Explain Like I'm 5: Why should I make my 800 guy do lots of long runs?

A 48 second guy can probably run sub 11 seconds already. Any improvement aerobically or anaerobically and he'd run 10.6-10.8 and 21.8. This guy could even run 46-46.5 seconds with poor training methods over 1-2 years and probably sub 1:49/1:50 by the end of the season.

If you really take time to learn and understand aerobic development, you will never be so limiting again. I was very surprised that you limit his ability at 10.6/21.8 for such a gifted athlete when he is untrained.

Any aerobic training will make him faster in training for each rep and allow for quicker recovery in between reps so he can go again faster for the next rep.

Don't forget that every step has an aerobic component in the 100m,200m or longer. Most guys are tying up after only 25m-35m of acceleration to top speed.

Convert aerobic gains into anaerobic gains. Sometimes you'll wait weeks or months to convert. At this stage, just shorten his recoveries from 10-15 minutes over a few sessions to 3-5 minutes and his sessions will already be more aerobic. Do 1 session like this and 1 intense session and he'll grow for both sessions. Cut the 800 type reps to 200s/300s. I like 6x300m (2mins stop recovery) at circa. 800m pace or 10x200m with 1 min recovery.

Once you tap out on aerobic progress with the longer session and shorter reps, (and with the season ending), then it's time to return to base phase and traditional aerobic base with easy jogging, faster runs, threshold running etc etc. You can still do some of this in-season anyway.

You don't have to go to base phase type training now but use those easy days and easy runs for nervous system recovery. When you train middle distance race type efforts so intensively, you only have a few weeks before you have empty your aerobic tank and you are on borrowed time. Take 3-4 days between hard days. This will also save your aerobic system in-season. Fortunately, your athlete can build his aerobic system for a short time in season through any training as he had no base. Anyway, looking forward to seeing how his seasons pans out!

An 800 is about 60% aerobic, so efficiency of the aerobic system is somewhat more important to 800m performance than anaerobic efficiency. Developing aerobic efficiency requires running more miles. In elite 800m training groups, like former American record holder Johnny Grey's group, it is common to run 60+ miles per week. Slow miles make it possible to hit appropriate levels of mileage while still saving some reserve in the legs for hard track intervals.

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From :

link.springer.com

Crossing the Golden Training Divide: The Science and Practice of Training World-Class 800- and 1500-m Runners - Sports Medicine

Despite an increasing amount of research devoted to middle-distance training (herein the 800 and 1500 m events), information regarding the training methodologies of world-class runners is limited. Therefore, the objective of...

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"During an 800-m run, the relative energy system contributions from aerobic and anaerobic metabolism are reported to be 60–75 and 25–40%, respectively, while corresponding values for 1500 m are 75–85 and 15–25% [6, 7, 13]."

I think it's also important to remember that for a championship setting you don't want your athlete to just run one great 800. You want your athlete to be able to handle rounds of the 800 over the course of however many days your state champs are (not to mention qualifying sections, league, etc.). Aerobic strength helps in the event itself but it really helps when you have to recover between races. The aerobic development is also a bunch of untapped potential with lower injury risk than the sessions mentioned, which as others have stated are essentially having this kid run his own dual meet in practice against himself.

Peter Snell's training the last couple of weeks before winning Olympic Gold in the 800m;

October 1st: 2 hour run – strong and even pace.
October 2nd: 4 times 440 yard efforts.
October 3rd: 6 times 880 at half effort. Averaged 2:05
October 4th: 1 mile time trial in 4:02
October 5th: 10 times 220 stride outs
October 6th: Sprint training over 150 yards.
October 7th: 800m fast time trial in 1:47.1
October 8th: 1 hour jog.
October 9th: 880 yard in 50yard dashes.
October 10th: 1 hour jog
October 11th: 3 times 220 yard sprints.
October 12th: 1 hour jog
October 13th: Half an hour jog
October 14th: 800m heat. 1:49
October 15th: 800m semi. 1:46.9
October 16th: 800m final. 1:45.1 Olympic Gold.

Most high school athletes are very under trained aerobically and that's where the biggest gains could come from

i haven't read the whole thread, but if he is able to do this workout and the 5x1000 coming through in 2:10, he might be an even better miler than 400 runner.

