800m Men in X-Country and Mental Toughness

Clayton Murphy is a guy that has done pretty well at both.

Details!

1978 Ovett won the Inter Counties X country over 7 & 1/2 mile hilly, snow/sleet covered course romping away from Steve jones over the last half mile or so.

About 6 weeks later he finished 4th in The National over a hilly 9 mile course - this time dry underfoot. Ahead of him were Bernie Ford, Ian Stewart and Tony Simmons -- all sub 28 min 10K runners. He wasn't bad atthis X country lark!

As I understand it the US X Country season finishes in November for college athletes?. No major outdoor track meets until May? What can conceivably be wrong with an 800m runner getting some over distance work in during the X Country season? X Country does not mean you have to train 100 miles per week as any sensible coach should appreciate. not all the team has to do every workout together!

Finally, David Hemery did a full collegiate X Country season the year he won his gold medal at 400 m hurdles!

This is just distance runner mythology at work.

Anything distance runners do well (like endurance) is only the result of hard work. There is no talent for it, just work. So if someone (say an 800 runner training w/ the cross country team) can't keep up when the distance moves from 8k to 10k, it's OBVIOUSLY a sign that they don't work hard enough or lack "mental toughness."

On the other hand, anything they don't do well (turnover, speed, sprint stuff) can only be explained by natural talent. So if they struggle to turn in adequate performances in the 4x800 indoors, it's equally OBVIOUSLY because they lack natural speed. It couldn't possibly be because they lack the mental toughness to run fast when it hurts.

It's just distance logic: every runner we beat it's because we work harder & have more guts. Everyone who beats us just is blessed with natural talent & innate speed.

Exactly. And also they believe that all sprinters don't work hard and them running fast is only talent. Having done sprint and distance workouta, sprinting is much harder.

Distance runners have so many easy days where it is just easy running. Sprinter you build up so much lactate and it is hard

You sound like you've got a good grasp on the situation.

You shouldn't jeopardize your track and 800 goals and potential to help out the cross country team a little more. You're already doing what you can and helping the team, and I'm sure your teammates and coaches realize that XC isn't your forte.

You are a bargain for your team, being that you can help out in XC and track. You're more of an asset than a liability.

As for toughness, breaking down races into sections. Don't think of it as a five mile run, rather, maybe break it down into 4 phases.

My teammate at University was similar to you and his goal in many XC races was to run in a fashion where you only pass people. You run the race so that you're ALWAYS doing the passing and not getting passed. This helped him pace himself and also worked to his advantage at the end of the race when it was time to kick.

800m interest wrote:

OK sure ovett ran XC, so did Coe. But consider - Ovett was the WR holder at 2miles and even he basically sucked at XC. I mean he was good - but he wouldn't have a chance in hell at winning NCAAs. Notable for one of the greatest milers who ever lived.

Ovett was the world record holder at 2 miles and the Commonwealth champion at 5000 in a faster time than Pre ever ran. He was the national 6 mile junior XC champion, won the Senior national southern XC championship, was 4th in XC at senior nationals, got 4th in the famous Cinque Mulani international XC race, won the Golden Shoe international XC race, won the Nike Grand Prix XC race, won the international Belfast XC race, won the AAA 10K road race.

He basically never sucked at XC, and probably would have won 4 NCAA XC championships. Some runners have guts, some have talent, and Ovett had both.

I don't have any doubt that this team of Olympic Gold medalists at 800 and 1500 would 15 point the NCAA XC race: Steve Ovett, Herb Elliot, John Walker, Sebastian Coe and Said Aouita. Throw in 800 Gold medalist Peter Snell and 1500 Bronze medalist Rod Dixon, and you are looking at a probable 1 through 7 finish at NCAA. The only real question is who is the winner? Elliot, Ovett or Aouita? Which NCAA runners are gonna hang when Ovett runs the first mile in 4:06?

The only NCAA guy that I can see challenging those 800 guys is Rono '77. But likely Ovett and Elliot would have sat on him for 9600m and romped past.

800 specialists Coe and Ovett (for the first half of his long career) won major international XC races before they became serious milers. The only guy of those seven who didn't win a major 800 medal was Dixon, and he started out as a 1:47 800 guy, then ran a 2:08 marathon.

I wasn't as fast as you, I ran 1:51 in college, but the same year I also ran an 8K in 24:08 and was a D-III All-American. There was a guy ahead of me at NCAA's who ran a 1:50 flat and he broke 24:00. That being said, I think we were probably slowish 400m guys (:49 to :50) who were just really strong and able to push ourselves to a good 800m time rather than true 800m guys. If we were true 800m runners we would have run sub-1:50 by the time we were 21 years old.

I think it has to do with where your strong suit comes from in the 800m. If you're a 50/50 fast-twitch/slow-twitch guy (we'll just keep it simple and ignore intermediate fibers) then I don't see why you can't be a strong XC runner. If you're approaching the 800m from the sprinters side (ie. you're a natural 400m runner) then XC could be hell.

I'm sure that most top D1 XC runners can run a 1:49, but that doesn't make them "800m runners." They're just good runners period. Same goes for international XC runners. Most of those guys can run sub-4:00 miles, and so I'm sure they can also run 1:48 or so.

Could you elaborate on your training for running both 1:51 and 24:08 in the same year? I'm curious because I am also a DIII guy who has run under 1:51 and 25:00 for 8k with another year to go.

I started my XC base training in June and gradually built up my mileage from the 30 MPW I was doing in track up to about 60 or so by late August. During the summer I made sure to do some hill repeats and strides to keep some power/speed going. During XC season we did a lot of mile repeats with short rest, and up to 20x400m with short rest usually in sets of four or five. We also continued along with plenty of hill work and strides. I think if you do enough hill work and strides you actually will gain strength and power which lends itself well to 800m running. My peak mileage would be about 70 miles.

During track season we did a shitload of 200m repeats in different configurations. Lactic acid inducing short rest repeats in sets of 3. So... 3(3x200m) @ race pace or just 6 x 200m with longer rest but quicker, like :26. We also ended up doing some 300 repeats, as well as 400m and 600m time trials. On easy days we just ran five miles and did strides or we did 1000m threshold repeats. Sunday we did a short "long run" of about 10 miles. I think the 10 mile run and the 1000m repeats helped keep the connection with XC, just as the hill work and the strides during XC helped keep the connection with track.