You don't know the pace you should run until you are finished with the run.

Recipe for a 20 minute tempo run:

1. Start out faster than your easy day pace, at a pace that you feel you can conservatively manage to hold strongly for 20 minutes.
2. 10 minutes in, if you're feeling comfortable but not fast or hard, pick it up a bit. If you're feeling like you're going to have to struggle to make it, then back off a bit.
3. When you're finished with your run, calculate your pace by dividing the total time by the distance. That's the pace you should have run on that day.

It really is that simple. If you want a mikeymike 40 minute tempo, then do it for 40 minutes at a manageable pace.

Oh my I like this way of training alot better than clock watching.

Last night I went down to the local track to run 4 x 1km in around 4 minutes with 2 minutes rest. This is based on the Tinman CV pace that is being preached often. I did it 5 days before my record 5k race last month so since it was 5 days before my next 5k I put it on my calendar.

I ran my 1st 1000 meters in 3:59...Tinman probably suggests I should run it in 4:05-4:07 but I haven't done any fast stuff in a while and am a fool so I hit it harder than I should have. I took 2 minutes rest then ran the next kilometer in 3:56. Now I was sweating and wanting to quit so after my next 2 minutes rest I went off the track and ran 4 minutes at a comfortably hard pace on the grass...that felt alot better. I finished up with another 4 minute effort on grass....then 3 X 45 seconds on the road at my perceived mile pace.

The 45 second efforts were effortless. I was gliding at 6 minute per mile pace. Running without distance markers is really nice. I am agreeing that runs should not be timed so much but should be run by feel. I am a stat geek though as you probably all know by my reporting mile splits.

Longer and slower.

What is a Tinman tempo, and how is it any different than a regular tempo?

Tinman also says that 20 min of Tinman tempo running is equivalent to 40 min of slow/comfortable running or a 1:2 ratio depending on time spent at that pace. He generally defines the pace as 60 sec slower than current 3K race pace but 1 min slower than current 5K race pace is close enough. Personally, these have been very very beneficial to me in place of the very hard tempos I used to do. In fact, just about everything I have tried from Tinman and recommend and tried with the runners I coach provide very strong results.