transition from MAF to Tempo etc advice please (Read 928 times)

So far, I have been using Pfitz type plans modeled after his schedules on Advanced Marathoning. I may try a season using Daniel's Running Formula, but I have time to decide. If you don't have either book, get them, they are both good references. Oh, and you might drop a hint or two as to what you are training for, that affects answers greatly. My Advanced Marathoning idea does you no good for a 3k track race.

There are several definitions for tempo runs, so it's important to be on the right page with your plan. Many people say a tempo run is done at goal race pace, and if that's what you mean then this type of tempo run is about one quarter of your race distance, and can be stretched to a third if you recover well. The second definition is what I call a threshold run, where you are running at the inflection point of your blood lactate concentration curve. This run is often described as a pace you could hold for an hour race on that day, and is normally done for 20 minutes or so, not including warmup or cooldown. For elite runners it's about HM pace, but for slower runners it begins to approach 10k pace. I run HM's at around 1:55, and 10k at around 53 min. My threshold runs are normally (currently) around 8:20 to 8:30 per mile. Threshold runs are useful to improve stamina or power. If all of your aerobic running is done at an easy pace you will develop very efficient fat burning mechanisms, but you will be uncomfortable and energy inefficient when running near your threshold, where glycogen is the preferred fuel source. However, running at threshold for only 20 or 30 min per week will help elevate the inflection point, which will in turn elevate your velocity at marathon pace. When I do a threshold run I try to find a flat section of ground where I can manage to run for 20 to 30 min at threshold pace. Warmup is critical and I will take as long as I feel I need to be comfortable. I begin my warmup at a very slow pace and then allow the pace to slowly speed up according to how I feel. I do not force the pace, as that usually causes me to feel that I'm going too fast during the threshold portion, and I will drop out before I'm done. So I normally will try to hold back and slowly speed up until I hit the right pace. Starting pace is somewhere around 7 min per km, increasing over the next half hour to around 5:15 per km. Then I hold that pace for 4 to 6 km before backing down to around 6:15 per km for the final couple of km. My total distance is usually around 10 to 14 km. 20 to 30 min warmup, 20 to 30 min at threshold, and 10 min cooldown. I do not find threshold runs to be tough runs. After a good one I'm always left with a feeling that I could have run a little bit further. The next day I'm good to go, and I am not someone who recovers quickly from hard runs. I used to do thresholds on a track until I got a good enough sense of my body to do them on the road. Nowadays I can do them on hills if I want to but I prefer to do them on flat roads, as hills make it difficult to judge effort to the level I would like.

All I can say is be careful and wise. When I decided to "pick it up" all I picked up was a bagful of injuries. I knew better and I still got carried away.

Good advice. Consider strides--these are short tempo runs that you mix into your training runs. For example, you might do a MAF-pace warmup for a couple of miles, then a burst of 1/2 to 2 miles at tempo pace, then a mile or so at MAF pace, then another stride, etc. It's a good way to ease into those tempo runs without so much risk of injury. You are smart to approach tempos with caution. Going from MAF pace to tempo pace puts a lot of stress on your body and should be approached with caution.

Just leave your HRM at home and go out and have fun. Now that you know what "easy" feels like, you can start relying more on listening to your body. Push the boundaries, but then return to easy running to let your body recover.

If you don't know your current fitness in terms of pace, then it's probably a good idea to use the HRM. Otherwise, you'll be basing your paces off of desired fitness as opposed to current fitness, the latter of which is incumbent to know if you're going to stimulate threshold development. IMHO, it's good to rotate the types of tempo work you during a given mesocycle. So, for instance, one week you'd do 35-50:00@80% Max HR, next week, do a progression run from 70-85% max HR, third week, do a straight tempo for 25-30@85%. Then rerun. In this way, you're hitting LT development from a variety of perspectives and getting the chance to work through a variety of paces. (Tchuck said some of this in his earlier post).

Oh, well if you have no clue as to current fitness, go the the LHR group and find the HADD article. Start reading and use his zones. Pfitz also gives aggressive zones in Advanced Marathoning. After MAFfing, the faster paces do feel different. My marathon pace is 2 m/m faster than my MAF pace, but I don't think that is true for everyone. And, if you had looked in the LHR group, Jesse (formation...) has a chart for MAF paces compared to other paces like marathon and 5k of course, this one is not true for everyone either. I guess I wonder why you didn't ask this in the LHR group. Are you skred we will bite? And is the 10k the goal race, or a tune-up for another race?

JK, I usually do 2 minute recoveries between the long intervals. Some of the really long ones (like 2 mile reps) I might make it 3 minutes. I also don't recovery jog them, I try to keep them about my normal easy pace. So obviously you can't be shattering yourself on the reps--you need to keep them under control. Until I had a Garmin I used to do all "time" workouts; 3 x 8 minutes, 3 x 10 minutes, 6 x 4 minutes, 4 x 6 minutes, 30 minute tempos, etc. The Garmin enables me to program things like 4 x 2 miles with 3:00 recovery jogs and just do them anywhere on any stretch of road. I do all of the above during "longish" runs. Usually a 10 mile run is the minimum, sometimes a lot longer, and I do a longish warmup--generally 4 miles or so. For strides I usually do 40 seconds to a minute jogs in between.