New to tempo - possible missmatched VDOT (Read 1397 times)

To quote a guy named Malmo, tempo running should leaving you feeling invigorated. If you are fried you ran them too hard. I think, when in doubt, run them a tad slower rather than too hard as running too hard in training will affect recovery and also cause you to possibly go into anaerobic stimulus when this is not the goal of a tempo. A progressive tempo run sort of protects you in this regard. Also, so do the repetition tempos. If you go out too fast in first interval, you will know it and can regroup a bit with the short rest period and learn from it. On traditional tempo, if you start too fast, the rest of the work out probably won't be too fun as you may have an early anaerobic stress or overload that may be too difficult to overcome to complete an effective and worthwile work out with a specific goal in mind.

Daniels' tempo runs are, indeed, quite fast. What most people miss, is that for the pace to be appropriate, they need to be run under nearly identical circumstances. If you ran a track 5k in 55 degree weather, 6 months ago, while you were peaking, that can lead you to run a tempo that is much too tough in 80 degree weather, on the roads, during your late base phase. The other thing about Daniels' LT runs, is that they're quite short. I know people who want to run a 40 minute tempo without modifying their speed. That's a brutal workout.

that's one thing I missed. I was doing some reading last night and Daniels says to ease up on your pace when doing longer tempo runs. Once they get to an hour long, you're basically at marathon race pace. a 35 minute tempo run for a guy like me should be about 20ish seconds slower than a 20 minute tempo run.

that's one thing I missed. I was doing some reading last night and Daniels says to ease up on your pace when doing longer tempo runs. Once they get to an hour long, you're basically at marathon race pace. a 35 minute tempo run for a guy like me should be about 20ish seconds slower than a 20 minute tempo run.

You must have missed my modification of one of my responses where I highlighted this. Sounds like you read something similar to what I was citing. In my version of Daniels (2nd edition), he recommends the following modifications to T-pace for your VDOT of 37: Tempo Time / Pace 20:00 / T 25:00 / T+6 30:00 / T+ 11~12 35:00 / T+ 14~15 40:00 / T+ 17~18 45:00 / T+ 20~21 50:00 / T+ 22~24 55:00 / T+ 24~27 60:00 / T+ 26~30 60:00+ / T+34 (M-pace)

So now that my question has been answered, I've got a question based solely on intellectual curiosity. How do the physiological changes/benefits that stem from doing my tempo run at the original 8:40 for 35 minutes differ from the changes/benefits of doing it at the slower pace?

I'd say you got one hell of a workout. You were running right at your lactate threshold for an extended period of time. Drawback is that, like you mentioned, you were very spent afterwards, as it was almost like a 10k race for you, meaning that you'll require more recovery than you would have at the prescribed pace.

Maybe this is cheating, but I use a HRM for feedback. I don't like the idea of "20~30 minutes at a pace you could race for 40~60 minutes" because I never really know on a given day what that pace is. Is this the speed at which I would drop dead at 60 minutes? By contrast, if I get myself into the "tempo" HR zone, then I know that I can hang on for at least 25 -30 minutes w/o going overboard. If I see the HR jump too high, then I know I'm getting carried away (which is a problem of mine). If it falls too low, I know I'm wimping out. I know I know I know it's not an exact science and I use the HRM only as a guide. Still, I like it . . .