Thanks for the debate guys!

debate?  This thread isn't all that debatey. (I'm cognizant of...sensitive to... this because I don't want to get interpreted as a massive debater.  At least not in this thread)

 Without respect to the length of the race or the proximity of race day ?

 

mta: not being a wise guy; I have been thinking about tempo run length recently.

Yeah, I weigh those factors in.  For example, while training for a half I may alternate weeks of tempo and the intervals.   I still may do that for a 5K too, but maybe focus more on the intervals for several weeks right before the race.

I'm still experimenting with this.  Before last year I was almost exclusively a tempo guy.  And like Jeff I really like tempos.

MTA: And unlike others I treat a tempo as one of my workouts for the week, right or wrong.  I am admittedly conservative with my training and always have an eye on recovery.  I've been trying to come out of that shell a bit over the last year or so.

 

Sorry, but I still don't grasp this.  I realize that it is obvious to you and Mike.  It is not to me.  If a run a tempo run as "the pace I could hold for about an hour", then to me that *is* my "race pace" for an hour-long race (15k-ish?).

 

Perhaps the difference is that I end a tempo run not being completely destroyed, but if I truly raced that 15k, I should be trashed at the end.  So, therefore, tempo is slower and a 15k is not run "comfortably hard".

As I understand tempos, it would be at your 15K pace if you do 15Ks in an hour.  You would not feel trashed, though, because you aren't running 15K or for an hour, but more likely 20-40 minutes.

 

Because if you run your 1 hour race pace for 1 hour, that's a race not a tempo run.

 Yup.  The 1-hour-race-pace rule of thumb is aimed at a 20 minute tempo run.  1-hour race pace should leave you comfortably tired after 20 minutes, but not wiped out.  Longer tempo runs require slower paces. The ever-scientific Daniels has a table for recommended tempo run pace.  The paces range from threshold pace (1-hour race pace or so) for a 20-minute tempo run up to marathon pace for a 1-hour tempo run.

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about details of tempo run.  You need to have a good effort run once in a while but how often, how long, how hard all depends.  I strongly believe that trying to go by a text book on this one is a big mistake.  In most cases, people do it too hard.

 

 

I still think the best guide is; "do at least one run at 3/4 effort".

 

 Thanks to all (I am not the original  poster) I am going back to my 1st mind. 1 week hill repeats (3-6)-1 week 200-400 m repeats(2-6)-1 week 1-3 miles at race pace(4-7 mile run) (5k ,10k, etc) Start training at marathon pace and at the end of my race season(Nov) be at 5k pace.

I usually do 1 of 2 tempo runs - the 15 minute straight tempo where I usually get around 3.5 km or the 2x 10 minute tempo where I'm getting around 4.5,4.6 km not including the short rest (~2 minutes between).

I was wondering if that was enough and if running longer tempos will help my race performance - as Nobby already knows, I'm really lacking in the end of my races. Or if this is enough as many of you suggested, you don't tempo as far as race distance. But I know most of you are marathon guys whereas I run mostly 5ks

For those of who you know me, I'm 20 and I run relative low mileage (~30mi/week)

1) Based on your race times, 3.5km in 15 minutes is probably putting you too far above LT for too long to get the full benefit.

2) Tempos are of greater benefits for longer distance racers.  For 5K, the primary benefits are (1) increasing your LT, and (2) learning to focus.  I think 20-30 minutes is sufficient.  I've done it both ways, all at once, or in 10-minute increments.  The primary goal needs to be the effort.  You want to spend the most minutes as possible right at LT.  Too slow, you're running easy, too fast, you're not "training", you're just practicing running fast.

3) You're as fast as all get out...increasing your weekly volume by 25%-35% percent and getting religious about a weekly long run would do wonders for your "end of races".  Adding tempos into this mix, I think, would help.

I was a sprinter (100m/200m) in high school, but not a great one.  Not really even a very good one.  I mainly ran track to add explosiveness for football.  However, I do remember running 400s.  Those sucked.  I would sprint as fast as I could around the track and at about the 330 mark I would feel like I was going to collapse, couldn't suck wind fast enough.  There's a weird sort of taste associated with that feeling as well.  I kind of get that when I sprint at the end of a race now or maybe a little earlier in a 5k.  

Would that be approaching lactate threshold?  

In response to the letsrun conversation about the "art" of running vs. the "science" of running:

I think one of the hidden blessings of science is its contribution to language.  If "lactate threshold" means the above feeling, then I've suddenly got a very brief, easy to use statement that encapsulates an otherwise 'hard-to-describe' phenomenon.  I'm not going to go out and by a heart rate monitor and work out fancy algorithms, but I am going to pay attention to my body and sometimes giving someone a concept gives them a certain power over the phenomenon.  My hypothesis:  Science contributes greatly to the work of artists.

I suppose its more of a "contention" than a "hypothesis."  

 

Unlike whom? A tempo run is a (c. hard) workout no?

Not a bunch of folks, just read a few comments here and there (not in this thread).  Now that I think of it it probably wasn't worth mentioning.

Carry on.