The mind and what’s going on within it largely determines a workout experience. That’s why you should be aware of your thinking as you begin a tempo interval workout. Tempo intervals should be run at the pace of the race you’re preparing for. But there is a more important consideration than pace, and that’s the effort needed to generate the pace.
Tempo training must be comfortable, regardless of the pace your effort generates. So, as you begin a tempo workout, you should focus attention on the following factors:
- Injury pain. You must be pain-free on this scale: tender, twinge, ache, sore, severe. If you experience greater pain than tender, the rule is slow down until it goes away.
- Clunkiness. Your running stride should feel smooth as silk, rather than herky-jerky. Shorten your stride until it’s in synch with your body, and without a pounding footfall.
- Intensity. Intensity is a measure of discomfort. You should avoid even tolerable discomfort while practicing your race pace and building your tempo ability.
Tempo is the ability to run comfortably at race pace for the first half of your racing distance. It goes without saying that an injury-free, smooth, and efficient stride is desirable in the second half of a race. But sometimes one’s form disintegrates in the interest of a fast finish time. Similarly, during the second half of a race, intensity can rise as high as you are willing to endure discomfort. The context for a tempo workout, however, is different from a race. Racing is about best performance; training is about expanding your capacity.
Capacity is another word for running energy, measured as: none, little, some, ample, abundant. Energy increases as your body responds initially to a light warm-up. Then, energy usually plateaus before it decreases with the onset of fatigue. All workouts should end at the first signs of fatigue because your training purpose is to expand capacity maximally, while avoiding significant contraction. Being comfortable from the start enables the greatest energy expansion; discomfort has the opposite effect. The choice is yours.
“If you are more focused on your pace than your energy, errors crop up and fatigue sets in while you fail to derive maximum benefit from the workout. Remember, capacity trumps pace.”
Here is where context becomes crucial to the training project. For, if you are more focused on your pace than your energy, errors crop up and fatigue sets in while you fail to derive maximum benefit from the workout. Remember, capacity trumps pace. Think of it this way: your pace rides on a wheel of effort within your capacity (see accompanying graph). The greater your capacity, the faster tempo pace may be, provided you avoid discomfort. So, if a faster pace is your goal, then focus first on increasing your energy.
Unfortunately, energy responds to metabolic forces beyond your direct control. Thus, if you want more energy, play with your capacity by moderating your pace. One’s pace is never fast enough for an ambitious mind. So, your primary consideration should be keeping your effort comfortable, as described above. Pacing should never take priority over a plan for increasing your energy. This is the most important contextual consideration.
A Comfortably Paced Workout (graphic image)
The graph (above) accompanies the article ComfortableTempo Training. It shows two points during a workout: at 45 and 90 minutes. The workout consists of four elements:
- Capacity/Energy, represented by the green, dashed circles. The circle on the right is the larger of the two, but it’s about to shrink as fatigue sets in at 90 minutes. The height of the circles is a measure of their level on the energy scale (to the left).
- Exertion/Intensity, represented by two solid black circles. Both black circles fill the green circles in the same proportion, well within capacity. If the black circles are a measure of intensity, it’s fair to say they approximate a comfortable exertion level.
- Pace (minutes/mile), represented by the dashed, horizontal arrows. The arrows indicate pace at two points of the workout, with the left arrow pointing at the slower pace. Both arrows “ride” on wheels of comfortable exertion.
- Energy Pattern, represented by the green curved line. The green curve indicates levels of energy at any moment during the workout. It forms an energy pattern discernable during all workouts as either sluggish, tired, lazy, ready, or eager.
Fatigue should always set the limit of workout duration. In this example, fatigue is signaled by a drop in energy (the green curve) from its peak between ample and abundant.
There is no acceptable reason to push into significant fatigue during training. Forcing fatigue to prepare for it during a race is not only unnecessary, but it hinders one’s fundamental training purpose: expanding capacity for racing effort. Thus, the illustrated workout ends, as it should, at the first sign of fatigue.
Training beyond 90 minutes in this case would raise the risk of injury and increase the time needed for recovery. Thus, workouts are different contextually from races.