Training Tempo

So since we’ve all got racing on our minds these days, let’s talk tempo.

The whole purpose of running tempo is to raise your anaerobic threshold, increasing your body’s ability to process lactic acid and allowing you to run harder, longer. Of course, running tempo also helps you develop a sense of pacing and importantly, from a psychological standpoint, increases your level of confidence in being able to maintain a challenging pace for a longer period of time.

To begin tempo training, start with a relatively short distance and gradually move up. For a 10K race you want to work your way up to 3-4 miles of tempo running, for a half-marathon set your goal at 5-6 miles.

First, you want to do your tempo work on flat terrain so that you can maintain constant speed. You also want to do this workout in a place you can return to repeatedly so that you can track your progress.

Start with an easy 2-mile “jogging” pace as a warm up, and then increase your pace to an effort level at which you COULD talk if you had to, but you don’t want to (basically, your 10K race pace). Maintain this speed as best you can throughout the entire workout and finish with a 2-mile cool down “jog.”

It’s a great idea to time your splits when you’re doing these tempo runs – I like splits every mile. That way, as you do your tempo work each week up to your race you get a definite sense of where you should be at each mile and you train your head to intuit your proper pace.

Runners with a good base (25-40 mpw) should train both tempo and intervals weekly (of course properly monitoring intensity and distance increases to avoid injury). 

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