Tempo Runs

Orphia

I don't understand what a tempo run is.

It seems to mean different things to different people.

Is it as confusing as it seems?

MobyCarp

Different people use the term to mean different things. Tempo run can be defined precisely within a running system, with the pace and duration being quite specific. Or the term can be used more loosely by people who aren't following any particular system very closely.

In the loose sense, a tempo run is a continual run that is faster than your usual easy runs. It is not as fast as you can run, but it is faster than your easy long runs and faster than your marathon pace. The most common thought for how fast a tempo run should be is described diversely as "lactic threshold," or "comfortably hard." When I was in my first training program, I found the description "comfortably hard" to be remarkably unhelpful. Now, I know what it means; but it says nothing to someone who *doesn't* know what it means.

The duration of a tempo run can be defined in distance or in time. Some people, including most beginners, will just go out and run however far or long they're supposed to at however close to the defined tempo pace they can do. Others will run a slower warmup before starting at tempo run. But in any event, the tempo run is supposed to be a steady run at the same pace, as opposed to interval training that has faster and slower periods of running.

What really confuses the issue for newer runners is the very idea of running at different controlled paces. You may have noticed a lot of discussion about learning to run slower to do a true easy pace for most runs. What pace do new runners typically use? They tend to be erratic, but when they aren't thinking about pace they gravitate toward lactic threshold. In effect, before we learned better many of us ran *everything* as a tempo run. Take a newer runner who hasn't learned to vary his pace yet, and the idea of a tempo run being fast will be foreign because that's how he runs all the time.

MNLittleFinn

That's good info @MobyCarp thanks for sharing it

Orphia

MNLittleFinn wrote: »

That's good info @MobyCarp thanks for sharing it

Ditto!

Thanks heaps! Very helpful!

MNLittleFinn

So as to not start another discussion. what terrain should tempo runs be on? I'm assuming the same as normal easy runs and long runs, just faster paced?

MobyCarp

Tempo runs can be on any terrain. If you're targeting the tempo pace by time, that's easiest to do on a track and next easiest on level ground; but once you get used to targeting tempo by effort, you can do it on any terrain and it's pretty easy on terrain that resembles what you do your easy runs on.

When you first start out, I'd recommend doing tempo on a familiar route so all you have to pay attention to is how you're running differently. After you get used to what tempo runs are like, that will no longer be necessary.

Stoshew71

@Orphia I posted out Tempo runs here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/32927287/#Comment_32927287

Orphia

Stoshew71 wrote: »

@Orphia I posted out Tempo runs here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/32927287/#Comment_32927287

Thank you!

MNLittleFinn

I didn't want to start a whole new conversation, for a related question, for Tempo Intervals, you run on similar terrain to regular tempo runs, right?