Tempo running

Today I did a good workout and felt like sharing it. After a good warming up session incorporating assault bike and a mix of static and dynamic stretching I went on and did my tempo run. I started with a 1km warm-up building up my heart rate to about 75% of my maximum heart rate (MHR). The main session consisted of 4 five minute high tempo runs at an average 85-90% of my MHR. In between I continued running for 2 minutes, maintaining the heart rate at just above 75% MHR. The session finished off with a cooling down run of another kilometre and some stretching to give my body time to cool down and help blood circulation to assist elimination of lactic acid build-up, especially in my legs.

Even if I enjoy lifting weights an athlete aspiring to be fit also needs good cardiovascular capacity so that when one decides to tackle hypertrophy type sessions, HIIT, tabata workouts or try out a crossfit metcon workout you are better prepared for the intensity you need to put in.

For this reason I do put in running sessions in my training schedule. Apart from doing the regular 5, 7, 10 km runs I also like to spice up the run by doing tempo runs.

Tempo runs

In the simplest of terms a tempo run – aka anaerobic or threshold run – is when you run for a period of time at a sustained high speed where your body can withstand it but is hard. A lot of people describe it as running ‘comfortably hard’.

On a more technical basis you will run at a speed/pace where the build-up of lactate – a by-product of burning carbohydrates and energy during the effort – is exactly in balance with the ability of your body to eliminate it from your muscles and therefore allowing you to maintain the run.

Benefits

Especially for long distance running tempo runs will help elevate that lactate threshold capacity meaning running faster for a prolonged time and hopefully a better race result
Good mental training since during the high end part of the tempo run you will have to mentally fight against the will to slow down.
Nice change to the linear running session

A regular competitive runner should have tempo runs incorporated at a certain part (usually second part) of their training program at least once a week. If you run just for fitness, this can be a nice session to spice things up and can be done every other week. As with all new workouts one should start slowly and start doing short periods of high tempo’s and build up to a desired minimum period. For example break up your run initially in 3 minute high tempos with short 60-90 second slow tempo repeated for 5 times, and build up to a single high tempo run of 20 minutes. Of course, if you are a runner planning a half or full marathon tempo runs will be longer.

Tempo run variations

Tempo running has a vast possibility of variations but generally the most common are

Pace based – Trying to run at a faster pace than your usual pace, usually 15-20 seconds faster
Heart rate based – Usually calculated at a HR zone of 80-90% of your maximum heart rate
Time based – running for a specific period – 10, 20, 30 minutes – at the lactate threshold pace, basically run based on feeling and not on pace
Distance based – Tempo runs can be worked out according to distance

As you can see organising tempo runs requires a bit of homework in terms of finding your running pace or you maximum heart rate to be able to calculate the ideal running tempo zones needed for effective training. Nonetheless there are ways of finding these parameters without excessive difficulty and by investing just a bit of time and testing you will get the numbers needed to work out your tempo run ones.