TL;DR
Comfortably hard, controlled, ~20–40 minutes of it — once a week.
- Pick one of the three tempo formats — on purpose
- Aim for effort ~6–7/10, not a pace you promised yourself
- Warm up 10–20 min, cool down 10–15 min
- Add minutes before you add speed
- Keep every other run genuinely easy
- Don't race it or sprint the last rep
- Don't hold 20-min pace for an hour
- Don't force pace when heat or fatigue says no
- Don't copy elite double-threshold weeks
If you could have held it ten minutes longer, you did it right.
The three workouts hiding behind one word
"Tempo" is a coaching term, not a physiological one. A 20-minute effort and a 60-minute one cannot be run at the same intensity — so decide which workout you're doing before you start.
Threshold tempo
●●●●At or just under the top of your sustainable aerobic range. Simple, race-specific, unforgiving of pacing errors. Trap: turning it into a time trial.
15–25 minContinuous
Cruise intervals
●●●●Same target, accumulated in pieces, with a checkpoint every rep. The best format if you tend to overcook tempos. Trap: running reps faster because recovery exists.
3 × 8–10 min60–120 s jog
Extended steady tempo
●●●●Clearly below classic threshold. Builds race-specific endurance. Trap: attempting 20-minute pace for the whole thing.
30–60 minHalf & marathon prep
How to set the pace
No single metric owns the decision. Use them in this order — the ones lower down are guardrails, not commanders.
| Anchor | How to use it | Trust | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lab LT2 / MLSS | Run close to, not above, your tested boundary | ●●●● | Result depends on the test protocol used |
| Recent race result | ≈ the effort you could hold for an hour when fresh | ●●●● | "One-hour pace" is an approximation, not a law |
| Perceived effort | 6–7/10 — comfortably hard, controlled, conversational in phrases | ●●●● | Beginners overshoot; needs practice |
| Heart rate | Roughly 88–92% HRmax as a broad guide; tested threshold HR is better | ●●●● | Lags pace, drifts, moves with heat and fatigue |
| Blood lactate | Your own validated range, standardised sampling | ●●●● | No universal 4 mmol threshold |
| Critical speed | A boundary reference — validate against your own LT2 | ●●●● | CS ≠ LT2 automatically |
| Running power | Same device, compared to your own history | ●●●● | Device-specific; not lab power |
The practical shortcut: effort first, heart rate as a guardrail, pace as the record. When they disagree, don't obey the fastest-looking number — the same pace is a different workout in 30 °C heat or on tired legs.
Don't let HR drive the first two minutes of a rep. Cardiovascular response lags the change in pace, so "HR looks too low" early on is the classic reason a controlled session becomes a race.
The session, start to finish
15 min easy → 4 × 20 s relaxed strides → 3 × 8 min threshold, 90 s easy jog → 10–15 min easy
The warm-up exists so the first rep isn't the warm-up. Whether recovery is 60 or 90 seconds barely matters — what matters is that the last rep looks like the first: same pace, same relaxed shoulders, no heroic finish.
How much, by experience
| Runner | First-line format | Quality time | Frequency | Guardrail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner (easy habit) | 2 × 5–8 min sub-threshold, 2 min jog | 10–16 min | every 7–10 days | RPE 5–6/10, deliberately below T |
| Recreational | 3 × 8 min, or 20 min continuous | 20–25 min | 1× / wk | No end-of-workout sprint |
| Experienced rec. | 3 × 10 min, 4 × 8 min, or 20–25 min continuous | 25–35 min | 1× / wk | Own threshold HR / RPE |
| Competitive | 3 × 10–12, 4–5 × 8, or 20–30 min continuous | 30–40 min | 1–2× / wk | 2nd session only if recovered |
| Elite / high volume | Individually designed, often lactate-controlled | Individual | Multiple | Requires a huge base — don't copy |
About the Norwegian double threshold: the principle isn't two savage workouts a day — it's unusually tight intensity control, with frequent lactate checks used to stop sessions getting too hard. Those athletes have enormous aerobic bases and professional recovery. Borrowing the workout without the base borrows only the risk.
