Sub - 60 400m thread

I doubt it's of real interest but more for self-reference, this is the target:

Monday: Easy/moderate 13.5km plus sprints and shuffle back = 14km

Tuesday: Tempo - 6 to 11km at HM pace, plus warm-up/cool-down = 14km average

Wednesday: Easy/moderate 13.5km plus sprints and shuffle back = 14km

Thursday: Short intervals (probably 6 * 520m at mile pace, just cause there's a sheltered 520m tunnel near me) = 10km

Friday: Easy/moderate 13.5km plus sprints and shuffle back = 14km

Saturday: Long run = 27km

Sunday: Recovery 5k (like 30 mins or more) plus sprints and shuffle back = 6km

Total = 99km = 61 miles (Not quite 65 miles, got my maths wrong before)

Really long-term goal is to do this for a year and then throw in a bunch of easy morning runs to hit some competitive mileage, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. If I can do this consistently, I'd be very happy.

I’m trying to break sub 60 too!

I’m a 17 year old girl and my pbs are:

100: 13.20

200: 28.10

400: 61:17

800: 2:35

Funny someone else just made another thread about breaking 60 secs in the 400m

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9374215

Fish is dropping some good knowledge in it so everyone looking to improve their 400m time should check it out.

In college now but my freshmen year of high school I ran a 59. From sophomore year on focused on the 400 and ran year round and by senior year ran a 50 flat. It takes time but can definitely be done. Only problem for me now is more aerobic stuff so its a battle both ways.

Wow just when I happened to comment on a spontaneous 400m on the Road Racing & Training thread this one cropped up to the front page, so I guess it's fate that I'll throw my bid in for this as well.

Background: M24, 125lb 5'7, 1:16 mid HM, 2:46 full

Today after racing 3 legs of the Golden Gate Relay over the weekend, I caught up with my HS coach and jumped in a 400m rep of their workout, pulling a 65 out of nowhere without really going to the well and on extremely tired legs. Last time I did a track workout I was splitting like 75s, 73 tops so I never gave this much thought.

Might have a chance at cracking 60? I'm pretty sure I didn't even do that in high school, I never even broke 5 back then ha. I feel like with some workouts, proper rest, and maybe even an actual race I could have a go at it. Thoughts from more knowledgeable 400m runners here?

Slowest guy on letsrun wrote:

howdy brethren wrote:

You're either very close, or there dare I say for two reasons.

1) spikes will help

2) race situation will cut your time down quite a bit

Of course, if you can blast a 27.5ish 200m you don't even have to worry about guessing if you're close; get in a race, pace properly, and it's done

I time trialed a 200m today and ran 26.9, so I think that's a decent start for me. Not sure with my terrible speed endurance and aerobic shape if that will translate to a sub 60 400m right now though

I barely missed it.

60.21 this morning.

haha aw crap, I knew you had it in you. Another race and it's done!

byteherder wrote:

howdy brethren wrote:

You're either very close, or there dare I say for two reasons.

1) spikes will help

2) race situation will cut your time down quite a bit

Of course, if you can blast a 27.5ish 200m you don't even have to worry about guessing if you're close; get in a race, pace properly, and it's done

I time trialed a 200m today and ran 26.9, so I think that's a decent start for me. Not sure with my terrible speed endurance and aerobic shape if that will translate to a sub 60 400m right now though

If you can run a sub-27 200m then then next goal would be to run a 41-42s 300m. Work on your speed endurance and you'll have that sub-60 400 in the bag.

That's a really great idea, it's what I've actually been doing lately. Haven't tested my fitness yet, but I suspect I'm there or really close. Ran a few 200's in 31-32 today and my form felt fairly relaxed, think I could run 26 low now. Will transition to some 300's and longer reps in the coming weeks. Taking a crack at the 400 and the 800 in late june.

I feel like I’m still quite a long way away from achieving this goal. I still believe I can do it though. My best 100m this year is 14FLAT my best 200m is 31.98 and I have been trying to TT a sub 67.XX lap for a couple of months now but keep hitting times around 68LOW. Strange fact: since doing this training I have PR’d in every distance from 800m to 5k even though I have dropped the mileage down to 10-15 mpw (consists of anaerobic intervals (150m-300m), hill sprints, a couple of moderate/tempo paced runs each week).

Some workouts I have been doing:

6-8x150m at 67s/400pace

15x100m at 16.1-16.4 (40s rest) - or 2x(10x100)

5-6x200m progression (38s down to 33s) 2-3min rest

4-6 x 40m at faster than 100m speed

8-10x60m at 100m speed, 1-1.5 min rest (this one feels especially taxing on the central nervous system)

Will throw in some 20-30 min runs or 3-4milers at 7min/mile pace (give or take 15s per mile either way) just because I do actually enjoy distance running too. I do this 2x a week so I cannot see this truly interfering. Also the occasional bi-weekly fartlek. My 100m to 200m conversion is obviously very poor, I feel like I should be at LEAST 3 seconds faster in the 200 and I also feel like this is what is holding me back. Does anyone else have this problem? I definitely feel MUCH faster and fitter than I was at the start of the year.

yezzy, your training is going to pay off, keep hammering!

& HM guy keep at it, judging from previous posts you guys are making substantial progress! I took a bit of a hiatus from letsrun but made sure this thread is bookmarked and will check/post weekly from now on. Good luck guys

Yezzy wrote:

Some workouts I have been doing:

4-6 x 40m at faster than 100m speed

8-10x60m at 100m speed, 1-1.5 min rest (this one feels especially taxing on the central nervous system)

Your recovery times are too short, you can't develop maximum speed this way.

