My question is this, how should one deal with tempo between GPP and SPP? Is it just continued over to SPP, or do you start a whole new tempo schedule? Thanks for any help.
It should continue through SPP. At relatively stable volumes. I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “start a whole new tempo schedule.” The session to session or week to week variation in tempo is not enough to even really call it a schedule. Simply run ~2000m per tempo session.
The sessions I do progressively get higher in volume, then towards the end of that season, drop down. Would that be the correct thing to do, or instead should I keep tempo going up until the end of the season?
Tempo should always be in your schedules; they help a lot with your recovery, they keep you fit and lean, etc. No need to reduce it, once you reach a good volume, as xlr8 said (~2K); you could possibly reduce volume only before important competitions, but again not necessarily its frequency, as its low intensity does not affect performance. Lastly, keeping this element standardised you have the chance to monitor what’s going on in other, more important areas of high intensity, as the season progresses.
Hope it helps!
During GPP and SPP, tempo volume and intensity stays about the same. When you get to the competition phase, you might cut back on the volume a bit and/or take one session out later in the week if you have a competition that week, inserting a day off instead.
Also, I run the 400m and 200m. This means my volume may be higher than that. What would a 400m runner usually do?
I tended to start at 1200m, then progress the volume up to about 2000m. Would you still recomend just to keep to volume at the same, being the 400m isn’t the 100m? Or the speed endurance work deal with that, I believe that is what its called?
I would keep it at 2000m+ throughout SPP, especially for a 400m runner. (Maybe a bit of a taper towards a peak.) Speed endurance is not addressed via tempo. If you are not running at race speed during tempo, then you aren’t developing endurance at speed. Speed endurance should be developed on your speed days. For 100m runners, there is usually 1 day a week devoted to a couple of max speed runs over 150m+.
400 runners would surely benefit from tempo sessions of 2000 upto 3000m or more? eg. to keep it simple, 20 x 100 and 10 x 300.
Other than recovery purposes the above sessions would also provide excellent aerobic stimulous. ie. 100s specifically for full myoglobin replenishment and max intracellular aerobic potential. 300s for VO2max and therefore increasing cardiovascular and respiratory fitness.