Why is it best to negative split a 800m?

whaddaya thinkk? wrote:

What's the physiological reason for this?

Well you have it backwards as far as the common opinion. A positive split is often suggested.

It’s not.

In theory it would be an exact duplicate split. We all now that the chances of that are most likely not going to happen. Therefore, you probably want to run as even of a pace as possible.

90% of the top times were run with positive splits. It seems that a 2 second positive split results in the best time for an individual. .

whaddaya thinkk? wrote:

What's the physiological reason for this?

Unless you are a pro those that try to negative split almost always go out too slow for what they are ready for.

opening speed is use it or lose it. not going full throttle early in the race won't do much to improve your kick in the end.

kicking in the 800m is generally misunderstood and its one of the few things i learned about on letsrun that i consider valuable knowledge and changed my thinking drastically

nearly every time when a dude slingshots off of the last curve in near last place but wins, that amazing speed is purely visuals. that last 100m is not even close to the fastest 100m ran in the race... more often than not the kicker is going the same speed they did the whole race, while the others are dead tired and walking it in.

"kicking" (closer to even splits) is also something more optimal for strength guys rather than speed guys. symmonds was a strength guy and was winning medals off of the last 100. devin dixon, who has more raw speed than 90% of 800m runners would actually be at a disadvantage if he hits the last straight and is neck and neck with say, craig engels.

What age are you, or your athletes?

What type of athlete are you speaking of?

Speed based or endurance based?

The devil is in the detail with training and racing.

Can't resist piling on this:

You should not negative split an 800!

It is important to note that you do increase your effort over the last 200-300 meters of the race, but due to the length and nature of the speed that you must start out with, that increased effort doesn't get you around the lap as quickly.

This is the reason that the 800 is both super fun for spectators and many athletes and also why so many athletes hate it more than any other race.

Ward Cleaver wrote:

What age are you, or your athletes?

What type of athlete are you speaking of?

Speed based or endurance based?

The devil is in the detail with training and racing.

My response was for the OP, sorry about that.

+1

I had a wise man tell me that you have about 10 seconds of ATP energy that can be used at the beginning of your race.

You’ll run through that energy store no matter if you’re sprinting or just trying to get up to pace, so tactically you should use that 10 seconds to cover as much ground as you can before settling into race pace.

I also have to emphasize that once you are about 2:00-2:05 depending on raw speed and endurance there just won’t be the speed reserve to kick no matter what. Although the training is different, the 400 and 800 effects the body the same way. You should be at max velocity with 100-150m to go, and due to fatigue, that’s going to be the same as if not a little slower than your average race pace.

I agree with most of what you’ve said but what does this even mean?

whaddaya thinkk? wrote:

What's the physiological reason for this?

I wrote that kind of horribly, my bad.

You kind of get to the point in your 800m fitness where the line is blurred between sprinting and just running.

You take some dude who has decent non running fitness and he will probably run the 800 in 3:00 or so, which is a joggin pace by letsrun standards. He’d probably run the 400m in that 60-65 range. That’s a huge difference in pace.

Now you take someone with good mid-d fitness running 2:00 and 55.5. That is relatively a much smaller gap in pace.

If 2:00 guy runs an honest pace there just won’t be room in his speed reserve to kick. He’s already been sprinting for 600-650m and there just realistically isn’t gonna be that next gear to shift into.

My guess is 3:00 guy is going to be able to pick it up a solid bit the last 100 or so, because his quarter speed is much faster than his 800 speed.

Does that make sense?

Yes, thanks for clarifying. I think we can agree that regardless of finish time, anyone running the 800 to their full ability is not going to have much of a kick, and (to the OP’s point) certainly won’t be running negative splits.

CopperRunner wrote:

My guess is 3:00 guy is going to be able to pick it up a solid bit the last 100 or so, because his quarter speed is much faster than his 800 speed.

I wouldn't really want to use times to indicate this, but I would agree that someone not in running fitness is not using the same "energy systems" as a trained 800m runner would be. The results would be a lot more unpredictable.

So I do see a possible scenario where a guy runs 200m kinda fast, physically cannot sustain using that energy system, death marches for 400m and has "recovered" enough to sprint home the last 200m.

Maybe another way to illustrate this would be how it's possible for runners to close the last 400m of a 5k or 10k faster than they can in an 800m.

In the last 400 of a 10k, you (hopefully) have a nearly untouched anaerobic system and can turn on the burners no problem.

In the last 400 of an 800m, you've already been running that system dry for the last 50-70 seconds, and it's about to start getting ugly.

Negative splits weren't best in the summer of 1972.

In ‘68 & ‘69 negative splits were all the rage. What a waste of energy.

Nigel Bruce wrote:

Negative splits weren't best in the summer of 1972.

Actually they were. Some of you are confused.