Update on my 400/800 athlete + training

Looks good.

His 200/600/200 session indicates he can break 2 in the right race.

Good luck!

I have a kid that seems to be one of those that struggles in XC, but has decent speed over the 400/800. I've decided that I am going to go against my normal distance runner mentality and have him do at least one session every 10 days that's more of a 400m type workout, and increase that style of workout with him as the season progresses.

Right now we are still building base with hills, long runs, tempos, and one vo2max day.

With 4/8 guys, I have personally approached it the opposite way to good success. I have my athletes do easy aerobic runs on recovery days much like a distance athlete would, but often doing workouts like 4x50m+3x150m, or 5x300m, or extensive tempo 400s like a strength based 400m runner would. Sneaking aerobic work is like sneaking in vegetables to a picky kids food, you start with 2 threshold 800s before a speed endurance session, and 2 months of patience later can have them running 6 3k-5k paced 800s w/ 1:1 rest for a true vo2max session.

My personal suggestion for your workouts is to have something for the top end speed weekly (these can be short untaxing workouts like 5x50m w/ running start, and then tack a couple 150s on top), have a 4/8 hybrid speed endurance session, (think how you’d train someone looking to race 600m) and then switch between an 800/1600 paced session to a 3k-5k paced session biweekly. That’s been working very well for my guys. You get one day to run fast, one day to get lactic, and one day to breathe hard, all of these traits seem to combine on a trained 800m runners race day.

Love it. Thanks for the advice.

Here’s an update on his race weekend:

Mile on friday was a 4:52, executed the workout/race plan perfectly, his final 300m was about a 43-44 and he busted his heat.

800m was rough, his heat was 1:59-2:05 seeds, but an athlete busted it open with a 1:54 and they went through 200m in 27 flat and 400m in 56 high-57 low which was a bit too hot for him and he faded to a 2:07

4x4 was a super solid way to end the night, he opened the team with a 52.low off of a waterfall start so we are happy with that!

really appreciate you posting this thread. Really interested to know what occurred. Update plz?

Forgot to update because life got a bit hectic for a while there, but the athlete finished his year with outdoor PBs of

2:04 800m

51.7 400m

He seemed to develop issues with head casing a bit in the 800m, we got his 600m down to 1:26 in a solo time trial, which should have indicated around 1:58 for 800m. He didn’t seem to be able to race the 800m with as much confidence as the 400m. We had issues with him getting into heats he should have been able to win wire to wire, and he would go out in 30-31 with the other athletes going out in 28ish and just never getting back in contact with the races. He would confidently go out in 24.high or 25.low in his 400m races though, so the aggressive racing required for 800m success is in there somewhere. This next season I will definitely need to step my game up on the psychological side of mid D coaching so he will be able to run the 800/1600 with the confidence he deserves to have over those distances.

He’s having a solid cross country season, he’s running about 17:00 flat which I see as good running for a 400/800 guy.

I take over again in November, and should hopefully be able to update you guys if wanted! Last year I received this kid in about 19:xx 5k shape so this will hopefully make a difference.

Thanks, would you be willing to update this thread once you take over his training?

Very interested in this thread. With relay splits of 2:02 and 50.98, I'm in almost the same position as your athlete. Great stuff so far