What is a tempo run in sprinting?

A set of 100–300m runs at well below top speed with short recoveries. An elite sprint training review describes them at 60–70% of maximal velocity, 1–3 minutes of rest and 1,000–2,000m per session, usually in trainers on grass.

What is the difference between extensive and intensive tempo?

Extensive tempo runs at about 60–75% with easy recoveries and is a low day. Intensive tempo runs at about 80–89% on 2–4 minutes of incomplete rest and is a hard day, used mostly by 200m and 400m runners.

How often should sprinters do tempo runs?

One or two extensive tempo sessions a week, on the days between your sprint sessions. The sample weeks in an elite sprint training review place tempo twice a week in every phase of the season.

Do tempo runs help you recover?

The research doesn't settle it. The same review notes that evidence for tempo as a recovery tool is limited, but tempo adds training volume that may make you more durable over the long term.

Can tempo runs replace sprinting?

No. Tempo is too slow to train top speed. Keep two or three days of short sprints at 95–100% each week and fit the tempo around them.

Tempo runs for sprinters: extensive vs intensive tempo

By the Sprint University coaching team

Tempo runs are repeated 100–300m runs well below sprint speed with short rests. Extensive tempo runs at about 60–75% effort, feels easy and goes on the low days between sprint sessions. Intensive tempo runs at about 80–89% on incomplete rest, and it counts as a hard day.

Most 60m and 100m sprinters only need extensive tempo. Intensive tempo is a tool for 200m and 400m runners, and this guide gives the paces, distances and rest for both.

Extensive vs intensive tempo

The two terms come from coaching, and research hasn't standardized them, so coaches draw the line between them in slightly different places. Extensive tempo is the easy end: many reps at a pace you could hold a conversation through between reps. Intensive tempo is faster, with less rest, and you finish it tired.

	Extensive tempo	Intensive tempo
Pace	60–75%	80–89%
Rep distance	100–300m	150–400m
Rest	1–3 min, or walk back	2–4 min, incomplete
Session volume	1,000–2,000m	800–1,800m
Type of day	Low day	Hard day

The extensive figures come from a review of elite sprint training that combined the research with the methods of leading coaches. It lists tempo at 60–70% of maximal velocity over 100–300m, 1–3 minutes of rest and 1,000–2,000m a session. Sprint University's own tempo runs sit at 65–75%. The intensive figures are from Sprint University's coaching notes for 400m runners, which put it at 80–89% over 150–400m on 2–4 minutes of rest.

What do tempo runs train?

Extensive tempo is general aerobic work done on your feet. The elite training review says sprint groups use it between hard days to loosen stiff muscles and improve cardiovascular fitness. It also notes that the evidence for tempo as a recovery method is limited, and that its value may be the extra training volume, which can make athletes more trainable and durable over years.

Aerobic fitness matters more than its share of a short race suggests. Researchers who measured energy use during track races found the aerobic system supplied about 9–21% of the energy in the men's 100m, depending on the method, 21–28% in the 200m and about 41% in the 400m. A review of repeated high-intensity exercise also linked better aerobic fitness to faster recovery between efforts, through quicker phosphocreatine regeneration and lactate removal, which is the recovery you rely on between the reps of a sprint session.

Intensive tempo moves closer to the demands of the longer sprints. The faster pace and shorter rest make it a harder, more specific session for a 400m runner, whose race draws more than half its energy from anaerobic sources. For a 100m sprinter, those hard-day slots are usually better spent on acceleration and top speed.

How fast should tempo runs be?

The percentage refers to speed. One way to turn it into a time is to divide your best time for the rep distance by the percentage. Using your race time as the base makes the pace a little gentler than a true percentage of top speed, which suits easy days.

Best 100m	100m rep @ 65%	@ 70%	@ 75%
11.0	16.9 s	15.7 s	14.7 s
12.0	18.5 s	17.1 s	16.0 s
13.0	20.0 s	18.6 s	17.3 s
14.0	21.5 s	20.0 s	18.7 s

For intensive tempo, do the same with your 200m best. A 24.0 200m runner running 200m reps at 85% is aiming for about 28.2 seconds. If you don't know your times, the average 100m time pages and the track time converter will get you close.

A clock helps, but feel matters more on extensive days. You should be able to talk at the end of each rep, your stride should look relaxed and tall, and the last rep should be as smooth as the first.

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The hard days are planned around your times

Sprint University programs acceleration, top speed, speed endurance, plyos and strength week by week from your current times. When a meet or a missed day changes things, the coach chat rewrites your week.

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Where does tempo go in the week?

Extensive tempo goes on the low days between sprint sessions. The elite review's sample weeks put tempo on Wednesday and Saturday in every phase of the year, after the hard days on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. It allows about 24 hours after tempo before the next high-intensity session, against 48–72 hours after acceleration, max-velocity or speed-endurance work.

Sprint University's base program uses the same idea. In week 1, an optional recovery tempo on day 4 sits between sprint-float-sprint on day 3 and flying 20s on day 5. The speed training guide explains the high/low split behind that week.

Intensive tempo takes one of your hard-day slots. The review doesn't list it, but its nearest row, speed endurance at 90–95%, gets 48–72 hours before the next high-intensity session, and planning intensive tempo the same way keeps it from blunting your sprint days. Avoid putting it the day before acceleration or flys.

Sample tempo sessions

The first is the optional easy day from Sprint University's base program. Walk back after each rep and keep it comfortable throughout.

Week 2, day 4 · Tempo

Recovery Tempo

Low day

Block	Prescription
Track warm-up	15 min: easy jog, dynamic drills, build-ups
120m tempo runs	8 × 120m @ 70%, walk-back recovery
Barefoot cooldown walk	One easy lap of the track barefoot, unhurried

Optional day.

The second is a longer extensive set from a 10-day pre-competition plan by the sprint coach Charlie Francis, which the elite review reproduces. The same plan uses 10 × 200m tempo with a 100m walk on another day.

Sample session · Extensive tempo

Extensive Tempo, 100s

Low day

Block	Prescription
Track warm-up	15 min: easy jog, dynamic drills, build-ups
100m tempo runs	2 sets of 10 × 100m @ 60–70%, 100m walk between reps, trainers on grass

Reps and walk from a 10-day pre-meet plan reproduced in an elite sprint training review. Pace from the same review's tempo guidelines.

The third is an intensive tempo session from Sprint University's 400m coaching notes. It belongs on a hard day and replaces one, so don't stack it on a week that already has three sprint sessions.

Sample session · Intensive tempo

Intensive Tempo, 200s

High day

Block	Prescription
Track warm-up	15 min: easy jog, dynamic drills, build-ups
200m reps	6 × 200m @ 85%, rest 2 min
Barefoot cooldown walk	One easy lap of the track barefoot, unhurried

For 200m and 400m runners. Sprinters focused on the 60m and 100m can leave it out.

You can also close a sprint day with tempo. Week 3's speed-endurance session in sprint workouts ends with 4 × 150m at 75% on 4 minutes of rest after the 40s and 60s.

Common mistakes

Running extensive tempo too fast: At 80% or more with short rest, an easy day turns into a hard one and your next sprint session suffers. Slow down until every rep feels smooth.
Treating tempo as speed work: Tempo builds fitness around your sprinting. Your top speed still comes from short reps at 95–100% with full rest.
Intensive tempo for a 100m sprinter: If your events are the 60m and 100m, spend your hard days on acceleration and top speed and keep tempo easy.
Sloppy form on the last reps: Tempo is a lot of strides. Run them tall and relaxed, and stop the set if your form falls apart.