Into the tempo
How to work with effort instead of pace on the trails.
I had a few long tempo runs this week. And since I’m training for a trail race I did these tempo runs on the trails. Which brings up some interesting nuances in how to execute these workouts.
When I was gunning hard for my Boston qualifying times, I did most of my speed and tempo work on the track. It was a known environment, a controlled environment where I could practice exact paces and times without having to worry about things like surface conditions. I strapped on my ‘fast shoes’ and ran laps hard at specific paces. It was and is a simple way to beat yourself into strength and speed for a race.
As you get more experienced you can move this work out onto the road. Most races are going to be on the road and you can simulate race course conditions by doing your speed and tempo on the road.
Believe it or not, one of the reasons we did our speed and tempo on the track in the old days is that GPS sports watches did not exist. We had sports watches that we could count laps on, but there was no way to program a workout into them and no way to know how far you’d gone unless your drove the course ahead of time and marked the distances.
Today we have those sports watches and I love being able to program a tempo workout into my watch and head out on the roads. Something like a step up run where I’ll warm up for 20 minutes, run in zone 3 for 30, run in zone 4 for 30 and then cool down for 10. That’s a great workout on the road that allows me to practice in the real-to-life crucible of rolling hills around my house.
I’ve also been running by effort instead of pace for awhile now. The only times I’ll use pace is if I’m close to a target road race and need to do some pace work at or near race pace. Otherwise I use effort. Heart Rate is the proxy for effort that my watch measures.
But what do you do in the trails? Especially in the kind of trails where I am? How do you translate that long tempo run into something that gives you the benefit of the tempo but also the foot-feel and leg strength you’ll need for a long trail run or race?
It turns out that you can use the same effort based workout programs and just lift and shift them to the trails with a couple adjustments.
When we say ‘technical’ we mean a combination of trail width, surface and elevation. At the easy end of this would be a 6-foot wide gravel rail-trail or dirt road with negligible elevation change. At the hard end would be a single path through a slippery, boulder-strewn, rock garden at a 20% grade.
While your heart rate is certainly going to go up trying to navigate that rock garden, you’re not going to be able to keep a good cadence or any form. Effort-wise you could generally keep your effort up but it probably isn’t going to give you the Tempo workout you’re looking for.
What I have figured out is that the tempo is better served if you adjust your course to something that doesn’t have as much vertical and the surface is reasonable runnable.
Case in point I found a loop that is probably a 1/2 of a mile down by the pond that fits this need. On this loop I’ve got 4 sections.
The first is a reasonably tranquil, slightly downhill, double-path. It’s a section where I can stretch out a bit and relax back into my form to recover. It’s got roots and rocks but enough line of site that I can plot a safe course through without cramping my strid.
The next section is a shorter section that is single path, twisty-turny, with rock gardens, high roots and stone walls. A bit of a ‘fisherman’s’ walk along the pond. I have to slow down a bit here and high step the obstacles.
This dumps out onto a wide, rough dirt road with a slight uphill where I can push a bit after the cramped picking of the single path.
This turns a hard 90 degrees onto another section of rought dirt road that is slightly uphill, where I can focus on pushing my form in anticipation of getting back on the first, slightly downhill, tranquil bit to recover into the next loop.
I can run my tempo here without having to brake too much and without any gnarly climbing or descending. At the same time I’m getting a great leg workout, in addition to the sustained tempo effort and building my trail chops.
Paces are hard to measure in these kinds of conditions. You probably don’t want to anyhow because you’ll be depressed that you’re 2 minutes a mile slower than your road race pace. Pace doesn’t matter for trail tempo. For trail tempo you run by effort.
For tempo runs, if you’re not slicing it too finely, you’ve got 3 levels of effort. Heart Rate zone 2 is you aerobic warm up and cool down pace. (Everybody is different, work with a coach to find your zones).
Zone 3 is where you start to get into the tempo pace. A low zone 3 effort is what you probably do when you’re out with your friends for a fun run. Low zone 3 you can still talk full sentences and you don’t notice the effort.
High zone 3 is where the tempo starts. You start having to take a breath in every couple words if you’re talking and you notice the effort. This is an effort that is not too hard and you can hold it for a long time but you notice that you are having to work.
Zone 4 and above is that race effort. You are breathing hard and working hard. You have to squeeze your words out between heavy breathing. You really have to focus on maintaining form and turnover.
In the example I gave above, I’ll jog in zone 2 out towards the pond. When the workout clock hits 20 minutes I eases into that high zone 3 effort for 30 minutes running the loop. When the clock strikes tempo I hit the zone 4 effort for 30 minutes. That’s a decent workout.
I’ll typically spin out of the loop with under 10 minutes of tempo left and finish the tempo running back up the ridge towards home. This way I’m capping that long tempo section with 5-7 minutes of uphill grind. Then I jog the last 10 minutes in.
In the trails, especially when the surface conditions get gnarly, if you want to keep your tempo effort, you focus on cadence. Pace doesn’t matter. Keep your form clean and churn those legs. Your stride will shorten but your turnover will speed up as you navigate the hard bits.
Then as you can stretch out as you move into recovery sections. You learn the rhythm of the trail. You learn how to plan and execute a line through any obstacles to save energy and keep the effort and cadence.
You will see a natural heart rate creep over the course of the long tempo run. You’ll see your cadence pick up in the data as well.
That’s a stout workout. It gives you both the conditioning benefit of a long tempo run and the specificity of navigating technical trails. In the trails that 20-30-30-10 tempo workout is going to fetch me 9 and change miles. On the roads the same workout would give me 14+ miles. That’s the pace difference.
In conclusion, yes you can move your tempo training into the technical trails. It takes some learning. I find it works better if the trails are technical, but still runnable. You’re mileage may vary.
At the very least, if you’re a trail enthusiast it’s a fun and challenging thing to try. Mix it up and do some trail tempo. It probably won’t kill you.