Examples:

3-4x (3x 30m-50m block starts w/3min rec) 6min rec., for acceleration

3x (3x fly 30s* w/2-3min rec) 6min rec., for speed

Recovery should be walking, not jogging

*fly 30s are 30m accelleration, 30m 'float' near max speed, gradual deceleration.

Apparently if you can run 5*200m in 31 with 2 minutes of recovery while feeling fairly relaxed (shouldn't be an all-out workout), you should be able to just crack 60. If you were close to that, you may as well have an attempt now.

Yezzy wrote:

Some workouts I have been doing:

6-8x150m at 67s/400pace

15x100m at 16.1-16.4 (40s rest) - or 2x(10x100)

5-6x200m progression (38s down to 33s) 2-3min rest

4-6 x 40m at faster than 100m speed

8-10x60m at 100m speed, 1-1.5 min rest (this one feels especially taxing on the central nervous system)

The reason you're improving at 800m upward is because your training is very aerobic. The rests are 40 seconds !! on your 100 metre reps, so no wonder. That isn't a sprint workout.

Doing 20 x 100m with short rests is also a workout geared towards distance running.

Sprinting is about recovery. You need to look at form.

If your 100m is fast, try focussing on 120, 150 and so on until you get to 200m.

So if your 100 metres is good, then hold on to 120, do that for a few workouts, then hold on to 150. That shgould help your 200 metres come along.

Your training is geared towards distance and short sprints so no wonder you're getting those results!

Did 3x300m with 5:00 rest in 44, 44, 46 and then a 200 in 27.5 today. Absolutely brutal, but I think I'd be close to sub 60 in a race right now.

howdy brethren wrote:

Did 3x300m with 5:00 rest in 44, 44, 46 and then a 200 in 27.5 today. Absolutely brutal, but I think I'd be close to sub 60 in a race right now.

I'd bet you can do it now based off that workout.

The key is how comfortably can you get to 250m in 36.0?

Have you changed goal? Because this isn’t targeting improvement in sprint events at all. As a rule of thumb, 1 min rest for every 10m run. As you get faster this will need to increase - whereas with endurance training improvement brings with it faster recovery, in sprints it just means you are able to work yourself harder and therefore need longer rest.

For one reason or another, last week I was running close to this pace on a treadmill. The treadmill accelerated quickly and once it got up to 2:36 min/km pace I ran until I had travelled 400m. It was an expensive lab-grade treadmill (h/p/cosmos Saturn) so I was pretty confident it was at the prescribed speed. It was also set to 1% grade. The last 15s was hard but felt like I had more in the tank.

I've yet to try a sub 60 400m attempt on the track as I've been mostly doing 5K workouts. Recent workouts:

* 6x 800m @ 3:12 pace with 2 min jog between reps

* 4x 1600m @ 3:25 pace with 1 min jog between reps

* 3x 3x 400m @ 2:55 pace with 1 min jog between reps and 2 min jog between sets

* 20s hill sprints (I've found a hill starts at 4% grade and progresses to 12% grade)

Ran 57.6 today

Was not predicting that lol, honestly was expecting right around 60, 59 if I had it in me today.

Got out hard the first 50m, then floated as they tell you to do on 400m racing vids. Came through 200m in ~27.7 (pleasant surprise, thought it felt like 29) and last 200m in 29,9. Super happy with the time, but boy was I sucking wind after for a good 5 minutes; legs felt like I was bathing in fire too.

Got a month or so of 400m/800m workouts, excited to see if I can lower this to under 57! Guessing my 2:30 800m pb might be close to falling soon too lol. Good luck with training guys

howdy brethren wrote:

Ran 57.6 today

Was not predicting that lol, honestly was expecting right around 60, 59 if I had it in me today.

Got out hard the first 50m, then floated as they tell you to do on 400m racing vids. Came through 200m in ~27.7 (pleasant surprise, thought it felt like 29) and last 200m in 29,9. Super happy with the time, but boy was I sucking wind after for a good 5 minutes; legs felt like I was bathing in fire too.

Got a month or so of 400m/800m workouts, excited to see if I can lower this to under 57! Guessing my 2:30 800m pb might be close to falling soon too lol. Good luck with training guys

Would love to know what "specific 400/800" training you did?

I am also in the process of pressing the reset button on my running and trying to improve my speed.

I am a distance runner who did 2 Comrades in 2017 and 2018 and an IronMan this year (2019), but want to focus on my running to speed up.

Also first goal is a sub60 400, and then moving up slowly to 5km.

Got a 5km PB of 19:06 and 10km PB last year of 39:04

Hey wish I had your endurance! Up till 2 weeks ago I had over the course of 4 weeks built up to this weekly schedule that I had maintained for about 6-7 weeks:

Sun-threshold workout (5x1k, 3-4x1600m, 3 mile, 4 mile, fartlek, a workout of sorts that was a good aerobic stimulus)

Mon- AM short sprints (5-6x6 second hill sprint, flying sprints or 40-60m sprints form a standing start, all out w/ full rec. PM 30-40 minutes easy

Tue- Rest

Wed- 40 minutes easy (the last 3 weeks I replaced this with longer intervals run @ around 5k pace)

Thursday- 30 minutes easy, 6x100m strides (starting @ around 800m effort and going down close to 400m effort)

Friday- 60 minutes easy

Sat- rest

The past 2 weeks I replaced the strides with reps of 200m-300m @ around 600-800m pace with moderate recovery, while keeping the short sprints in tact. Off the above I ran the 57 (previous pb was a 65, althought that was in a workout and I felt I could have maybe done 62 that day). The next 4 weeks I'll plan to basically do reps at around 300m-500m @ 800m pace and some shorter reps (150m-200m) @400m-600m pace. Off that I hope to dip under 57. Good luck with your training!

PS: If you really want a letsrun thread rich on material about improving your speed the 5x60m thread is fantastic.