be comfortably hard ( for me just faster than a half but not as fast as a 10Km)
You can break up the efforts for example, I might do a 10mile run as 10minutes relaxed, 2X25 tempo with 3-5 minutes easy between sets, 10 minute cooldown. or use 3X15 with 3 minutes easy or 5x10 with 2 minutes easy…whatever. shorter reps early in season longer reps later.
Hey all, I have seen a lot of people advising to do 6 mile, 8 mile, even 10 mile tempo runs lately. I have always done tempo runs with a 10-15 minute warmup and only a 15-40 minute tempo with 40 minutes only after building to that, so it would be deeper into the training plan. I am only towards the beginning of my plan though, so I won’t be doing 40 minute tempos for a little while. I don’t run 4:00/mile pace, so I don’t see myself doing a 40 minute, 10 mile tempo though. My pace for tempo runs is in the 6:35-6:58 range and I usually do it as a progression where I will do the first mile in 6:58 and go lower every mile and if possible I get down to 6:35 on the last mile. Tomorrow I plan on doing 6:58 for first mile, around 6:48 for second mile and 6:39 if I feel good and 6:48 if I don’t for third mile. I will do a 12 minute warmup and a 5 minute cooldown, then stretch. I would call that about a 20 minute tempo run … maybe some would stretch and call it a 30 minute tempo and include warmup.
Is there some new thing that I am missing? Because if I did my tempo pace for ten miles I wouldn’t do any runs for the next 3-4 days. I could do 10 miles at say 7:30-8:00/mile pace, but that wouldn’t be tempo, it would just be a mid-length run or a very short long run.
The problem here is that the word “tempo” is very overloaded and means many different things to different people. I think you will find it helpful to think of tempo as a slightly wider range of paces than you have listed here. If you are out there getting in solid weekly mileage, you absolutely can do 8 and 10 mile tempo runs but they’re going to be slower than the ones you do only for 4 miles.
The more I do this, the more I realize that the obsession with a specific pace for “tempo” is to the detriment of the runner in question. Want to do an 8 mile tempo? Fine. Just plan a 10 to 12 mile run. Get in a couple of easy miles and then pick it up to a pace that you would consider “comfortably hard”. Something that you are fairly sure (but ***not ***definitely sure) you’ll be able to hold for the next 8 to 12 miles. Finish and let the time falls where it falls. If it’s outside of that 6:35-6:58 range you’ve listed, who cares? Was it tough but manageable? Then, mission accomplished. Did you go too hard too early and have to stop after 4 miles? Well then, you’ve learned something that you can apply to the next one. Don’t be afraid to screw up a few of them. That’s part of the learning process.
Over on the LetsRun.com message boards, if you can wade through all the muck, you’ll find several posts by a former world-class runner named “George Malley” (he posts there as “malmo”) in which he describes what a tempo run means to him. He did them several times a week and didn’t worry if he was outside of some specific range. He ended up with two different American records. I’ve always thought he described very well the process of what a true “tempo” run should be.
I think it is much better to think of tempo runs organically in this way. People get so caught up in specific pace ranges and all that that they lose sight of the primary goal: To stress the body in a controlled fashion for a long period of time. They find they can’t hit that specific pace and get discouraged and give up on just running “comfortably hard”. Don’t worry about that. Just go out there and run tempo runs by feel for a while. Get used to stressing yourself in a controlled fashion for a long period of time. You ***will ***get a training benefit out of it. Then you can start worrying about specific pace values.
Hey all, I have seen a lot of people advising to do 6 mile, 8 mile, even 10 mile tempo runs lately. I have always done tempo runs with a 10-15 minute warmup and only a 15-40 minute tempo with 40 minutes only after building to that, so it would be deeper into the training plan. I am only towards the beginning of my plan though, so I won’t be doing 40 minute tempos for a little while. I don’t run 4:00/mile pace, so I don’t see myself doing a 40 minute, 10 mile tempo though. My pace for tempo runs is in the 6:35-6:58 range and I usually do it as a progression where I will do the first mile in 6:58 and go lower every mile and if possible I get down to 6:35 on the last mile. Tomorrow I plan on doing 6:58 for first mile, around 6:48 for second mile and 6:39 if I feel good and 6:48 if I don’t for third mile. I will do a 12 minute warmup and a 5 minute cooldown, then stretch. I would call that about a 20 minute tempo run … maybe some would stretch and call it a 30 minute tempo and include warmup.
Is there some new thing that I am missing? Because if I did my tempo pace for ten miles I wouldn’t do any runs for the next 3-4 days. I could do 10 miles at say 7:30-8:00/mile pace, but that wouldn’t be tempo, it would just be a mid-length run or a very short long run.
As mentioned above, this is all relative to what you’re training for. It also depends on how fast you intend to run your desired race. If your goal is to do a half marathon at 8:25/mi pace, a 40-minute tempo at 6:48/mi probably isn’t the most useful.
I haven’t quite figured out how/why to do a tempo for a 5K race. I personally just spend the time doing track work or a Fartlek type run when training for shorter races. But, for a half marathon or marathon, I’ll do tempo runs on a regular basis. For a 1/2, I like to run about 30-40sec slower than my goal pace, starting around 6 miles and working up to 8-9mi by the end of the training cycle. For the marathon, I run at goal pace, starting at an 8 mile tempo and working up to 12-14mi by the end of a training cycle.
Tempo runs are my hardest workouts. Just going out and aimlessly running them is a big cost if you don’t have a clear goal. I’m sure you have one, we just don’t really know what it is. What are you working toward?
Thanks for all of the replies. Last year I ran them at 10k pace and only did up to and including 40 minutes when I was training for a marathon (which was my first) and I’d say that I was undertrained and under-prepared for my marathon. I am going to be running a half marathon in the beginning of may, an iron 226 duathlon in august (think ironman with a 4k run in lieu of the 2.4 mile swim), and quite a few other events in between. During December, January and February I have been running within the range that mcmillan has for tempo, but I wasn’t doing them right. I didn’t hold the same speed for the whole time, I tried to negative split it and do the last mile 20-30 seconds faster than the first.
I read through the links provided and appreciate all the responses and information. I really liked all the information I found on the summer of malmo and how a group can train together on the track even though they aren’t of the same running paces. The runners world link had some great information too and I will remember the line “You know you’re working, but you’re not racing. At the same time, you’d be happy if you could slow down.” I haven’t been doing tempo runs built for my race and need to build up to more of the 6-8 mile tempo runs rather than the 3-6 mile runs I had always considered tempo paces. Right now I am running about a 20 minute 5k and my goal is a sub 1:30 for the half marathon. I have a 10k on March 17th that is about 6-7 weeks out from my half. The good news is that I still have 9 weeks to go, the bad news is that I only have 9 weeks to go, lol.