Week 4: Workout Spotlight - The Cutdown Tempo
Every few weeks I will add in a featured workout, explaining its benefits, proper execution, and how it can be fit into a marathon training cycle (and other distance race cycles).
The Session
The “Cutdown Tempo” or “Progression Tempo” is a 3-6 mile tempo run with each mile progressively faster. While it can be done over a wide range of distances and efforts/paces, for this “medium-distance” tempo we would typically start at half-marathon effort and finish around 10K effort.
Why It Works
This session develops your ability to access faster speeds while already working at threshold intensity. It's excellent preparation for racing scenarios where you need to respond to surges or close strong in the final miles of a race.
Train Like You Want to Race: The cutdown tempo teaches you to race intelligently—starting controlled and finishing strong. The psychological benefit of running negative splits while fatigued builds tremendous confidence. You learn that even when tired, you can still accelerate with control. This mental skill translates directly to race day, where the ability to maintain composure while increasing intensity in the final miles separates good performances from great ones.
Key Physiological Benefits:
Lactate threshold improvement and clearance capacity
Neuromuscular recruitment at varying intensities
Mental preparation for race-day surges
Practice maintaining form as effort increases
How to Execute
This is a continuous tempo run with no recovery between miles. Start at a true half-marathon effort—a pace you could sustain for 90+ minutes. Progress each mile by 5-10 seconds. The final mile should feel like a strong 10K effort: hard but controlled, not all-out, and you could continue for at least one more mile if you needed to.
Example Pacing: If your half-marathon pace is 7:00/mile, your progression might look like:
Mile 1: 7:00 (half-marathon effort)
Mile 2: 6:55
Mile 3: 6:50
Mile 4: 6:45 (10K effort)
Coaching Tip: As with most workouts, this is best executed when it is effort-based, not pace-based. This allows success over a wide range of paces depending on current fitness and conditions. For example, in hot weather or on tired legs, the entire session might be 10-15 seconds per mile slower while maintaining the same effort progression. I will often tell athletes not to look at their watch at all during a workout like this (but make sure something is planned or programmed to tell you to stop when you’ve hit the prescribed time or distance).
When to Use It
This workout is excellent for base building and early build phases when you're developing your threshold and learning to manage increasing intensity. It is also a great workout for 10K to half marathon specific training.
Marathon-Specific Applications: During marathon training cycles, you can extend the workout to 6-8 miles, starting at marathon pace and progressing to half-marathon effort. This longer format builds race-specific endurance while teaching you to run faster on tired legs - a crucial skill for strong marathon finishes. For advanced athletes, you could consider adding shorter intervals (4-6 x 400m at 5K pace) after the cutdown tempo to further develop the ability to access speed when fatigued.
Recovery Needs
This is a challenging session, usually requiring at least 48 hours or more of easy running afterward. Avoid scheduling other hard efforts a few days before or after. The combination of sustained threshold work and progressive intensity creates significant physiological stress that demands adequate recovery.