One month crash course 800m schedule

Sounds like you have training that will work decently as an 800m base. That means you should be jumping I to sharpening/peaking right now.

Here’s some good 800m workouts for sharpening. (These will suck, so be prepared)

3x(400-200-200) as someone that wants to run sub 2:10, go for 64 on the 400m, and then everything you’ve got for the 200s afterwards. 2 minutes between reps, full recovery between sets.

200-300-400-300-200. Shoot for 800m race pace with minimal recovery

6x300m @ 800m race pace. Walk the curve for recovery.

2-3x600m @800m race pace. Full recovery on each rep. This doesn’t seem like it’ll suck that much but I promise it will

3x(400-400) @800m race pace. 1-2 minutes between reps full rest between sets.

Do 2 of these workouts each week with continued easy running and you should be golden! Good luck!!!

These are good workouts for the 800m, but for a beginner unfamiliar with 800m training, some of these are way too hard.

I would stick with the 3x400-200-200, might reduce it to 800 pace throughout. The 6x300m workout is excellent, one that I use on my youth athletes regularly. 200-300-400-300-200 is good as well.

I would just complete the workouts I've mentioned here. The others are IMO way too hard for a crash course of a month. You need to get familiar with hard anaerobic training but also be able to complete the workouts.

Excellent workouts, but, for a novice, I would only run one of these per week.

As OP seems to be coming from long-distance running, I would also include some shorter stuff like 10x150m with 50m fast acceleration 50m cruising 50m all-out. A good warmup with drills and strides is extremely important before these workouts, otherwise you may get injured in no time. In some cases, the warmup can take longer than the workout itself. If you are unfamiliar with spikes, wear them on a few reps but not the full workout, at least in the beginning, as they put a lot of stress on the achilles and it takes some times for the calves to adapt.

The 2-3x600 workout is my favorite peaking workout (slightly slower than 800 pace is also fine in my experience, otherwise is going to be a killer. Should be done ~5-7 days away from the target race and should be the last hard workout before the race.

If you have a background as an endurance runner, I'd definitely focus on getting comfortable at 800m race pace and faster, but do it carefully and work up to it. Don't go to the track and suddenly do 10 x 100m at the absolute fastest you can go, for example.

I'd focus on shorter reps: 400m reps, 200m reps, you could work on breaking (i.e. start in lanes and after the curve break to the inside) in some of your reps.

I'd work out a realistic goal race pace.

Try a 400m at that, get the feel for it.

Most of the sessions listed in this thread are good.

I used to love pyramids (100, 200, 300, 400, 300, 200, 100), I see someone mentions one similar.

One month is very short to prepare a 800 coming from a distance oriented base phase.

Doing killer workouts without progressive adaptation would be detrimental imo.

start with easy race pace like 100s at 800pace so that your legs get used to it. Do them relaxed and stop when the form breaks down.

Then move to 200s (like 10x) with 2min rest.

And do one harder but not killer workout like 5-6x300 at race pace 10 days before the race.

Work also on your 100/400 speed starting with some 50/60m all out with full rest to lactic sprints like 5-6x150m or 4x200 at 400 speed.

Take enough recovery with slow jog between those demanding workouts.

800mrookie wrote:

There is an open 800m race near me on oct 31 and I have 4 weeks to prepare.

Any tips, workouts or even an entire schedule for the month?

Background: mid 20’s, been running for a few years. Currently running around 50k a week (tbh a bit less lately), but was doing closer to 70k earlier in the spring. I have however been doing workouts, 1k and 400m repeats, so I feel able to jump into a program.

Recently a 12x400 with 3min/400m jog rest with the first 6 around 76, the next 5 around 72 and the final one in 63. I was at around 17k by the time of the last one after accounting for the warmup.

Goal: 2:10 is probably realistic, but sub 2 is such a nice round number.

Training slow means racing slow

You're going to need to acclimate your legs to 800-pace work. I recommend starting with shorter race-pace intervals (easier workouts) and building to longer ones (harder workouts).

You have time for about 6 good workouts between now and then. 4 of them should be entirely 800m pace, and this would be a good progression:

16 x 100m @ 800m goal pace w/ 100m slow jog recovery (at least 3 days before the next 800m goal pace workout)

8 x 200m @ 800m goal pace w/ 200m slow jog recovery (at least 4 days before the next 800m goal pace workout)

2 x (4 x 300m @ 800m goal pace) w/ 100m slow jog recovery between reps and 400m walk/jog recovery between sets (at least 6 days before the next 800m pace workout)

3 x (200-400-200-100) w/ 100m slow jog recovery between reps and 400m walk/jog (at least 9 days before race day) (you will probably fall off pace in this workout, and that's fine)

Your other couple workouts right now should be multi-paced, things like 400-800-1200-1600-1200-800-400 at mile-5k-10k-tempo-10k-5k-mile effort all w/ 60s-90s recovery or 2 x mile @ tempo pace, 2 x 800 @ 5k pace, 2 x 400 @ mile pace, 2 x 200m hard all w/ 60-90s recovery.

This may all be a bit too much for someone who hasn't done a lot of 800m-pace work before. If it is, you can drop a workout (probably the 300m workout), or drop about 25% of the reps from any workout. Whether you do the full slate and volume of the workouts or not, it's just easy recovery mileage and strides on your non-workouts days between now and race day.

Good luck!

Update, did a 3k time trial on Sunday with friends which went poorly, took off at 10:15 pace and just slowly lost speed until the end, finishing with 10:50, ended up getting a bit of a stomach bug afterwards (I guess it wasn’t just butterflies in my stomach) , so I’m not sure what to take from the effort. My heart rate never got close to its max.

Didn’t run Monday Tuesday due to gi issues from the big, but Tuesday night did an at home workout involving squat and lunge variations, including jump squats and lunges.

Legs were fairly sore from the squats on Tuesday, but on Wednesday my stomach was feeling better so I did a 3kish warmup then 16x100m with 100m rest. With cool down it was around 10k or 6miles for the day.

The track for the repeats was old track and the marking weren’t clear, but averaged 15-16 sec per 100m (in flats). Rest was around 40 to 70 seconds, I tired to keep the rest honest, but my primary focus was on making sure I maintained form and pace for all the reps.

Plan for rest of the week is easy running until Sunday, then 2x(5x 400 w200j) with 100m sprint after each set. The workout is planed by my running group, so I don’t have much say in it. Plan to run the 400s around mile pace and hopefully slowly working below mile pace for the final reps.

Oops, posted the update under my registered name ?

In the off chance someone I run with figures out who I am, hi!

For those who look up this thread in the future.

Training for 800 didn’t go perfectly, got really busy at work but went well. Used lots of these work outs.

For the race, finished third with a time of 2:14.

Followed the leaders out and split 62 seconds for the first 400, was right with the top three until 600m when I started to lose them. Winner ran 2:10.

With perfect splits I think 2:10 might have been possible.

I just wish I could find another one to enter!

Nice job! It is really hard to get a good 800m time on the first attempt. You clearly went out too fast, but the fact that you were able to split 62 and still keep going in encouraging. Sub-2:10 is in the cards if you can split a 64.

I like your workouts.

Once I had to pick 4 guys out of 5 for a 4x800 team that was about to finish 3rd in States.

I had them go through 3 x 300,200,200,100; 1 minute rest full recovery between sets.

We kept a cumulative time for each set (basically, an 800 meter time).

I took the average of all 3 sets and picked the team.

Coincidently? Their average times were their PR's.