To me, the answer is: It depends. Which do you hate more, short, really intense pain (800), or longer lasting pain that is a little less (1600, 3200)? Anyone who thinks the 400 is more painful than the 800 has not run the 800 correctly.
My school offers the following track events: 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, and 3200m. Which is the most painful and generally hardest to run?
The 400 doesn't hurt for long... but the pain is the worst by far...'
As one 400m Oklahoma HS state champion (Paul Stansberry) once told me...
"Everybody tells you that in the last 100 of a 400 that a gorilla jumps on your back... what they don't tell you is that he is also reaching down and squeezing your balls too".
Paul was a funny guy. I wish I could remember everything he said... one other one I remember is that he said about those old Gatorade glass quart glass bottles. "The inventor of Gatorade did a study to find out what nutrients an athlete needed in a sports drink. They also did a study to determine what bottle opening design was the worst shaped for the human mouth." For those who remembered how hard it was to drink from those things.
You were supposed to pour that lemon-lime Gatorade into a glass. As a 15-16 year old in the late 1960s, I appreciated that the quart bottle was only 35 cents.
I have raced 100-10,000 on the track and my take is that the 400 is the hardest/most painful. It is so close to all out, but not all out, explosive start out of the blocks takes a toll on legs. Pacing is always on the razor's edge close to cracking. Maybe it is because I am a distance runner, but I have never found any sort of rhythm like I do in say the 800. You are in the corner at like 250 meters when you are running the right pace and it feels like you might rig up and not be able to hold it, but then you get into the final 100 and just burn like crazy and kick with what you have left. I am sure the greats like Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone last week keep it smooth and find a nice rhythm, but I never could relax if I wanted to run fast.
As a jack of all trades in high school, the 3200. People will tell you the 800 is worse, but the 3200 takes 6 times as long, and you have to be 800 tough for 4 times the distance, and then still run an all out 800m at the end. Sure, it's slower, but I know guys that hurt worse running a 20 min 5k than guys who run a 15 min. Speed isn't everything.
I was consistent 2:24/2:25 indoor 1,000m runner. However, I had the rare opportunity to race a 2,000m years ago. I split 4:01 through 1,600m and had a 4:04 mile best. I ran 5:05 in a race that was won in sub 5:00 barely 4:59. But that was hell on earth. I was numbed because I never was on point to break 4 in a mile and that was probably the race I would have done it. Had that been a mile and not a 2,000m no doubt I would have at least clipped a 3:58 on that day
Started out as a 400/800 then 800/mile: all of those events hurt. However, I never felt aerobics fatigue in a 400 or lactic in a mile but I felt both of those in an 800.
People are forgetting the "ODD" indoor distances. Not only are they longer, but they are indoors with that dry, dusty, stale air. Imagine running just slightly slower than your best 880/800 and then having 120 more yards or 200m to run. Yes the 1000yd/1000m run. You are already experiencing the searing pain in your lungs from the air, but also the building fatigue in your legs and arms. Your vision is closing in, and you can barely see the finish line from half way across the track. Yeah, the thousand anything is the worst. Although I will give props to the 600.
This post was edited 41 seconds after it was posted.
Reason provided:
fixed spelling
As someone who ran all 10 track events over the course of her higj school career I can say i always felt the worst after the 800 meters. To me the 400 was a long sprint but over in a minute the last half of the 800 my fert felt like lead and I always wanted to throw up after. IM hurdles were probably next worst. 100 and 200 easy, 1600 rough but manageable and the 3200 just plane boring.
The 800 is the toughest. Hitting the wall in the 800 is agony. Once that bear runs out of the woods and jumps on your back, it's over.
If you're race fit and near your peak, the mile is actually a pleasure. Certainly you run your race to be exhausted at the finish, but a properly executed mile is an exciting proposition, the supreme challenge of both endurance and speed. I should say, the first few races of the season will be fairly unpleasant, as well as slower.
If you are foolish enough to try to sprint all out for an entire 400, ha ha good luck when the piano lands on you with about 60-70m to go.
After seeing all these people say the 800, I think the most painful is the one furthest away from your natural disposition. I love the 800. Yeah it hurts but you get used to it. But I could see how a long distance guy could hop in one 800 per year and find it brutal.
For me, who likes the 800, it's probably not surprising that the 3200 sucks, but 5k sucks more, but 8k sucks more, and 10k even more. I just figure the last 1/3 of every race will be horrible, so give me the event where that is like 35-40 seconds, not 10 minutes.
I think it definitely has to do with your physiology and also what you're currently training for / in shape for.
When I was in fantastic 10k shape, racing a 3k felt like a breath of relief, but racing a 1500 hurt bad, the pace was too fast, not breathing hard necessarily but legs would be heavy and it was a shock to the body.
When I was peaking / tapering for the 1500, race pace would feel relaxed until about the 900-1k mark if I paced properly and then I could gut it out for 600m.
The 5k has never felt easy to me, but neither did the 800 - they're tied to me. The 400 sucked really bad but at least it was 15 seconds of agony compared to 30 in the 800.
This post was edited 15 seconds after it was posted.
Definitely 800m. If you run correctly, after the first lap you "know" that you can never survive this. In the last 300 meters you start to lose your color vision and gradually stop hearing. The "funny" thing is that between 500 and 600m you have to make the right position for the last bend before the finish. And then? For the last 200m you can't see anything, hear anything, (I personally don't remember almost anything from my best runs; PR 1:52 many years ago) you don't know where you are and the only thing keeping you alive is some mysterious subconscious that won't let you fall. Extremely pure agony. And yet this track is the most beautiful of all on the track :-)
I was consistent 2:24/2:25 indoor 1,000m runner. However, I had the rare opportunity to race a 2,000m years ago. I split 4:01 through 1,600m and had a 4:04 mile best. I ran 5:05 in a race that was won in sub 5:00 barely 4:59. But that was hell on earth. I was numbed because I never was on point to break 4 in a mile and that was probably the race I would have done it. Had that been a mile and not a 2,000m no doubt I would have at least clipped a 3:58 on that day
Not really the topic but I once ran 2:26.low for a 1k and finished with a good close, last lap was by far the fastest of the race. The best performance of my life. I never ran many miles or 1500s, I was officially a 4:16 man in the mile.
To this day I'm left wondering, what if that day was a mile on the track? I don't think I was breaking 4, but 4:0x low was in the cards, right?
On topic, 800 and 400 are the most painful. Never ran them but the 400m hurdles are probably also more painful than flat 400. I think the 400 might be worse for beginners for the reason others mentioned, it's a sprint and you're gonna screw up your pacing as a noob and find yourself in a world of pain. Many beginners approach the 800 as a distance race and avoid some of the horror that way.
The 5,000m was always the hardest for me though. Not quite the same pain, but intense and long enough to have a good think about what you're doing out there. Never felt that way in a 10k or half marathon.
What most people haven't experienced is that the 400m hurdles is a close second.
Again, I'd step to the line for an 800m one hundred percent of the time compared to a 400m or a 400 hurdles. Simply because being so tied up for 10 or 15 seconds that you don't feel in control of your body is the worst feeling to me.
The 800 hurts like hell but I never felt completely out of control in running one. The strain never got to that point where I felt I was going to fall over. But... I'd never ever pick to run an 800 over anything longer. Where pain is prolonged but less intense.