1/2 marathoner to 400'er. critique my base training coming from a distance background

Yeah, Sub-8, I like the adaption to circumstances that you're adding to your advice. On the face of that, alone, I'd say the OP following it would be wise. Plus you seem to know a thing or two, as well.

With the small 2 month window, caution with any plyo advice would be especially prescient, as well, and perhaps even safer to just skip it and stick with your plan Sub-8. But you could fairly easily do some extremely basic stuff just to get some work in with the stretch-shorten action. Even just incorporating some old school depth jumping off a super short box with SUPER short contact time might have a value. Keep it low set/rep and super high quality, and it shouldn't be too risky.

Along the lines of what you said, Sub-8, a light intro-plyo could be incorporated not so much to try to develop huge new gains in speed, but rather just to let what's there already come out a bit easier/more safely. And it would still allow for dabbling in the long run/shake out still, too.

OP, if you catch the sprinting bug, all this easing in could set up a great base and off this and from there start dabbling into things like full effort flys, more aspirational plyos, and a focus on explosive lifts, too.

I'm taking notes gentleman. Think I will push back 400 to late July. I want to give it a real go. For plyo's any recommended programmes? I remember doing a sebastian coe plyo workout in high school

Getting Faster! wrote:

You need to do a lot of short fast stuff, 10X50, 10X100, etc.

Have you been working on your start out of the blocks? It is critical in sprint events.

I believe that a runner in OP's position would be risking injury to jump into 50m and 100m repeats. Do you disagree?

As far as blocks go, OP ran a 57 and HOPES to run a 54. No blocks needed. Just run fast and turn left.

You need to start from the bottom

Power to weight ratio is key (for gym sessions)

3 hard sessions per week plus gym sessions (M-W-F), 3 Extensive tempo sessions per week ( T-T-S), and Sunday’s off.

Break your training into phases and small linear progressions.

Monday- starting with 8x10m and progressing to 10x20m by later phases.

Wednesday - starting with 5x40m, progressing to 5x60m full recovery’s

Friday- start with 3x60, progressing to 4x120m.

Tempo sessions- start with 10x100m with 15 seconds recovery progressing to 20. Once you have reached all the progressions (20’s,60’s, and 120’s) start adding 1-3 250’s after workouts at 95%+ intensity. When In racing season change the 1-3 250’s to 1-2 300-350’s.

2 gym sessions, one plyo session per week. Always after hard sessions. Focus on muscular endurance ( high rep, low weight, little rest) in the early phases and power once you start competing (Olympic lifts and strong lifts)

Usain Walmsley wrote:

I'm taking notes gentleman. Think I will push back 400 to late July. I want to give it a real go. For plyo's any recommended programmes? I remember doing a sebastian coe plyo workout in high school

If you're pushing it to late July, and taking into consideration blackloud's suggestion re light plyos -

Normally I would have suggested some sort of light/basic plyos; the reasons I stayed away from it originally are:

a) short time frame to adapt from LD to the pyramid workouts and the 300 repeats, and

b) you said you're lifting, so if that's going on AND your legs are adapting to the faster workouts, I didn't want to suggest anything that could end up slowing you down versus adding speed. Burnout is real!

But, man, it's so tempting to say ok yeah go for some plyos. I dunno, for this cycle I think I would still err on the side of caution. I think adding a little something is ok, but not much, and nothing overly fast-twitchy.

Given the extra time, I'd suggest that for the first 4 weeks only, add 3 sets of squat-jumps after the 4 x 300m session. Start with maybe 10 or 15 reps, use your judgement, and no need to overdo it, keeping in mind that you are lifting and that you'll be doing a long run the following day. If it's ok, add more reps the following week. If you are pretty sore, fewer reps.

And you're going to want to keep that long run slow slow slow.

I’ve coached 15 sub 50 guys, 3 were sub 47, one was sub 46. The biggest difference between a 45 guy and a 48-49 guy is almost never speed, but rather speed endurance. Australia’s 400m squad had around 2 sub 45 guys, and 3 under 46. None of them could break 21 for 200m. For sub 50 a minimum of 23.8-24.0 is needed. Meaning you need 11.8-12.0 speed, which is why I’m suggesting starting with very short distances and power sessions until you have the minimum speed needed.

