I just finished my college career as an 800 runner and I did not improve very much. My 800 improved by 0.9s from my freshman year to senior year and only 2 seconds from high school to senior year. I ran 1:55 in high school and finished college with 1:53 even though my training was much more intense. From 11th grade to 12th I went from 1:59 to 1:55 mostly because I just ran more over the winter after xc. I also made big improvements in 8k xc from freshman year (28:44) to sophomore year (25:58) just from consistent summer running 40 - 50 mpw. If I was able to improve that much just from more consistent easy miles then I assumed I had a lot more potential. But after sophomore xc I never saw notable improvements. My coach and I always had goals of running 1:49 - 1:51 so I always stayed hopeful. But now that I am done I have been looking back on my training. I feel like my coach looked at me as more of speed oriented 800m runner (his last two successful 800 runners were speed types who ran 1:47 and 1:51), but I now think I am more of a strength oriented 800 guy who could have done well in the 1500 also (I never split below 49.5 even though I split 49.9 in high school). My workouts were a lot of fast and short sprints, not many 200s or 300s at 800 pace nor longer intervals at 1500 pace . I think he underestimates the value of strength because he rarely had my xc team do tempos or intervals of 1km or over. Lots of 300m - 600m repeats in xc. I am just venting because I am feeling a little frustrated at my lack of improvement.