I am an 800 runner who also wants to run a good 400. I am a post-collegiate female in my 20's and a decent track runner (not elite).
I have good basic leg speed, but have been doing a lot of distance and base work this fall. I was wondering if anyone could share some simple workouts to improve my speed and turnover? Should I do 200's or 150's? I have been doing strides all fall, but want to get myself into the 56-57 400 range.
Do a series of 100s once a week, 8-10 of them, at 400m pace, working towards goal 400m pace. take an equal 100m jog in between. another thing you can alternate weekly with the 100s is a series of 200s at slightly faster than race pace for 800m, about 4-5 of them with a 200m jog rest, once a week as well. do week on and week off with those two, along with a tempo/fartlek session and an actual Interval session(the 2s and 1s are not sessions), and that should help a lot
You could try
200 x 4 x 2
2mins/200 meters between reps
15 mins recovery between sets
Target time - faster than your 800m pr pace.
B
What I have noticed with my 800 meter runners is by them doing sprints from 30-100 meters once a week has allowed them to stay fast and sharp throughout the year.
To me the key is allowing full recovery between sprints in order to keep it a sprint and not a workout. I have noticed that if you do this on your recover they seem to respond just fine. I almost like to keep the sprints 50-75 meters to asure they don't get sore or fatigued. The reason im worry about soreness and fatigue is because most of the time I do these short sprints on recover days.
Although I will do them after some tempo runs. For example: 15 min easy, 30 min tempo 10 min easy, then 3X 100 Build Up, 5 X 50 Sprint.
I like the suggestion one poster posted about 8-10X 100, this is a very good workout but it does become a workout and can effect the rest of the weeks training.
Im not saying I know all, just my experince going over 75 meters seems to become more fatigued. A pure sprint is really only for 50-60 meters anyway. After that such as 100-200 becomes more speed endurance. Which is an important part of ones training and shouldn't be neglected. I just think you can get away with both if your training schedule is set up correctly.
Sorry for poor typing and spelling skills
do you wear thongs?
Doing workouts like this in early season after a fall volume period serves to develop speed and also builds anaerobic capacity (with long recoveries) which prepares you very well for the anaerobic power workouts that will come down the line. An 800m runner will have to do a lot of anaerobic and speed endurance work, so will have to have a very high anaerobic capacity. md_track coach hit it on the head in my opinion.
-Fick