You don’t need to run like at all. Your should run no farther than 400m at once and in training. You’re training looks closer to like a 1600/3200 or even 5k right now. If you’re really going al in you’re gonna pretty give up distance running until after your race

Repeats between 100-300m have been my bread and butter workouts for my 400/800 training. There is no reason for you to be doing any more than 20-25 mpw if even that. Hit the weights, hit the plyo, and hit the hills. The most you ever should do for endurance training for 400m are 3-4 mile fartleks, 1-2 mile hard tempos, and repeats between 300-600m, and these should all be once a week things. Once you transition from 800 to 400 speed is officially more important than endurance. Remember that.

bj467 -

Solid concepts for sub-50 guys. But that's not the athlete we're talking about here.

We have an LD guy who wants to run a 400 that is decent for him. Last year he ran a 57. At that speed, the 400 is far more aerobic than for, say, a guy running 47. Totally different races with different needs.

OP has done ZERO 30m, 60m, 100m, or 150m fast repeats in recent history. Probably never, given his PR of 57. Right now he's coming off half-marathon training. Would you really have him doing sub-50 type speedwork now? I feel pretty certain that he'd be at risk to injure a quad/hamstring/Achilles with that sudden of a transition. Do you disagree?

Also, OP is going to be training for about 8-10 weeks. How is he going to start from the bottom and periodize his training into phases as you suggest? Wouldn't that take more like 6-9-12 months? I'm sure you know more about coaching fast 400m runners than I do, but is that really the right approach for THIS athlete, in THIS situation?

Sub-8 Mile wrote:

Getting Faster! wrote:

You need to do a lot of short fast stuff, 10X50, 10X100, etc.

Have you been working on your start out of the blocks? It is critical in sprint events.

I believe that a runner in OP's position would be risking injury to jump into 50m and 100m repeats. Do you disagree?

As far as blocks go, OP ran a 57 and HOPES to run a 54. No blocks needed. Just run fast and turn left.

Starting blocks help. If not, why is it that 100, 200, and 400 meter runners use them? Name me one athlete at either the World's or the Olympics that didn't use blocks? I'll wait.

If the OP wants to improve his 400m time he will certainly need to run some short intervals and get used to running at a faster pace. Look at the OP's original post. He has already been doing some short intervals including all out 300's and 60m and 80m sprints. He has already transitioned into sprint work so he is not "risking injury into 50m and 100m repeats" as you say.

I do agree 100% with running fast and turning left. :)

Getting Faster! wrote:

Sub-8 Mile wrote:

I believe that a runner in OP's position would be risking injury to jump into 50m and 100m repeats. Do you disagree?

As far as blocks go, OP ran a 57 and HOPES to run a 54. No blocks needed. Just run fast and turn left.

Starting blocks help. If not, why is it that 100, 200, and 400 meter runners use them? Name me one athlete at either the World's or the Olympics that didn't use blocks? I'll wait.

At a major games an athlete has to use blocks for the false start equipment. They don’t have a choice. If someone isn’t competent in their acceleration mechanics, they will be worse out of blocks. Long term he should certainly learn to use them, but the low hanging fruit is on top end speed and specific endurance - that’s where the bulk of the effort should be directed if he’s looking to compete in the near future.

Completely agree with all of the reservations about doing faster work. Can you imagine a 400 runner saying he wants to race a half and people saying the bulk of the programme should be no longer than 300m?!

Clarification - agree with you rejecting those reservations about faster work

Getting Faster! wrote:

Sub-8 Mile wrote:

As far as blocks go, OP ran a 57 and HOPES to run a 54. No blocks needed. Just run fast and turn left.

Starting blocks help. If not, why is it that 100, 200, and 400 meter runners use them? Name me one athlete at either the World's or the Olympics that didn't use blocks? I'll wait.

I certainly can not name one athlete at either the Worlds or the Olympics who did not use blocks for the 400.

