[music] Mark Threlfall: The tempo run, also referred
to as the threshold run and often described as the comfortably hard run. It is a staple session in
pretty much every elite runner and triathlete's training programs. What actually is it?
Now, back when I was racing, I pretty much did a tempo run every single week,
but in all honesty, I rarely did them correctly and therefore rarely got the benefit
I should have from them, which is exactly why I'm making today's video. Now, a tempo run is
beneficial to all types of runners from milers to marathoners. They're more or less ubiquitous.
What exactly are they? Well, as I've mentioned already, they are comfortably hard. They're at a
pace that is faster than moderate, but not exactly hard. If you're familiar with functional threshold
power or FTP in cycling, well, it's quite similar. It's the maximum pace that you can sustain
for an hour and if you use heart rate, then it's between 85% to 90% of your maximum heart rate.
It's important to understand why we do it and its benefit to us, which is exactly what I used
to miss when I used to do it. I'm going to delve a little bit into the science here because a tempo
run should be at or near to our lactic threshold. Our lactic threshold being the maximum pace
that we can run and we can sustain while still clearing lactic acid from our muscles and from
our bloodstream. If you push above that lactic threshold, well, our body becomes overwhelmed
with this lactic acid. If we stay at or just below that, we can rack up some serious amount
of time at this pace. The goal then for these tempo sessions is to run at or just a fraction
slower than this lactic threshold, which folks is exactly where I used to go wrong. I used to
get carried away and run them far too hard. I get involved in all the competition within
the session. Admittedly, I did some pretty chunky and impressive sessions in my time,
but I was running them far too hard and therefore wasn't taking the benefit home from them that
I should have. In fact, actually had a knock-on effect to the rest of my training in my program.
[music] The question, what is your lactic threshold and
your tempo run pace? Well, you can go through the simple approach and you can just simply run at a
comfortably hard pace. There's nothing wrong with that. Something like a 7 to 8 out of 10 in terms
of the effort level, or as I mentioned before, you can use that heart rate around 85% to 90%
of your maximum heart rate. Alternatively, you can actually use some recent running results and the
times from that and calculate your pace from that. There's a ton of online calculators out there
that specifically work out your tempo pace from this and take all the hassle out of it for you.
Or you can do a test to find out your current tempo pace once and for all. As I mentioned
already, it's technically the best pace that you can sustain for 60 minutes. Let's
be honest who rarely fancies doing an all-out effort on their own in training for 60 minutes.
Certainly, not me. All you have to do is 30 minutes as hard as you can in training. This
solo 30-minute test should reflect what you might do if pushed in a 60-minute competitive
race situation. You want to record the run and your average pace will be your new tempo pace.
Of course, there is one final method heading to a sports science lab and having blood taken
periodically during a lactic threshold test but I'm going to assume most of you
aren't planning on that. [music]
All right. Hopefully, you're sold on the tempo run now. Now, let's look at how you
might do one. First off, they're clearly quite hard physically and mentally, which is exactly
the point, but that does mean that you should only look to doing one of this per week at
most. Start off by gradually building them up and getting used to them with time. Starting
with the session with short intervals along the lines of four lots of four minutes at tempo with
one minute thirty to two minutes recovery between each. Ideally, jogging the recoveries if you can.
Then, you can look at increasing the rep lengths four lots of six minutes at tempo, again with one
minute 30 to 2 minutes recovery between each. Then even reducing the recoveries four lots of
six minutes at tempo, but now with one-minute recovery jog between each. Meaning, you're
running almost 24 minutes at tempo straight until finally, you can start thinking about sustained
tempo runs where you're really setting into that pace for a good period of time. Something like 3
lots of 10 minutes at tempo with one minute to one minute 30 recovery jog between each building to
maybe 2 lots of 15 minutes at tempo with time. Once you're finally at this point,
you can start alternating and varying between these sustained tempo efforts
and back to those shorter tempo intervals week in week out. An important note though
is that you should never do more than 40 minutes at this tempo pace in total during a tempo run.
Otherwise, it just starts to become too difficult and bordering on a race-like effort. Personally
though, if I could just do one run per week, it would be the tempo run. You gain so much in such
a short period of time, but also, it's just a good test of your fitness week in week out.
Because essentially, the faster you can run before producing lactic acid, the faster you'll be able
to race. It really is a fantastic workout and I do really love it in a very masochist way.
I hope you have enjoyed today's video. If you have, give it a like, don't forget to head on
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