Throw in a Tempo

I think this year I’ll actually work a training plan rather than just have a goal of doing a certain amount of miles a week.

Today I attempted a Tempo Run.  Basically, after a warm up I ran at just below race pace for a while and then did a cool down. The purpose of a Tempo is to increase the Lactate Threshhold to improve race performance.  Basically it gets you used to running harder for a longer period of time.

After thinking about it, I believe that most of what I’ve been doing up to this point have been tempo runs.  I normally will just head out and run hard.  Usually around 8:00 - 8:30 miles except for my long runs.  By doing a warm up slower, a tempo and then a cool down, I hope to decrease the stress on my body yet still improve my performance.  We’ll see.

So today I ran 3/4 mile at 9:00 pace.  Then I ran 1.5 miles at 8:00 pace and then finished with 3/4 mile at 9:00 pace.  Felt pretty good and the fast pace really wasn’t that hard.  Maybe I need to do it faster.  I’ll keep playing with the pace to see what works.

This entry was posted on June 7, 2007 at 11:12 am and is filed under Running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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