What Is A Tempo Run? An Experts Guide To Nailing Your Tempo Runs
Updated: Oct 25
Tempo runs are an integral part of any good training program. Tempo runs can help to develop your aerobic capacity, improve your lactate threshold, and increase your mental strength. However, doing them correctly and avoiding the typical tempo run mistakes can take a lot of self-discipline.
Tempo runs have gained even more popularity since we have seen the success and training of the Ingebrigtsen brothers. The Ingebrigsten brothers do up to 5 tempo/lactate threshold runs per week when they are building their aerobic base and they put a lot of their success down to these sessions.
These sessions are split over 3 days, where they do 2 tempo runs a day twice per week, a hill session, and a tempo run every Saturday, and the rest of the week is made up of 1 long run and then just easy runs, strides, and sprints. Overall, this is a very busy schedule and you can be sure they are taking their post-run recovery very seriously.
What is a tempo run?
A tempo run is effectively a sustained effort at a pace where your body can get rid of the lactate acid in your muscles faster than it is building up. This is a pace that should only feel slightly challenging for most of the session.
Seems simple right?
Well, there are many different kinds of tempo sessions. You have continuous tempo sessions which can last 20 minutes to over an hour. You can have broken tempo runs where you just break the total distance down into big chunks, 3x 15 minutes for example. Or you can have tempo intervals, such as 10x 3 minutes. All of these have different ideal paces for you to run at.
Benefits of tempo runs
You ask most runners what tempo runs do and they will say that by hovering around your lactate threshold, you improve your body's ability to get rid of lactate acid. Although this is not technically wrong, it is not the right way of looking at it.
Lactate threshold training is where we train at the is the maximum point where the body has just enough oxygen to clear out the lactic acid building up. What people ignore is that lactate acid is always being produced but we are just clearing it all the time, by training below our lactate threshold we are still teaching our bodies to get rid of lactate acid!
The main purpose of a tempo run is to increase your aerobic capacity, running at your fastest aerobic speeds (tempo run by my definition) is a great way to do this. Increasing your aerobic capacity means more red blood cells, those red blood cells can carry more oxygen, your body utilises that oxygen better and the muscles require less oxygen as well, also your lung capacity increases- all of this makes running a fair bit easier!!!
How do I know what pace to run?
Well, this is where 90% of runners go wrong. It is actually so rare these days to see people do tempo runs correctly, everyone uses them to test out how fit they are or to see what they could do in a race. You should train to race, don't race your training.
So, what are the rules? How can you find yourself in the small percentage of people who do tempo runs correctly?
For shorter tempo efforts (20 minutes continuous or tempo run intervals) you should aim to be at least 30 seconds per mile slower than your 5k pace.
For efforts lasting over an hour, you can stick to what Daniels Tables running calculator says is the pace you can hold for 2-3 hours or maybe a marathon pace.
Stick to 86-90% of your max heart rate as a rough guide (I'm not the biggest fan of using heart rate for tempo runs but it works for some people).
Leave your ego at home.
You are better off going 10% too slow than 1% too fast!!!
Maybe these paces are going to feel too slow and easy for you. You might get frustrated at the end of your session when someone who you can usually beat ends up way ahead of you. However, you will have the desired effect from your training and that is all that matters.
You may also like: How To Avoid Common Tempo Run Mistakes.
Example tempo run sessions
Okay so hopefully now you know the importance of tempo runs, what a tempo run is, and how to pace yourself, so now you need some sessions to go run. Each of these sessions would be a good tempo run for a beginner if you shorten the session down slightly, however, if you are slightly more experienced then you can keep the session as is.
Tempo Intervals
I highly recommend using these whatever level of runner you are. Tempo intervals help to stop you from working too hard during your session.
The main idea of a tempo interval session is to go the same pace as you would for a 20-minute continuous tempo but instead, you break the session up and run for a total of 30 minutes at a tempo pace. Potentially yielding better results.
For these sessions you should aim to build up to about 30 minutes volume maximum and have a 3:1 ratio of work to recovery, for example, 3 minutes tempo then 1 minute recovering.
10x 3 minutes (1 minutes recovery)
6x 5 minutes (2:30 minutes recovery)
15x 2 minutes (40 seconds recovery)
Continuous tempo
These are great for building your mental strength and can be more enjoyable than the intervals if you find yourself a nice route.
10 minutes warm-up, 20 minutes tempo, 10 minutes warm-down
10 minutes warm-up, 40 minutes tempo, 10 minutes warm-down
For the second session with the 40-minute tempo, you are going to want to run considerably slower than for the 20-minute tempo.
Broken tempos
These are great for switching things up to keep everything interesting.
10 minutes warm-up, 10-minute tempo (3 minutes recovery), 10-minute tempo (3 minutes recovery), 5 minutes tempo, 10 minutes warm-down
10 minutes warm-up, 20 minutes tempo (4 minutes recovery), 10 minute tempo, (3 minutes recovery), 10 minutes tempo (3 minutes recovery), 5 minute tempo, 10 minutes warm-down.
Tips for nailing your tempo runs
Here are some top tips to help you nail your next tempo run!
Do a proper warm-up! This should include an easy jog, dynamic stretches, and drills. If you are doing a longer tempo, then a longer warm-up can help to add to the miles to get even more aerobic gains!
Warm-ups are criminally underappreciated for how they can help your running. To learn more about how warm-ups can help you and how to run the perfect warm-up then click this link below.
Read: Warm-up Drills For Your Next Run
Add a couple of hard efforts at the end! You can add in some efforts at the end of a long recovery to help develop your kick when you are tired. For example 2x 200m off 2 minutes recovery or 4x 100m off 1 minute recovery.
Run with friends! Running in a group can help to keep things fun and will also help to maintain a steady pace.
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