Texas A&M 800m Programme

College Running D1

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2 years ago 03/14/2022 2:12pm EDT

re: Teller of Truth

Teller of Truth wrote:
There is some truth in the previous posts, and also some incorrect information. Here is what they are REALLY doing at Texas A&M. Their "secret" is not just one thing, it's a combination of many things.
A. They recruit elite 800 runners. Donavan Brazier, Athing Mu, Sammy Watson, and Brandon Miller were the best 800 high school runners in the country. Devin Dixon, Jazmine Fray, Bailey Goggins, and Dominique Mustin were top 10 in the country in the 800 in high school. Avi'Tal Wilson-Perteete, who just transferred to Texas A&M in January, was the top college 800 runner in the transfer portal. Any college team who can get superstar talent like the 9 runners I just mentioned, is going to have a lot of success.
B. They recruit only 400/800 runners. In other words, they don't recruit 800/1600 runners like most universities do. This allows Texas A&M to have just one type of training, because all of the 800 runners are built the same way, meaning they are all really fast at the 400. (Miller, Mu, and Fray were all part of national championship winning 4x400 teams. Brazier is on the USA 4x400 at the World Indoor Championships.)
C. They train the 800 runners separately from the rest of the runners at the school. At many other schools the 800 runners train with the distance team. Not at Texas A&M. The 800 runners are their own training group.
D. They focus on quality over quantity. Some schools have their 800 runners running 8-10 miles per day. Donavan Brazier has said a number of times that he has never run an hour straight in his entire life. The weekly mileage for 800 runners at Texas A&M is around 30 miles per week. In fact, one of the reasons that Wilson-Perteete transferred there is because she hates distance training, and at Texas A&M she wouldn't have to run much distance.
E. They have a great training system for 800 runners that they have perfected over the years. Coach Mallard has only been at Texas A&M a few years, but his 800 training system is one that Coach Henry, and the previous 800 coaches, have perfected even before Coach Mallard got there. I don't know if it's Coach Mallard or Coach Henry who decides on each day's workouts, but either way it's using a 800 training system that was in place before Coach Mallard got there.

Good insight, I Believe it’s more Henry’s work and alleyne was more of the recruiter and oversaw the training day to day. Now it’s mallard at that position.

so is the training more vo2 max based like European style low mileage higher intensities and tempo endurance based where they pretty much live on the track?

2 years ago 03/14/2022 2:19pm EDT

re: Teller of Truth

Teller of Truth wrote:
E. They have a great training system for 800 runners that they have perfected over the years. Coach Mallard has only been at Texas A&M a few years, but his 800 training system is one that Coach Henry, and the previous 800 coaches, have perfected even before Coach Mallard got there. I don't know if it's Coach Mallard or Coach Henry who decides on each day's workouts, but either way it's using a 800 training system that was in place before Coach Mallard got there.

Is there a good document or presentation on the system?

2 years ago 03/15/2022 6:02pm EDT

re: Student_of_Athletics

In my opinion, i believe that A&M isnt all special in their training. It's that they recruit elite 800m athletes. What about those on the team who have not cracked that college elite 800m threshold? Miller was an exceptional junior as was Dixon, Mu, Watson, and Brazier. The only exception to this was Fray who was a better distance athlete than sprinter having merely a 2:09 pr in highschool to a 2:00 college pr. 57 400m pr in highschool to a 52 400m in college. If they are able to make ine if their other runners say dominique mustin into an elite 800 girl then i buy into the 800u gimmick but outside looking in they just have the better ability to recruit elite athletes and make em better.

2 years ago 03/15/2022 7:01pm EDT

re: Student_of_Athletics

2 years ago 03/15/2022 8:08pm EDT

re: not following closely

not following closely wrote:
Student_of_Athletics wrote:
Who is their 800m coach and what is the training programme? This coach has had success with Mu and Brazier... Have they reinvented the wheel or just applying already proven techniques?
Any insights???
It's a different coach now than when Brazier was there. Their strategy is to recruit elite athletes. Brazier and Mu are just insanely gifted, best genetics in the country. Any moron could coach them to fast times.

LOL. I mean, let’s not overstate the case. Not just ANY moron can coach people to world-beating glory. I do agree that incredible God given talent and hard work can make up for less than optimal training plan.