But who is faster

C or

D) 46.5 AND 4:10 mile

Did you 800m guy improve more by building their endurance to run a 4 min mile or by working on their speed endurance so they could run a 46.5 You need to figure out where to spend your energy.

The 800m guy definitely needs aerobic work. But what is better?

80 min easy run

30 min tempo

5*1000 a 5k pace

30/30s at vVo2

They all work at developing the aerobic system in slightly different ways Depending on where you are, you might end up using all of them.

And a lot of this comes down to how things work together. 3*600 @ race pace might be an Ok workout. Like 1-2x/season. I don't think anyone can handle that on a weekly basis.

The kindergarten level of specificity is race pace for race distance. Nothing more specific than that. That is pretty 1900 training. The more nuanced view is the 800 needs aerobic development, speed endurance, and efficiency at 53s pace. How do you develop those specific capabilities. Then you start looking at a blend of aerobic work, sprints, strength, and plyometric work. And the exact blend depends on the athlete.

You get the 800/1500m crowd talking about 80mpw and the like. The 400m crowd is down at 30mpw and tons of intensity. Both have worked.

Doing gut busting V02+ workouts like you described (some of these sound kinda impossible) filled in with technique and top speed work sounds like you'll quickly have a broken 800 runner

I second those discussing an ends-to-middle approach. With a runner who is more of a known quality, I like to work off of a realistic goal pace. Maybe you want to hit 3x600 @ GP by season's end. To run that workout, you'd need to be able to run 100s significantly faster than that and 1000s at a measured rate slower. To support those supporting workouts, you'll need to be able to work max sprints or some kind of sub-threshold tempo even further out from peak racing. It's better to focus on the supports to arrive at the peak workout than to keep hitting 3x600 @ DP and trying to eek out tenths of a second week to week.

Two other nuances that may be less obvious. (1) I like to develop workouts at specific race pace as the other scaffolding is coming together. Rubio's Middle Distance Guide has a wonderful series of progressions of workouts for 800/1500 pace that are readily accessible for high school athletes [modifying for volume and always completing one step before progressing to next]. For 800m, he suggests 150s @ 800p (250j) --> sets of 2x200 (100j||400j btw sets) --> 300s (3' stand rec) --> 400s (4') --> [500 (60") 300 (5'-6') 400 (60") 400]. The specific workouts favor 1500-sodes runners, so I'm mostly suggesting the sense of steady development. that becomes more and more sustained and anaerobic as the season progresses.

(2) You can work both ends in a single workout. Follow your tempo run with a sprint series. Or with a 400 to train for, open with a sprint session and chase it with something up-tempo. YouTube "Robby Andrews workout". The first two results show a combined aerobic+sprint workout that he incorporated in his training.

Lots of good discussion here, but I'll try to address your basic "why" question. It might seem like the track events fall along a spectrum, where each event is similar to the adjacent ones. But from a physiological perspective, there are really two very different categories: sprints and distance events. There's a reason there's such a chasm between those two worlds: they're different animals.

For 1,500 and up, the vast majority of the required energy is produced by the aerobic system. Sure, anaerobic energy matters, but only if you've got the aerobic chops to be in the game. For 400 and down, aerobic energy is mostly irrelevant. Hypothetically, you could run for maybe 40 seconds with no aerobic energy at all. (That's not what happens in real life, but just as an illustration.) So yes, 400 runners need *some* aerobic energy, but the difference between okay and great aerobic endurance is fairly trivial over 400.

The 800 is the dividing line between these two solitudes. That's why runners with very different phenotypes (Brazier and Symmonds, for example) can excel in it. But as previous posters have noted, it's fueled largely (>60%) by aerobic energy. In that sense, it's closer to the distance events than the sprint events.

Now, that doesn't mean that every 800m runner has to train like a distance runner. There are lots of discussions about the different styles of training appropriate for a 400/800 runner vs an 800/1500 runner, and it's probable that someone like Brazier would be *worse* if he tried to train like Nick Symmonds did. BUT one way or another, a good 800 runner needs to be able to deliver that aerobic energy on demand (and, as another poster noted, do it again and again if he's running rounds at a championship).