Ten-week progression
"T" = controlled threshold, "sub-T" = deliberately below it. Bold weeks are reduced — deliberate interruptions of monotonous load, and reassessment points.
| Week | New to tempo | Established recreational | Competitive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 × 5 min sub-T | 3 × 6 min T | 4 × 8 min T |
| 2 | 3 × 5 min sub-T | 3 × 8 min T | 3 × 10 min T |
| 3 | 2 × 8 min sub-T | 2 × 10 + 1 × 5 min T | 5 × 8 min T |
| 4 | 2 × 5 min | 20 min continuous | 20–25 min continuous |
| 5 | 3 × 7 min | 3 × 10 min T | 4 × 10 min T |
| 6 | 2 × 10 min | 4 × 8 min T | 3 × 12 min T |
| 7 | 3 × 8 min | 22–25 min continuous | 4 × 10 min, or 30 min continuous |
| 8 | 2 × 8 min | 3 × 8 min | 3 × 8 min |
| 9 | 18–20 min, or 3 × 7 | 4 × 10 min T | 5 × 8 min T |
| 10 | 20–22 min, or 2 × 12 | 28–30 min, or 3 × 12 | 30 min continuous, or 3 × 12 |
Time before speed. 3 × 6 → 3 × 8 → 3 × 10 min is a far more controlled progression than making a fixed 20-minute session faster every week. Once you're in the right domain, let fitness supply the pace.
Where it fits in the week
| Day | 3–4 runs/wk | 5 runs/wk | 6–7 runs/wk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Rest / strength | Rest or very easy | Easy + optional strength |
| Tue | Easy | Tempo: 3 × 8–10 min | Threshold: 4 × 8–10 min |
| Wed | Rest / cross-train | Easy | Easy / recovery |
| Thu | Sub-T reps | Easy + strides | Easy aerobic + strides |
| Fri | Rest | Rest or easy | Easy (2nd quality day replaces, never adds) |
| Sat | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Sun | Longer easy run | Longer easy run | Long run |
Elite distance runners train pyramidally: most volume at or below the first threshold, less between thresholds, least above the second. They run fast — but most of their running still isn't tempo running.
Progress, hold, or back off?
| Signal | Decision |
|---|---|
| Completed the work, controlled, no odd next-day symptoms | Progress next week |
| Session productive but recovery is marginal | Hold the dose |
| Fatigue, illness or pain accumulating | Reduce or replace with easy running |
| Focal bone pain, limp, altered gait | Stop — assess before any tempo |
The most informative signal is decoupling: your usual 3 × 10 min at 4:00/km normally sits at RPE 6–7, but today needs RPE 8–9 for 4:05/km. That gap says more than either number alone.
Postpone tempo entirely for: suspected bone stress injury, gait-altering pain, fever or acute illness, suspected myocarditis, or any medical restriction on vigorous exercise. Reduce it when signs of low energy availability (REDs) are present — under-fuelled threshold work makes no physiological sense.
Myths worth deleting
"Tempo teaches you to tolerate lactic acid." Lactate is fuel, shuttled between tissues and burned for energy — not waste. Training changes how you produce, move and clear it.
"4 mmol/L is threshold." A convenient operational marker, not a biological set point. Different labs report different "thresholds" for the same athlete.
"My watch's critical speed is my tempo pace." Critical speed, LT2 and MLSS are not interchangeable. Treat CS as an upper boundary, not a target.
"Cool down to flush the lactate." Blood lactate falls fast; neuromuscular, glycogen and connective-tissue recovery doesn't. Low lactate ≠ recovered.
"Never increase load more than 10% a week." Not a law of biology — the evidence linking specific load jumps to injury is weak. Progress by symptoms, history and recovery, changing one stressor at a time.
"More tempo is more fitness." Piling on middle intensity isn't the best route to a faster 10K, and threshold work isn't the most efficient stimulus for VO₂max either. It's one tool, not the plan.
How to track it
Set your targets with the Training Pace Calculator and Heart Rate Zone Calculator, then let the Runima app follow the trend that actually reflects a threshold block: your pace at a given heart rate, drifting faster week over week.
Go deeper
Read the full deep-dive — Tempo Run Guide: The Workout Most Runners Ruin — for the studies, the reasoning, and every reference behind this sheet. Related: Lactate Threshold: Your Hidden Redline and Train LT1 by Heart Rate, LT2 by Pace.
For the research and limits behind this summary, read the linked article and our editorial policy.