TRUE Tempo Workout?

Just and FYI… I Just did the TRUE Tempo Workout, and it felt way more like a hill workout to me. Each of the five 8 min blocks was slightly slower, but progressively steeper in grade. Started at 2% grade, ended at 10%, and not a whole lot slower. Nowhere in the workout description will you see the grade increases, so I wasn’t expecting that, and started my pace way too fast, that was hard!!! Great workout, but be cautious with your pacing.

Agreed - very difficult workout.

More of a speed/threshold pace than tempo… That or my paces are way off. lol.

Makes me nervous of whats to come with the other two workouts.

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I’m doing the TRUE Speed workout tomorrow. I’ll LYK how it goes, if I survive, LOL.

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If that was a tempo or as the description said in the end: ENDURANCE(!!) run - I would hate to see their idea of a speed workout. But like Dean said, we’ll find out soon enough… :persevere:

It was not what I expected and my legs did not thank me for what I did to them at the time.

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@I_Tri_For_Tacos1
I have to say that I feel like the TRUE Speed workout was spot on. I considered reducing my run settings in Zwift before I started the workout because I failed a few blocks in the TRUE Tempo workout. But I felt good this morning before the workout and decided to stay with my current settings. Each block was challenging, it forced me to run hard, almost beyond threshold, but I was able to get through each block successfully. FYI, the recovery intervals are only 30 seconds, so my treadmill never got down to the recovery speed, so I didn’t yellow star any of those intervals. I’m looking forward to the last workout, Hills. Good luck!

Haha, I’ll be stuffed on the recovery intervals as well, then! My treadmill does not even realise I changed anything that quickly! :wink:

Good to hear it is what it is billed as - I mean a speed workout should not be a comfy experience during the intervals IMO.

I’d love to know what they classify as hill workout after that first one. Fortunately, as I said during that session, I am a trail runner and like inclines. And my knee feels well rehabbed, no pain any more. I must now just build up the running and mileage and different terrains again.

Let’s do this! Tomorrow morning it’s me and speed workout…

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The workout did not properly adjust speed for incline. I think whomever designed it assumed 1% climbing = 1% more distance = 1% less speed which just isn’t the case.

Most GAP adjustments assume that ~1000ft climbed is equal to an additional 1mi (5280ft) run flat, or in KMs ~304m climbed is equivalent to ~1.61km run flat. From this you could see that someone who tempos on flat at 16.1kph (10mph) should have had a speed profile for this more like the following:

Grade Imperial Speed Metric Speed
0% 10 mph 16.1 kph
2% 9 mph 14.6 kph
4% 8.3 mph 13.3 kph
6% 7.6 mph 12.2 kph
8% 7 mph 11.3 kph
10% 6.5 mph 10.5 kph

This said the precise speed is likely to be a bit faster at lower grades, this is because the force of gravity pulls straight down at a constant so the more gradual the slope the less gravitational force you are fighting.

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@runspired
I feel a little better about my meltdown during that Tempo workout after reading your analysis, thx! It had been a while since I ran to the point of failure, humbling, but also a good reminder of what it feels like. I’d rather fail on a treadmill training session, recognize the signs, so I know when to back off during a real race.

to be honest the way they have it set, if you didn’t fail by 6% your tempo speed is set too slow :sweat_smile:

They set my tempo speed for 2% to 12.1mph, which is closer to my flat threshold pace. There was no way I was going to be running 11.5mph at 10% grade for 8min after 32min of hammering too hard before even hitting that :laughing:

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Yep, I held on for the entire 2%, then the 4% too at speed , promising myself I’d back it off for the remainder. I still pushed the final 3 blocks at progressive grades, but below the threshold speed of what it takes to get the xp points and yellow star for successful training block completion. Snow and Covid has me Zwifting a lot, so it’s all good.

That was closer to what was advertised and expected! Really liked it.

Quick question though, since I don’t hope starting a new thread for this is warranted. How often do you guys recalibrate? I have found my pod to not work when in the pens for the “Tempo” run and was still busy calibrating it when everybody set off. So it was all good for that workout, maybe at times a smidge faster. No running since, yesterday was just a bike day. This morning I hop on and start running. Do a warm-up 500m before and all looks good. When we set off for the workout, weirdly my pod seems to go ape at esp higher speed and go almost 1 kph faster than the treadmill. (around .7 usually…)

It does not worry me for this, because I then simply run faster than the pace it should be. But it worries me if this was to happen in a “race” or something. It is only virtual fun, but I do not want to be that idiot…

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I only re calibrate monthly, or when I encounter an obvious problem. I should probably re calibrate more, like weekly, but I always seem to be in a rush to get started. Its the same schedule and reasons for performing a spin-down test on my Kickr, I need to get more diligent at performing each process more often, like on a weekend day when things are often less hectic.

Appreciate the heads up. I planned for 90ish minutes at high z2 today but getting late start so will have to settle on the ‘harder’ shorter session.

Feeling a bit more confortable after the follow up.

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Am I the only one that felt a bit underwhelmed with the “Hill workout”? Esp after the initial workout.

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I’m doing it tomorrow, thanks for the intel Christo.

I ended up doing the hill workout today. Based on what Christo shared, I started with a fairly aggressive pace, and I only increased speed throughout. I felt challenged by the workout, especially the last 2 grade increases at pace. It helped that I ended up competing with another Zwifter in the late stages. That’s all 3 TRUE workouts completed, got the hat/shirt, but nothing about how we get registered for the IRL TRUE treadmill yet.

I really do not get that they have your pace and for this one you self-select the pace, esp. after the first workout.
I generally just kept speeding up, now and then a bit down. Must have looked like I left my incline on 1… I wonder if there was reaction to general moaning about the first one.
But hey, it was fun and together a grouping of very nice training!