The myth of 800 meter exceptionalism in training.

School athletics - including college - has such a warped competition model that nobody is an 800 meter specialist. If you run a good 800, you're doubling in 1500 or 400, and maybe some relays too, like it or not, says your coach. Or your coach is stupid and wants to lose.

This whole discussion has taken a tone too close to the false idea that everyone can be an exceptional runner, which simply isn’t true. The “endless supply” of 1:5x 800 guys contains a few sprinters racing too far and some guys who would have more success at 5k/10k, but the truth is that the vast majority are best suited for 800 and are in the decent to above average category. That isn’t to say they couldn’t improve a bit, but not everyone can be a world beater.

This is kooky thinking.

1:56.34 was in the top 0.83% of all 800m runners in the state of California the year my guy ran it.

Goes to college and in 2 years drops SIX SECONDS off of that time by running a little less volume. His 4 x 8 relay was 3rd at Texas Relays that year (behind T A&M led by Mr. Brazier). Made finals at D2 Nationals

But, go ahead and keep telling yourself that 1 size fits all and a few more miles in the bank and he'd be out-kicking Kipchoge in a marathon. Back in the day, I used to think along the lines you're proposing, but have learned the hard way that a decent chunk of athletes don't respond to the big miles / lots of tempo, little competition plan.

As the good book says, "When I was a child, I thought as a child..."

You may be right, but if we back away from the idea of good athletes becoming great simply by adding mileage and instead look at it from the perspective of any athlete becoming better the conversation becomes more interesting, especially at the high school level (or maybe that is just the angle that interests me because I coach at the high school level). There are athletes who are built to be sprinters and adding mileage for the purpose of moving to a longer event will not produce any benefits for that athlete. We have had some sprinters in that category join cross country and then return to sprints. Some have become significantly better at sprinting despite being horrible cross country runners (even though their attitudes were good). So that leads to a few questions.

1) Was it really that cross country made them better at sprinting or was there another explanation (like a year of growth)?

2) If cross country did make them better, was it simply because they would have been on the couch playing video games and something is better than nothing, or was cross country the best way to elicit some of the adaptations that helped them? If it comes down to something is better than nothing, would they improved the same amount by regularly playing tennis or some other active, but non-sprinting activity? Would they have improved by even more by participating in a program built on anaerobic stimuli that were both lactic and alactic in nature?

On the other side of it, if you were to go to most high school track practices and look at the school's sprint group (including the school where I coach), you will see a lot of kids who clearly are not built to sprint and would have greater success in some other event group. Some of those sprinters are pretty good high school sprinters, but could likely have more success in another event group. Some are kids who are slow and will probably be slow in any event group. But an athlete who is a good high school sprinter, might make a good college 800m runner or more. A kid who is a slow high school sprinter might make a more serviceable distance runner. Obviously there are more event groups than distance and sprints, so the same logic could apply to those event groups also. It sometimes takes a while to get a sprinter over to the throws group too. Sometimes these athletes have no desire to do anything except to sprint. Sometimes they are good enough at their event that the sprint coach makes a problem when they leave for another group, or makes them feel guilty to leave. Sometimes the athlete is so bad that the distance coach doesn't bother to try to bring them over. But there are lots of athletes in high school track and field who are not training the way that would lead them to the most success.

Bad Wigins wrote:

School athletics - including college - has such a warped competition model that nobody is an 800 meter specialist. If you run a good 800, you're doubling in 1500 or 400, and maybe some relays too, like it or not, says your coach. Or your coach is stupid and wants to lose.

This is true, but I don't know that it's warped.

Most of the good mid distance kids I've coached would far rather double back into the 4x4 and fall victorious into the arms of their teammates after nailing down a dual meet victory against a league rival than run 1 second faster in their prime event.

I don't know about other places, but our kids really like to win dual meets. It took me a while to get used to when I got to Hughson. The first school that I coached at didn't have a solid team, so as the distance coach I had free reign to single my kids hold them out of a dual meet so they could run fresh at a weekend invite. That's how I coached when I became the head coach at Hughson and my kids practically revolted because you know, winning's better than losing.

Ozzie wrote:

1) Was it really that cross country made them better at sprinting or was there another explanation (like a year of growth)?

2) If cross country did make them better, was it simply because they would have been on the couch playing video games and something is better than nothing, or was cross country the best way to elicit some of the adaptations that helped them? If it comes down to something is better than nothing, would they improved the same amount by regularly playing tennis or some other active, but non-sprinting activity? Would they have improved by even more by participating in a program built on anaerobic stimuli that were both lactic and alactic in nature?

I would say that, it's more likely to be #2 than #1. I think that physiologically, a kid would be better served with an actual sprint based fall program if he's a sprinter. That being said you can sometimes find mid distance stars in the sprint group. I had a girl who played volleyball in the fall and ran hurdles in the spring. She was a decent but not great hurdler (mid 16, Mid 48). Our volleyball coach at the time did very little in the way of actually training her girls and most of them came to me totally out of shape. I'd get a month or two of pre-seaosn track stuff and then it was into the competitive season.

Junior year, this girl decide to give cross a try. She ended up as our #1 girl and her senior year ran 19:11 at Woodward. Between her Junior and Senior year, she set school records in the 100h, 300h, 100, 200 and split a 58 on the relay. She moved on to a school in the WCC and now holds school records there as well. She's mostly running the 400/800 now.