Can you name one 400m athlete at the Worlds or Olympics who ran a 57, then trained for the half-marathon (including ZERO sprint workouts) for 10 months, then decided to give the 400 a try again, did some speedwork for a few weeks, and ended up running between 54-57 at the next Worlds or Olympics?? If so, I'd love to hear about how their stellar blockwork helped them achieve such blazingness.

Also, can you name one athlete in ANY RACE at the Worlds or Olympics, where the pace was going to be 54-57 per 400m and they used blocks?

I'll wait.

This must be a troll. Nobody would seriously run 50 mile weeks with 19 mile long runs and 1200m reps and think they are training for the 400m. Surely not.

The event is about 70% anaerobic. Including significant contributions from the ATP-PC system.

If you are serious about running a 400 to the best of your ability forget all distance training. No easy runs. No runs at all other than a warm up. Completely irrelevant. Your distance background is not going to help you at all I'm sorry, in fact it's more of a hindrance compared to someone with literally any team sporting background and some studies suggest even having a sedentary background would be better.

Pure speed sessions of 30-60 reps focusing on acceleration. Hard lactic sessions of 100/200/300 reps with 2-5 minutes recovery. 150m reps at goal pace with 6-10 minutes recovery. Endurance sessions of 300/400 at 95% with full recovery, the odd 500/600 rep also. Bounding, skipping, ladder work. Sled work if you can get access to one. Gym sessions focused on power.

Between sessions you need to recover and let your muscles try and learn to be fast. Going for a 7 mile jog is harmful to that process.

Why don't you run the 800 if you are intent on running 50 mile weeks?

Getting Faster! wrote:

Starting blocks help. If not, why is it that 100, 200, and 400 meter runners use them? Name me one athlete at either the World's or the Olympics that didn't use blocks? I'll wait.

If the OP wants to improve his 400m time he will certainly need to run some short intervals and get used to running at a faster pace. Look at the OP's original post. He has already been doing some short intervals including all out 300's and 60m and 80m sprints. He has already transitioned into sprint work so he is not "risking injury into 50m and 100m repeats" as you say.

I do agree 100% with running fast and turning left. :)

All in good fun :) The issue here isn't really blocks -- it's training approach for an unusual case.

The right way to train for a FAST 400m is, of course, to include blockwork and short sprints. Nobody is going to get down to 50.x, or sub-50, without including all of the components of a decent 400m training plan. Such a plan would ideally be periodized and would require several months. But that's just not relevant to this case, is it?

In designing a training plan, wouldn't a coach consider the specific athlete and the overall goals? In this case, OP has been running LD for a long time. He will not give up his weekly long run, or run less than 35mpw while training for this 400m, because his real interest is in LD running. Last year he ran a 57, and he'd like to beat that time. He's willing to train hard for it, within his own personal parameters.

Bearing in mind that a race pace of 14.0 sec / 100m would allow OP to beat last year's time of 57, and 54 would be a race pace of 13.5 sec / 100m, here are two important questions to consider for this particular case (not 400m training in general, just OP's case here in this thread):

1) How critical are top-speed flying sprints when attempting to achieve a race pace of 13.5-14.0 per 100m? (I'd say, probably not so very important, unless you are dealing with a developing HSer. Or, if you believe that someone in OP's position could train for a few weeks and then drop a 49 while maintaining 35mpw).

2) Is the potential development in top-end speed worth the risk of potentially, not definitely, but potentially injuring a hamstring/quad/Achilles? (I'd say, not very much actual speed DEVELOPMENT is likely to take place. I'm no expert, but I'd guess that it's more realistic IN THIS CASE to train in a manner that allows the natural speed to emerge).

Btw, sorry for my previous error - I get the point that OP has already done a few short-speed sessions such as 60m and 80m sprints. Thanks, "Getting Faster!" for the reminder -- too much chemo and now I make dumb mistakes like that. But my concern is still the same re an LD runner suddenly doing sprints. From experience, when a runner is untrained in sprinting, it's generally not the first couple of speed sessions that cause injury - the athlete can't yet run fast enough to injure him/her self. From what I've seen, the risk comes into play after the first few sessions, when certain muscles start getting stronger and faster, but not all of the leg muscles are ready and the connective tissues certainly aren't ready but you are accelerating so much better and then -- ouch! You're out for a few weeks or a couple of months. Oops.

