Sub 1:50 800m Training

Thanks OS4, I guess that all makes sense.

However, on my ten milers, I'm already pretty comfortable running 55-56 minutes on measured courses. I have broken 55 but that was one of those magical days where it's just effortless to run. Oftentimes, after a 56 minute ten miler, I don't even feel like I need an easy day. That part of training definitely comes very easy to me. Oddly enough, though, I am a very poor cross country runner despite the ease at which endurance work comes.

I'll try to add in your suggestions and will make note of any progress (however, I have an excellent coach who I love working with, and he might be hesitant about taking suggestions from the internet. However, he is convinced I am a 5000 meter runner and that there is no need to do so much work for events that are not my primary event- he thinks 200 and 400 times are largely fixed, and that if I haven't improved them with hard ten milers, they won't improve).

If I could get down to 50.x and 1:51, that would be fantastic for me- I know that with my endurance, that would set me up for a sub-4 mile. The week before I ran 3:52, I ran a 1:56.9 800 and was delighted, because I knew that, for me, going through six seconds slower than that in a 1500 would feel effortless to me.

bingo! wrote:

OS4 and others:

How do you feel about very high mileage/stringing together several high quality/high mileage days together then recovering?

ex

M 10/8 with hills

T 10/6 tempo

W 10+weights/7+sprints

Th+F REC just 5/5 and 5/5

Sat 12easy/8 hilly tempo

Sun 8+weights/8+hill sprints

=~110

Followed by an easier week of just 6/6 easy for most days

I like the idea of a couple of hards followed by a couple of easy days occassionally -- helps to replicate a championship event where you are doing heats, semis, finals...

I dont think there is really anyone on the planet that can be doing the quality that you need to do for the 800m and work it into a 110 mile week consistantly without getting injured. You can do this mileage but it has to slow down your quality...just an energy management issue.

Great suggestions Old Sub 4. So this is primarily for a 400/800m type athlete? Esp the 12-15 400m in 80 with 15 seconds rest; do you mean for such a runner to forego sustained tempo efforts like 4-5 miles continuous and make do with that particular nature of training for threshold development?

--yep, this is for a real sprinter moving up. the 80 quarters with 15 seconds rest is just a tempo in disguise, but sprinters have too hard a time running a tempo at first. You can even start with a mile in 520 and then go into 12 quarters until they can put together a decent 4 miler...

Most of the regime is for people with more natural speed looking to build endurance, if you are coming at it from the other way around, I would work your strength even harder -- 530 is clearly above your LT, so push it down to 515 for 6 miles, or cut down the speeds until you get the work in. I dont believe in 10 mile tempos unless you are running the 5-10k. If you are running those events, dont do the speed endurance work -- make the decision with your coach on having either a "mile" season OR a 5k season...it really is the dividing line on training. If mile then drop mileage and crank up intensity. If you need to work on speed endurance consider some of the speed changing continuous 800s.

What does everyone think of higher mileage for short periods of time or longer long runs for that extra boost to the aerobic engine? Borzakofsky reportedly did up to ~30k long runs and Snell of course had his 100 mile weeks with 22 mile long runs. Is there a noticable benefit to doing that vs 70mpw with a 14 mile long run like many 800m runners do? Or is there not a huge difference?

It should be mentioned that snell may not have done that many 100mile weeks (sounds like a lot of them were more like 80-90) and part of reason I heard was that it help keep him from bulking up.I am not sure what you get out of the extra long run. It is alot of extra stress and it helps you learn to burn fat. I know people have hypothized that the FT learn to operate aerobically but I haven't read any good studies proving that.I think a short high mileage phase (100-120 for 4-8 weeks) could play a role for some runners. The theory being that after you build up those aerobic reserves, you can maintain them even after you lower your mileage.

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

What does everyone think of higher mileage for short periods of time or longer long runs for that extra boost to the aerobic engine? Borzakofsky reportedly did up to ~30k long runs and Snell of course had his 100 mile weeks with 22 mile long runs. Is there a noticable benefit to doing that vs 70mpw with a 14 mile long run like many 800m runners do? Or is there not a huge difference?

Yes I too have heard that snell did 80s and 90s as well. He was definitely large for an 800m man/miler. A beast.

OS4 said somewhere near the start of the thread that the long run helps maintain ANY type of pace longer. Something like...all of a sudden you can't break 50 for 400 but can run 1:18 for 600.

And by high mileage for short periods of time I was more thinking 3-5 days. So something like instead of a normal 10-12 day doing 15-18 for a few consecutive days-that way it is sort of like the stimulus of high mileage but you can recover afterwards and keep the spring in your legs for the season. Plus the aerobic benefits do stay with you for a long time. Also I always feel that's the better way to boost your overall milage to the next level-it gives you a small dosage of what the higher level of volume is and then you pull back and your body adapts. Lydiard said that he saw much faster progress with shorter faster runs (tempos?) and then longer slower runs instead of all average runs. Doing just about the same mileage at the same intensity everyday just didn't work as well.

