Threshold Training - Finding your T-pace:

Threshold Training - Finding your T-pace:
By Jack Daniels, Ph.D.
Using Tempo Runs
A few words of caution regarding how often to repeat identical workouts and monitor progress in a particular type of threshold
workout: It's human nature that runners often want to see progress in their workouts and sometimes try to perform a particular
workout at faster and faster speeds over the course of a fairly short period of time. Trying to compete against yourself in this way
is inadvisable. It doesn't conform to the principle of letting your body react and adjust to a particular type of stress before
increasing the amount of stress. It's better to perform the same workout quite a few times at the same speed, or until a race
performance indicates that you've achieved a higher fitness level.
One of the best ways to monitor how your training is progressing is to see how much more easily you can perform a particular workout
as time goes by. If what used to be a tough workout becomes not so tough after several weeks of training, then that's a great sign
that your training is paying off in a positive way. At this point, you're usually ready for an increase in intensity or amount of
training. In contrast, always trying to see if you can go faster in a workout that you have done before (the "always hurt as much as
possible" technique) can be very misleading in trying to determine how much progress you're making. With this approach, you always
hurt the same (or more), and you never get to experience doing a standard workout with diminishing discomfort. Doubts begin to set
in as you ask yourself, "Am I really getting better or just learning to tolerate more pain?" If you often hurt badly in practice, a
race won't be anything special; you should be able to take on more discomfort in a race than you do in daily training.
A more sophisticated way to monitor the degree of stress of a workout is to check heart rates or blood-lactate values at various
points during the effort or during recovery. Relying on these more scientific means of keeping track of your progress, however, can
prevent you from learning how to do a good job of it on your own. Whether or not you use mechanical or electronic devices to monitor
body responses, you should still learn to read your body's feelings and reactions to the types of workouts that you do.
Please remember not to run faster than the prescribed T-pace when doing tempo workouts. When you're having a good training day, it's
not that tough to beat a previous time over a four-mile tempo course. It's very important, however, to let your ability, based on
competitive efforts, determine your training intensities. When a workout begins to feel easier, use that feeling to support the idea
that you're getting fitter. Then, prove that you are getting better in a race, not in a workout.
If you're in a prolonged phase of training, with no races scheduled, it's reasonable to increase training intensity without the
supportive evidence of better competitive performances. In this case, a good rule of thumb is to increase VDOT one unit every four
to six weeks. This is the same as improving your 5,000m race time by about 10 to 15 seconds, a substantial improvement in my
opinion. If you're in a maintenance program, which is designed to require the least possible training stress that allows you to stay
at a particular level of fitness, there's no need to increase training intensity (VDOT) or distances. In this case, the best goal is
to see how easy standard workouts can feel over time.
More...from Running Times at:
http://www.runningtimes.com/rt/articles/?id=7479&page=3&c=82

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