Week 4: Tempo

Since THON is only a day away now, I figured a good tempo workout would be useful to build up some endurance for the upcoming 46 hours! For months now my Rules and Regulations captain has stressed the importance of the amount of exercise you should do before THON weekend, and I think one workout in particular that I did this week is a testament to that suggestion. I did three series of ‘tempo’ runs, all in different intervals. A tempo run is running at a heightened, quickened pace than you normally would for a certain period of time. This week, I ran two tempo paces in the middle of two six-mile runs. During the first one, I actually did two tempo runs over the course of the entire workout because the length of the tempo was kind of short. What’s important about a tempo run is the warm up (actually, this is important for every workout in general).  You should do a warm up before each run you do, especially a tempo run because it forces you to conserve that energy you will waste while running at a faster pace later. This way, you’ll be able to exert more energy effectively during your workout. Usually your warm up should be about eight to ten minutes long. After the warm up, time yourself for a run at 80% near or around your normal race pace. This should be about twelve minutes long. The longer you keep a consecutive, even pace, the more you’ll get out of the workout. In a race, you’ll be used to going that fast for around that long time lapse. After the tempo is over, do a twenty to thirty minute cool down.