Let us EVALUATE Ruiyong's TEMPO RUN?

In this post we analyse Ruiyong's most recent tempo run in Iten.

As any serious or moderately serious distance runner would probably know, tempo runs, also called lactate threshold runs, extend the body's ability to tolerate a higher lactate accumulation which is done by forcing the body to recruit or convert more exclusively slow and fast fibers respectively into fibers that are a mix-pot of both fast and slow, so that one can run fast for a long time, rather than simply running long and very slow, or very very fast for very very short.

To analyse Ruiyong's tempo run, we use the Jack Daniel's Running Formula(a book) as a guide instead of the Renato Canova marathon model. The reason is because Renato Canova's model is such a highly specialized training model that all sorts of training his athletes do are done in sole support of the main specialty events his athletes race. Ergo, he doesn't differentiate very specifically between tempo runs, steady-state runs, moderate runs, cruise intervals and even long runs, like Jack Daniels do. Canova only has 4 types of runs in his model, mainly, regeneration, fundamental, special and specific, and if what you thought you were doing was called tempo run today, he doesn't really care what you think because he only cares about how that run would be defined in his model! And many of us here might not be cognizant of what all these names mean, so it wouldn't be a good idea to use them, even if I were able to explain all of them. In any case, Jack Daniels also has a world reknowned marathon training model, as well as one for every type of race distance available on the planet. Jack Daniels' philosophy revolves around not one specific specialty event like how Renato operates, but rather he has broad definitions of types of training for runners of wide-ranging abilities with no view of what their specialized event might be, and he classifies them generally as tempo runs, easy runs, moderate runs, progression runs, long runs, cruise intervals that anybody can do etc. Many of us are more familiar with these categories and we shall take a look at the tempo run.


Jack defines the tempo run as some pace you could hold anywhere between 50-60 minutes. Ruiyong's half marathon pb is 67:22, 7:22 outside 60minutes, but for administrative convenience, we shall use 67:22 to be a rough estimate of his lactate threshold(LT) pace, which turns out to be 5:08-9 per mile. That means, tempo runs are preferably run at around these paces, for Ruiyong. Let's do altitude adjustment for Ruiyong and find out that 5:08 at sea level is approximately 5:20 at 7800ft, and Ruiyong should be running his tempos, anywhere between 50-60 minutes at 5:20 per mile, if he is trying to extend his ability to tolerate higher lactate accumulation which I presume allows him to run a faster marathon time, like perhaps 2:24, not to even mention anything about 2:18:45, which is what he thought he could or hoped to run in London!

Then the average pace of Ruiyong's 21.1km tempo was 5:34, 14 seconds slower than the recommended LT pace at 7800ft, according to the Jack Daniel's formula. Can this be arguably acceptable and explained away? Perhaps! We could argue Ruiyong was running for more than 60minutes, 13 more minutes to be exact since he took approximately 73 minutes to run 21.1km at 7800ft, so he obviously wouldn't be able to hold LT pace(5:20 per mile) for more than 60minutes. We can give that to him. But for a difference of 14 seconds per mile (5:34-5:20) for only 13minutes more time of running seems way too luxurious and incredibly underdosed, even at altitude. We then learned he was running a moderate tempo, as detailed on his facebook page, which is a broad category of runs also classified in the Jack Daniel's marathon model and many others from famous marathon coaches around the world. Moderate runs are intended to be faster than easy running but slower than LT pace, and since there is such a wide variety of paces to train in between easy and LT paces, there are so many variations of doing a moderate run, and equally many reasons and motives for wanting to do one. Might it be Ruiyong wants to remain conservative in training to stay injury free or is something else the reason?

For now, we should not second-guess or third-guess the reasons for Ruiyong and his coach deciding to do a moderate tempo. And if he says it's supposed to be a simulation for national record attempt in London, that is easily way more plausible than a simulation run for an attempt at directly qualifying in London in the 2:18 region, because a simulation run for 2:18 would probably be somewhere around 5:13-5:15 per mile at 7800ft for 50-60minutes of continuous running, something of a totally different dimension for Ruiyong altogether!

He has all of our full support and backing if the national record attempt is what he is after in London, and if he ceases all the misleading hyperbole on social and national media about having a 'great' shot at running 2:18.



Feel free to provide some comments please :)