It's hard not to laugh - it's 2004 again and we are all talking about how smooth Wariner is and how easy it should be for him to run an opening lap 7 seconds slower than his PR and then how easy it should then be for him to "just" run one more lap in 53 seconds.
Wariner is a sample of one. All sub-20.25 men are not the same. J Wariner's 800m effort was in 2015. J Wariner was 31 years old in 2015. J Wariner set his 200m p.b. at age 22 and his 400m p.b. at age 23. To say J Wariner was on the back 9 of his track & field career by 2015 would be an understatement. Let's say you're a 37.5 200m sprinter today. I cannot make generalizations about men your age because you may sprint 200m in 37.5.
He was a 46s dude who ran the event like once early in the season. You can’t really draw much from it.
pretty much no WC 800m guys have legit 100/200m times. Most haven’t run it since HS. What’s the chance Will Sumner ever runs a 200m faster than that indoor 21.74? Or even a 400m taste than 45.9? Maybe he peaked as a HS but I bet he has some more time in him but there will never be an opportunity to find out.
But we are still talking about huge gaps. Maybe it is impossible for a 10/20 a guy to run 1:44 but who knows. Maybe 3 years of training where he loses 10lbs is enough to give those muscles just a bit more endurance. But we will never find out
Why is there always so much chest thumping from sprinters/hurdlers about what they could do moving up in distance but never from 800m+ runners talking about moving down?
Every 400 guy thinks they would dominate the 800. All that talk usually stops after the hit that bell lap.
He's not just a 400 guy. 400H is a helluva lot closer to 800m than the 400m. He could definitely run under 1:15 for 600m already so it's not a stretch to think he can run 1:44.
A guy from the US within the last ten years who was far less talented than Rai over the hurdles ran 1:43.
Yes if he trained for it 1-2 years and maybe slightly faster than 1:44. He has great 200, 400, and 800m ability that's why he so outstanding at 400 hurdles.
Edwin Moses ran like a 1:48 800 on his 400 hurdle training. So I'm sure he could do it after 2-3 years of focused 800 training.
Yes but he said running two back to back 50's wouldn't be too hard. He predicted sub 1.40. Like almost all 400 400H he vastly underestimated what it takes to run 800.
I wanted to add an interesting observation Canova made in an old thread about how an elite 400 runner handles the 800:
"An athlete coming from 400m at that level has a very strong lactic ability (can overtake a level of lactate in his muscles of 20-22 mml), fruit of a high LACTIC POWER, but doesn't have a good ability in removing quickly his lactate, and has a very low anaerobic threshold. Fiasconaro, able to beat the WR in 1973, completely alone, with 1'43"7 (24"8 / 50"1 / 1'16"5, so 24"8 / 25"3 / 26"4 / 27"2), had a AnT at that time of 16,8 km/h. This means that, at a pace of 3'34" per km (5'44" per mile) he already was in a lactic area. His attitude was the ability in producing very much lactate in short time, and to be able to have a high level of tolerance of lactate in his fibres, typical of a strong lactic engine. For winning a race, these athletes must run fast from the beginning, because their goal is to "kill" before the end the aerobic runners, forcing them to reach very quickly a high level of lactate, that doesn't allow them in changing speed."
He goes on to talk more but mainly about what makes a kick but I found it interesting to see the specific measurements for a 400/800 athlete. I guess the question for Rai is whether he could outrun his own lactic buildup.
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I guess I’m just old, but in the 80’s David Patrick a 400 meter hurdler ran 1:44 and his pr was not even in the same zip code as Rai’s. For the people saying no way, you are wrong. 400 hurdles is at least as hard as an 800. Believe me if he trained and wanted to , he could do it.
Fiction. I don’t know what the deal is with all of these 400 hurdlers who think they can run 1:44 in an 800. An 800 is closer to a 1k than to a 600 in the track world.
Many people here believed Jeremy Wariner could be a good 800 runner, so why not Rai Benjamin?
Who were such people? When Wariner was in the last year or two of his pro career , he tried the 800 and couldn’t break 1:50. I’m pretty sure he was in high 45 shape then.
I wanted to say he couldn't do it, but the dude can run low 44 seconds for an open 400 and looks so smooth doing it. He has has jumped over 10 hurdles in a 400 and ran low 46 seconds. If you asked him to run a 400 in 50 flat with no hurdles he's just chilling. Then he needs to muscle out a 54 to run 1:44. That doesn't sound absurd. Other people who run 1:44 can only run 46 or 47 in a 400, he's beating them over hurdles.
“He just needs to muscle out a 54”. That’s insanely hard to do after running 50 seconds. For example, in the 1k world record, in the last 400 of the race the winner only managed to muscle out a 54 second last 400. Even in a tactical 10k the best runners can only sprint 51 seconds for a last lap.
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