One of the big principles in endurance training is the 80/20 hard/easy split - a vast oversimplification, of course, but still fairly descriptive of how most elite endurance runners train. Even for marathoners, running 8:00 or 7:00 or even 6:00 mile pace is nowhere near their race pace, and thus might seem pointless from your perspective. This split has evolved as a way of maximizing the overall dose of training. If you do 100% hard, you won't be able to accumulate much training. If you do 100% easy, you won't be developing some aspects of race-specific fitness. But by fitting in some longer, slower training around the benchpost interval workouts, distance runners are able to accumulate greater overall aerobic fitness. It's not that slow running is better than fast running; it's that "slow running plus short recovery" is better than "fast running plus long recovery" for some spots in the training week.

For a 400/800 runner, you won't up doing 80/20 training. But the same basic idea is why most 800 runners do some longer, slower training. You'll develop some aerobic fitness (which is important for 800) without trashing your body so much that you're unable to fit in your other training. For most 800 runners, including some training of this sort will have greater marginal payoff than yet another day of flying 40s and plyos or whatever it is that sprinters do. ;)

(Maybe one other point worth noting. Beyond the short recovery, longer slower training is also a more specific way of developing aerobic endurance. If you do 600 reps at 800 race pace, you'll be relying largely on anaerobic energy with only a partial stimulus to the aerobic system. If you do, say, Norwegian-style threshold workouts, that session can target aerobic fitness much more effectively.)

I think some 800 runners need long runs, and others do not. So my take would be to evaluate the risks vs benefits. If the runner is able to handle long runs without injuries, overtraining, or simply forgetting how to run fast, I would try them just because it MIGHT be beneficial. If not, I would still try to push the volume, but in moderation, carefully staying away from the red zone but trying to reap some aerobic benefits nevertheless.

We aren't really talking about long runs. It is more should you do easy runs (40-60mins slow) or tempo efforts (25mins comfortably hard). Few people are pushing 20 milers ala Lydiard these days for 800m specialists.

For 800m guys a lot of times we are just talking about doing an extra 15-20 mins easy running to get another 10-15mpw.

I think the ability to 3x600m at current race-pace indicates that he is under-performing at 800m.

The 800m was the short end of what I raced over so I had more of a strength background, and there is no way I could have imagined running 3 x 600m at race pace.

I think most who have run a lot of 800m, and reflect how they feel at 600m are going to agree they aren't going to want to try that three times in one session.

I did used to do 4x400m at slightly quicker than race pace (about the pace I'd run the first lap) with two laps jog recovery.

..Arthur Lydiard had Peter Snell run 100+ mile weeks and he was a middle distance (800m/1500m gold medalist).

The two best US HS 800 runners from last season did zero long runs and maybe 30mi per week combined / between them.

Hard to get a HS kid to go much under 1:52 without < 50 on the 4x400 split.

Physiological adaptation takes place through frequency of activity.

Translated to 5 year old: The more you do something, the better you get at it.

You can't do hard workouts all that frequently, and therefore, the adaptation effect will not be as strong through simply doing speed workouts.

Now, long runs aren't exactly specific to running all-out for 2 mins, but it's still running, and the vast majority of muscle recruitment is still the same. Therefore, your athlete will become a far more efficient runner.

Add to that, by strengthening the aerobic energy system, you greatly expand the ability to perform more volume in an anaerobic state. Think of long runs as "training for training".

You'll also find that with a stronger aerobic system, your athlete will recover better between hard workouts.

Try more like 3/4ths aerobic.

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SO TRUE. OP the workouts you posted are impossible regardless of the level of the athlete and their conditioning, it's still not physically possible to hit.

3 x 600m slightly faster than 800 pace ot

5 x 1000m slightly faster than 800m pace

the recovery would have to be so long just to complete the 2nd rep and after two the athlete wouldnt he able to hit previous times.

STOP IT, Sir please

a coach who cares and seeks out advice to train the runner properly? yeah jeez that sounds simply horrible...

man a lot of y'all are condescending a*holes.. OP clearly stated he came from a sprint background and didn't know much about distance and ASKED for advice. he did nothing wrong and for whatever reason half this board is know-it-all jerks that, despite their immense wealth of knowledge, can't translate it into success in their own lives so they larp on here instead. f'in bozos