2 years ago 03/15/2022 8:13pm EDT

re: CopperRunner

CopperRunner wrote:
They take a lower mileage approach and train their 800 runners separately from their long sprint and mid-d runners. This results in athletes built to race 400m-1k (which I personally think should be categorized differently than sprints or mid-d)
From what I understand it’s high twenties to mid thirties per week as far as mileage goes, and they do a lot of slower paced intervals in place of mileage.
I think I’m a sense we are about to see a new wave/style of 800m training. Lots of coaches and athletes alike are starting to realize that there are more 800 efficient ways to get tempo work, Vo2MAX work, strength work, you name it, that’ll (A) be lower volume and (B) be closer in line with the mechanics of an 800m runner.
A good example would be something like replacing a 5:20 pace 4-5 mile tempo with 10-12 400s at 4:40-4:50 pace with HR based rest. If you do it right, you can keep your HR in that same zone as that tempo run for the same duration, but with the added faster running, and less overall mileage.
They have a YouTube channel called 800U where they post a lot of their workouts, I’d check it out.

Wow, 30 miles per week? That’s considerably less than Nick Symmonds was doing. That’s really interesting, thank you for sharing.

2 years ago 03/15/2022 8:32pm EDT

re: Tell more truth

Tell more truth wrote:
Good insight, I Believe it’s more Henry’s work and alleyne was more of the recruiter and oversaw the training day to day. Now it’s mallard at that position.
so is the training more vo2 max based like European style low mileage higher intensities and tempo endurance based where they pretty much live on the track?

Yes, low mileage, high intensity on the track.

2 years ago 03/15/2022 8:34pm EDT

re: my notes are wise

my notes are wise wrote:
Teller of Truth wrote:
E. They have a great training system for 800 runners that they have perfected over the years. Coach Mallard has only been at Texas A&M a few years, but his 800 training system is one that Coach Henry, and the previous 800 coaches, have perfected even before Coach Mallard got there. I don't know if it's Coach Mallard or Coach Henry who decides on each day's workouts, but either way it's using a 800 training system that was in place before Coach Mallard got there.
Is there a good document or presentation on the system?

I don't think that Texas A&M has released any documents or presentations on their 800 training system, at least not recently.

2 years ago 03/15/2022 8:36pm EDT

re: Mikeh33

Mikeh33 wrote:
Wow, 30 miles per week? That’s considerably less than Nick Symmonds was doing. That’s really interesting, thank you for sharing.

Keep in mind that 30 miles per week of high intensity training only works for 400/800 runners, which is the only type of 800 runners that Texas A&M recruits. 30 miles per week won't work as well for a 800/1600 runner.

2 years ago 03/15/2022 8:58pm EDT

re: Quartermiler

Quartermiler wrote:
In my opinion, i believe that A&M isnt all special in their training. It's that they recruit elite 800m athletes. What about those on the team who have not cracked that college elite 800m threshold? Miller was an exceptional junior as was Dixon, Mu, Watson, and Brazier. The only exception to this was Fray who was a better distance athlete than sprinter having merely a 2:09 pr in highschool to a 2:00 college pr. 57 400m pr in highschool to a 52 400m in college. If they are able to make ine if their other runners say dominique mustin into an elite 800 girl then i buy into the 800u gimmick but outside looking in they just have the better ability to recruit elite athletes and make em better.

In addition to recruiting top talent, Texas A&M has a specialty in 400/800 runners. Most distance coaches at other schools don't know how to properly train a 400/800 runner and they just throw them in with the 800/1600 runners, and that's not ideal. So it's easier for Texas A&M to recruit 400/800 runners, because there aren't many other good 400/800 colleges for those high school runners to go to.

How many other colleges besides Texas A&M have had success recently training 400/800 runners? Oregon, USC, a few others. There aren't many.

Right before Covid messed everything up, look at the 2019 U23 NACAC championships. The US finished 1-2 in both men's and women's events. 3 of the 4 runners were from:

- Texas A&M (a 400/800 school)

- USC (a 400/800 school)

- UNLV (a 400/800 school, formerly coached by the current USC coach. And that runner just transferred to Texas A&M.)

Recruiting a 400/800 runner is much easier when you are only competing against a few other 400/800 colleges for those 400/800 runners.

As far as Dominique Mustin goes, they have figured out that she is better at the 400 hurdles than the 800, so I don't expect her to improve much, if at all, in the 800 in college, because the 800 is no longer her main focus.

2 years ago 03/15/2022 9:01pm EDT

re: THOUGHTSLEADER

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:
The coach Milton Mallard is a former 200-400 sprinter. That is interesting for an 800m coach.

Not as surprising as one might think -- Jumbo Elliott and Bill Bowerman, two of the greatest NCAA mid-d coaches, were 400 guys in college.

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