Bump

plus....curious to coaches/athletes out there what they consider an elite speed workout. Pure speed...please include intervals and prospective times to hit that would lead to sub 150 like projected performance. I have found that there is a decent differential in speed amongst elite 800m runners from the sprinters to the milers coming down.

thanks

My goal this year is sub 1:50 coming off of 1:53 in the relay last year.

For me I know I will be ready when I can hit 3X300m in 34s with full recovery. And/Or 4X200m in 23s with full recovery.

Additionally some tempo workouts on grass that I should be around are 10X100m in 13s with 47s recovery. 8X300m in 39s with 2:21 recovery. 6X200 in 26s with 94s recovery.

For me to go sub 1:50 this year I will need to get my times down to these in the open

200:21.5

400:47.00

1500:4:00

I like to do 30 or 40X60-80m up a steep 10% hill, all out. That seems to help more then anything else.

Aouita did a 4X10X100m workout every week and he had a phenomenal kick, and was a 1:43 guy even though it wasn't his primary event.

http://www.baysiderunners.com.au/aouita.htm

I've found they provide most of the benefits of sprints on the track but the resulting soreness is always in the muscles only as opposed to the joints as well. Recovery is way faster as well. Hill work also seems to clean up the mechanics faster then normal sprints too, probably because you can usually do a greater volume of them, and it is hard to have bad mechanics running uphill-the hill forces you to have perfect mechanics.

Some sprints on the track are definitely needed though to reduce footstrike times and transfer the power gained into speed.

fUrCeOsNhN wrote:

I like to do 30 or 40X60-80m up a steep 10% hill, all out. That seems to help more then anything else.

How long recovery (~3min?)? That would be too much sprints for me if everyone is all out... I use only about 8 max speed sprints in one session.

You have to be careful when reading an article about someone's training. The Borzakowsky article you refer to mentions that he might have done up to 30k, but that was not part of his regular program. In fact, that article fits nicely into this discussion. Borza's coach was not concerned at all about quantity, and the training was a total body fitness approach with lots of speed. For his tempo endurance Borza would run 2k loops or a 3k run.The coach stressed the importance of 1200 as special endurance.

I agree with most of that article and have borrowed from it. Many 800 runners look great for 650-700m and then give it all away in the last 100. One way to guard against this is to run a 1000 or 1200 fast as a regular part of your training.

Wow, your speed is awesome.You definitely don't need to be that fast to break 1:50. You need specific speed workouts.Try 2 sets of 500 +300 @1:50 speed with 60-90 secs between the 500 and 300 and 7-10 min between sets.Also, as I mentioned in the above post, you would be a perfect candidate to run 1000m in 2:28-2:32 to build your speed endurance.

The article also says that Borzakovzki does quite a high volume of strength training, sometimes as much as twice per day, as part of a general fitness program. It mentions circuits of 10 excercises repeated 3 or 4 times, "stone throws" (shot put tosses?), gymnastics (dynamic stretching?) and pullups. This is key because when looking at his schedule, you don't really get a feel for the supplementary work he is doing, so you miss a large part of his training stimulus.

yeah the borza training article is great. i really liked how much supplemental training played a role in his program and how he stressed frequent intense but fairly short workouts; if you look at the program he seems to do some fast running close to every day but it isn't in large quantity so he is able to repeat it frequently and get efficient at race pace. with that in mind, what do you guys think of this program based off of borza's training:

Mon: am drills* pm fartlek

Tue: am weights** pm 8-10k progressive

Wed: am drills* pm 8-10x200

Thu: am weights** pm 8-10k progressive

Fri: 5-6.5k incl. strides

Sat: am race/tempo pm 30' swim

Sun: 12-15k moderate

* 25-35' of continuous drills [heart rate would be equal to a distance run of similar duration]

** emphasis on speed/power with deep squats and power cleans

the progressive runs of 8-10k would start of at an easy effort and as i warm up increase the pace until the last couple minutes to miles are done at a good clip. instead of dedicating a day to a 4-6mi tempo run i feel i can get some good threshold training on these days.

sat if i don't have a race the "tempo" workout would be similar to something another canuck posted like a single 2-3k fairly hard or a couple 1000-1200's run fast.

Program looks good. My only suggestion is that you can't just do 200s on the wed workout. You probably would have varied that anyway, but I suggest a rotation of 200s, 300s 400s 500s and 600s over the weeks.

good luck and let us know how it is working.

300s in 34, that is moving.

And for the recoveries on the sprints, it is just a walkback...I know 3+ minutes is needed for restoring PC stores and all but if I did that I would be there for hours. So I do about 10 with 1 minute recovery then take a 3 minute break.

Im sorry. Im calling bs on Pmoax. I think he is probably guessing at what he thinks he needs to run that fast.

Ive run sub 1:50 and I was fairly speed based at the time and I think I could possibly run 35.5's.

Well he didn't say he had done 300s in 34. I think a few 300s in 36-37 and feeling good would be a good indication of sub 1:50.

If the man says that running 3X300m in 34 means he is ready, I believe him. If I could do 3X300m in 34, I would definitely be ready to run 1:50, and probably a LOT faster.

Still, with 21.5 200m wheels, speed isn't really a limiting factor for him-his speed is right up there with Sebastion Coe and Wilson Kipketer. Speed endurance, like the other guy said, is the main issue.