You've clearly had some experience with coaching mid distance kids. Your guy this year was absolutely amazing. I'm always interested to learn what experienced, successful coaches do to get their kids to the top.

This is an interesting post.

I have to say I might agree with the OP to an extent.

I ran 50 for the 400 and 1:51 low for the 800m.

I believed I was an 800 runner and always raced the 800, and only ran low mileage. Always less than 30mpw often as low as 15mpw.

Despite this, I never ran faster than 50 over 400. But I could crank out 1:51/1:52 whenever.

Looking back I regret not putting in a bit more aerobic work and running the 1500. I barely broke 4:00, but I never raced it.

Thought I was a half miler wrote:

This is an interesting post.

I have to say I might agree with the OP to an extent.

I ran 50 for the 400 and 1:51 low for the 800m.

I believed I was an 800 runner and always raced the 800, and only ran low mileage. Always less than 30mpw often as low as 15mpw.

Despite this, I never ran faster than 50 over 400. But I could crank out 1:51/1:52 whenever.

Looking back I regret not putting in a bit more aerobic work and running the 1500. I barely broke 4:00, but I never raced it.

As a 1:51 guy who never broke 50, you seem like a prime candidate for the OP’s plan

Turn of the Century wrote:

47/1:50 still isn’t very good. 47 wont get you very far in the 400 and 1:50 is what 5k/10k guys run.

A few years of consistent distance training and that guy could be national class at 1500-5000.

Webb ran 47 in high school.

Ryan Hall ran 1:51 in high school. Was NCAA XC and 5k champ and became a pro marathoner.

Are you for real? 47.XX would have qualified for D1 NCAA championships in 2019. Heck, 47 would be top half at all the conference championships.

1:50.XX would have landed in the middle of the pack for D1 NCAA championships in 2019 and top at the least 4 for conference championships. Hardly "what 5/10k guy run"

CoachB wrote:.

This is kooky thinking.

1:56.34 was in the top 0.83% of all 800m runners in the state of California the year my guy ran it.

Goes to college and in 2 years drops SIX SECONDS off of that time by running a little less volume. His 4 x 8 relay was 3rd at Texas Relays that year (behind T A&M led by Mr. Brazier). Made finals at D2 Nationals

But, go ahead and keep telling yourself that 1 size fits all and a few more miles in the bank and he'd be out-kicking Kipchoge in a marathon. Back in the day, I used to think along the lines you're proposing, but have learned the hard way that a decent chunk of athletes don't respond to the big miles / lots of tempo, little competition plan.

3rd place at Texas Relays and D2 finalist on less training! Incredible! So what happened after his first 2 years?

Maybe he can train even less and knock 4 seconds off his 800 and compete with 5000m runner Jacob Ingebrigtsen who recently ran 1:46.

You might not be old enough to remember the ‘90s and low mileage speed based training in the US.

TLDR: More Training=Better Results

When I labelled my questions as #1 and #2, I didn't mean to suggest that it is one or the other. High school athletes, particularly boys, will have breakout seasons as sophomores and/or juniors that can be credited to physical maturation as much as anything else. Also, getting an athlete to be active in any way for 3 or 4 months when they would have been sedentary is probably going to produce good results. What I was questioning really was this. Some kid who identifies him or herself as a sprinter did cross country in the fall and then was a better sprinter the next track season. How much of a role did cross country (or any aerobically based distance training) have to do with that improvement and if it did, was that training actually optimal training or just better than the nothing that the athlete would have done. And for pure sprinters, I agree with you. A more specific plan would probably serve them better than cross country if there was someone to offer that plan. Others though, who are not purely sprinters would benefit from the aerobic work because their bodies are really built for it. They just don't want to admit that.

Our athlete this year is an outlier and shouldn't be the case study used to prove that 400m runners should do cross country and then become 800m runners. I'm sure that lots of guys who run 52 seconds for 400m could move up and become good 800m runners, but they might improve to even better levels in the 400m and could be even better at the 200m if they stick with their sprint plans.

He Flunked out of school.

Yes I remember the 90’s. That’s when I was in college. Everyone sucked. We thought 15:30 was flying.

I never said that less training always made people faster nor did I say that this particular athlete would have gotten faster with less. I’m saying the coach found something that much to my shame I did not. Believe what you like but some guys just do better off of less. With me he was always injured. In college he never got hurt. Overall volume was maybe 5-10 mpw lower. That came from the days after his hard workouts. With me, a 6-7 mile easy day usually followed a quality day. With his college coach, it was usually just 30 min very easy.

The results I posted are real. The his college coach has moved to the D1 level A couple of years ago and has had a podium team at CC nationals. She knows how to tailor training to meet the needs of the individual

If you’re interested, I’m sure you can figure out who the kid is and who his college coach was. I’ve never been shy about hiding my identity on here and there are plenty of clues in this thread.

47 is good enough to break 1:43, as Symmonds proved. Amel Tuka was another example when he ran his best of 1:42.51 in 2015, his best being 47.19 in 2013, but he subsequently ran 46.63 and 46.82 in 2016-17 before running his pr of 46.15 last year.

He runs a lot of 4's! He has no 1500s or higher in his world athletics profile.

15 JUN 2019 Bosnia & Herzegovina Club Ch., Sarajevo BIHBIH F F 1. 46.37

28 JUN 2019 Meeting Citta di Nembro, Nembro ITAITA D F3 1. 46.15

27 JUL 2019 Bosnia & Herzegovina Ch., Zenica BIHBIH B F3 1. 47.11