[quote]rojo wrote:
Pretty impressive and it proves to me why high school running is more interesting than the pros, kids don't know how to race.
As counter productive as it might seen, most great 800m runners started out running too fast the first lap. Natural aggression is what you want to see in an 800m runner and most coaches, especially they ones from an 800m background want to coach that out of an athlete. Eventually the athlete will come to terms with what works best for them. Being able to get out fast or close fast is talent and at the youth level, the ability to even out of the splits will come with time and training. Also, 800m runners don't like being touched when they are racing. The athletes who intend on winning the race will often race from the back or the front and the athletes in the middle are often the ones running for time or place. When you have good 400m speed, the first 300m does not feel that fast and for those types of athletes, the race does not become aerobic until about the 500m mark. In distance events, getting to fast equates to pain, a miler thinks about the pain. A true 800m runners does not calculate the amount of pain and when it is going to come, they embraces the pain because they know it's going to come and when it comes, it is going to hurt. In the 800m, near the end of the race your an/ar systems will be maxed, your glutes, hamstrings and lungs will burn and there will be a moment of temporary insanity before you cross the finish line. There is nothing complicated about it and there nothing here I will get any debate from athletes who are true 800m runners. (The 800m is a uniquely tough event.)
When you are running close to 12 seconds per 100m, your feet aren't making a lot contact with the ground and when you get bumped while in the air, even if you don't go down, you waste energy trying to maintain your balance. A little bump my not seem like much, but at the highest level, you are fighting for 10ths of a second. One year, I saw Lagat lose out on a 5000m medal because he got touched when he was at a full canter approaching the finish line. There is a reason why every event under 600m is run lanes; the first 50m of an 800m race is the scariest because you are trying to be to the front or back with the least amount of energy. In an indoor 800m, 50 percent of the race is to stay out of trouble. To the best of my knowledge, every 800m world record was set when the athlete was able to run in lane one just behind the rabbits and if an 800m runner gets boxed or touched at any point in the race, they will almost always abandon the WR attempt.
Personally, I ran between 2 flat 2:02 for 2 years even though my times in other events had improved. In my Jr year of high school, I got a new coach, who was a former world class 800m, a name most of us will know and in my first competitive race of the outdoor season he instructed me to run the fist lap as hard as I could and continue to push to point of collapse and don't focus on the finish line. I went out in 51 and ran 1:57; this was not a pretty sight, but he said, in next race back off a little on the fist lap and now you know how to run the 800m.
Obviously, this does not explain going out in 48 and coming back in a minute, but for the distance types, hopefully it explains the deal with going out fast and in general, the 800m mindset.