Is anyone else familiar with this risk and how to work around it? From blackloud's comments & cautions, it sounds like he has some experience with it.

Not to say that OP would definitely get injured. And not to say that OP would end up with zero benefit from short sprint sessions. Personally, I just wouldn't recommend it, from looking at the complete picture as best I can.

Agree/disagree?

This is an unusual case, and that makes it an interesting question ... how much speed training and what type? There are many ways to design a traditional 400m program, but this is not a "traditional 400m athlete" situation.

At any rate, it will be interesting to see what OP ends up doing for training, and how his 400m turns out.

ex-runner wrote:

The event is about 70% anaerobic. Including significant contributions from the ATP-PC system.

I'm no exercise scientist, but I think for a 57-second 400m, it is not 70% anaerobic. I may be incorrect about this, but I believe that applies to approximately 44-48 second 400's.

Let's say we get an occasional slow-jogger to hop on the track for a 400. Say they do pretty well and it takes them 90 seconds. Was that 90 sec effort 70% anaerobic? Or would you guess it was maybe something like 30-40% anaerobic?

If this hypothetical person wanted to take just 2 months to improve their brand-new 400m PR of 1:30, would you have them doing plyos and flying 30's, or would you have them doing mostly 2-3 mile runs for basic aerobic fitness, plus 800m repeats in something like 3:30 for improved aerobic power and 200m repeats in 40 sec to get some experience running a little faster than their PR pace?

Now let's say we kidnap some totally untrained person off the street, throw them on the track, and tell them to do 1 lap. They try hard, but it takes 3 full minutes to get around the track once. Was that 180 second effort 70% anaerobic? Or would you guess it was perhaps around 5-10% anaerobic? Or would you maybe guess even less than 5%?

And how about if this hypothetical person wanted to take 2 months to see if they can do it again in less than 3 minutes? Would you tell them to work on their speed endurance by repeatedly sprinting 100m? Do you think this person CAN sprint for 100m, even once? Or would you tell them to maybe jog half a mile every day so they can try to start getting in shape, and to try the 400m "time trial" once a week, as a fitness test, so they can slowly improve for a few weeks?

Point being, just because a study about elite & sub-elite athletes indicated that running 400m in 40-something seconds is 70% anaerobic, it doesn't apply to everyone. I would suggest that dogmatically applying the 70% idea to every runner at every ability is possibly not the best approach.

Broadly speaking, should we recommend general 400m training guidelines to everyone who says they are interested in the 400, or should to evaluate each runner according to their specific situation?

All right, I'll quit pontificating about this - it's just that I'm really interested in this topic.

I did say about 70% but I agree the longer it takes you the more input from the aerobic system. I didn't realise he is trying to run 57s.

But he is still trying to run to exhaustion in less than 60s so maybe it is 60% anaerobic, it doesn't matter. I would never coach a HS female to run sub 60 with this training.

The point is you need to train for the demands of the event and 50 mile weeks or 1200m reps have absolutely no specificity or relevance to the 400m. Tempo runs are useless, all of it is useless.

If the OP is on limited time I would suggest spending about 50% of sessions doing plenty of short acceleration work and ladder work as the CNS system adapts pretty quickly at first and he will see newbie gains at 100m/200m.

And then the rest of his time should be spent killing tough lactic/speed endurance and special endurance work outs which he is going to be absolutely unprepared for and immediately realise why 50mile weeks are irrelevant.

If he wants to improve in the 400m this is what he needs to start doing. If he simply wants to run a 400 in July and see what he can do then no need for the thread he is welcome to run one with a standing start off 50 mile weeks.

This is a great workout you posted! I'm training 3 times a week with SportMe Marathon Trainer and I'm more self-confident and less anxious. I's amazing what running can do for me.