Can you use extensive tempos (sprinter tempos) in the place of LT work for 800m runners?

IMO no. the adaptation you get from LT work isn't really something you get as much of from extensive tempos in my experience. I think the tempos would better be served recovery work instead. What level are you coaching at?

I trained for the 400/800 in college and during GPP my schedule would look something like

m - acceleration: 7 x 10m from blocks with 2-3 mins recovery

t - intensive tempo: 5 x 300m with 5 mins rest at 80-85% (pretty tough workout)

w - easy jog: 10-20 mins

th - acceleration technique/strength development: 5 x 20m weighted sled pulls from blocks (5 pounds loaded on sled for women and 15 pounds for men)

f - extensive tempo: 8 x 200m with 2 mins rest at 75-80%

s - easy jogging: 10-30 mins

su - easy jogging: 10-20 mins

other intensive tempo workouts include 600-500-400-300-200 with 5 mins rest at 80%,
500-400-300-200 with 5 mins rest at 85%, 200-300-400-300-200 with 5 mins rest at 80-85%, 2 x 3 x 300 with 3 mins between reps and 6 between sets at 80%.

other extensive tempo workouts include: 10 x 200m with 2 mins rest at 75%,
10 x 200m with 200 jog recovery at 70-75%, 7 x 300m with 3 mins rest at 75-80%, 16 x 100m at 70-75% with 1 min recovery

obviously my running volume was much lower than yours on workouts and easy running days. I would lower volume on the workout days in exchange for running at a higher speed (you don't need a dedicated day to speed development unless you plan on racing the 400 seriously and not just as a relay guy), you will get plenty of speed benefits from running fast relaxed 85% repeats with partial recovery.

once we got to racing our schedule looked like

m - special endurance: 3 x 300m with 8-10 mins rest at 90%+

t - extensive tempo: 6 x 200m with diagonal walk back recovery or 200m jogging recovery at a relaxed pace, this is a light day after a very hard day

w - easy jogging: 2 miles

th - race prep (just warm up routine then maybe accelerations out to 20 meters)/travel day

f- rounds

sat - finals

su- off day or easy 10-20 min jogging

and some times we would not race after a big PR or week before a big meet

m - special endurance 2 x 350m at 95%+ with 10-15 min recovery or take the day off if feeling tired/sluggish especially after a PR

t - easy jogging: 10-15 mins

w - extensive tempo: 10 x 150m with 50 m walk recovery at 70% effort

th - acceleration/block work (basically just race prep)

f - special endurance II: 500m time trial or all out 50 second sprint

s - hip mobility exercises

su - off or easy jog 10-20 mins

I was shocked how low volume our program was but we had lots of guys running 1:47/1:48 + 47/48

I'm currently in college but plan on coaching in some capacity after I graduate either as a private coach or a college gig if I can find one. I guess a second idea I'm trying to process is that if LT work elicits a different adaptation than extensive tempos, is that whether or not they're necessary. or at least as often as people seem to use them in the traditional "distance" oriented approach to training the 800. could you do without it and in its place just focus more on faster, aerobic paces like 1500-5k paces? in the style of fartlek or extensive tempo or just a regular interval workout. I feel like that gets you more bang for your buck, but I also would worry it might be too intense or could lead to burnout.

For a 400/800 athlete it is totally fine if not a better approach to do intervals for most tempo work for 800/1500 athletes I would do both.

thats kind of the conclusion I've come to as well, and the other poster giving his training schedule backs that up. I guess whats the dosage? for people stradling the line between distance and speed, our true 800m guys, then is there an importance in taking on a specific interest in improving 400m ability? or should they just double down on their strengths which is being pretty good at both but not awesome at either?

Only ran in college for 1 year, but my school had a 800 group that leaned speed over endurance, and simultaneously guys who raced the 800 but did more training with the 200/400 squad + easy running.

I am agreeing that Extensive Tempo doesn't have the same effect as LT.

Many, but not all 4/8 runners can get away with absolutely no LT, and it might even be a negative to these types if they're stinking it up in their long workouts and are then too sore and tired to do the fast stuff they're good at. So yes, these guys would schedule extensive tempo instead of LT for aerobic work - but this will NOT be effective for guys who get big gains from LT work.

For the 4/8 runners who can handle some volume and pure 8 guys, I think it's good to have aerobic intervals with short rests (60 seconds or under) as your weekly "B" workout outside of racing season. They'd be faster than LT pace, but shooting for the LT effect accounting for the rest. My 400 PR was better than my 800 PR, but I was still able to get in 4-5 miles of LT work in 1k reps. Some of my teammates with similar PR ratios just suffered doing these workouts and stopped doing them.

IMO there's not a good way to sneak in LT-type training in on an easy day. If you think LT is necessary to implement but you're also scared of losing a speed day, I still think you'd probably have better luck with converting a speed day to a dedicated LT day and adding a kinda fast 2-4x150 to an easy day.

For whether pure 8 guys should try to improve their 400m or not...

If they haven't ever done real sprint training ever, there's a decent chance there's something being left on the table and it's absolutely worth spending a cycle on running a fast 400m.

If they've tried before and stayed relatively mediocre at the 400m, you don't need to bother. Just make sure they don't get slower.

This seems fair… generally speaking I would say the average “good” college 800m runner is probably lacking on the endurance side of things not pure speed… you really only need to have elite 400m speed to run an elite 800m for the average runner there is more time to be gained on the endurance side (doing pure LT work still may not be the best plan for everyone but most will need more endurance).

They always say seconds can be saved with endurance while 10ths of seconds can be saved with speed. Remember if you had superhuman endurance you only need a 55 second 400 to run 1.50.

I agree that endurance training might allow you to see the biggest gains in a lot of races, I just don't know if thats true past a certain point in the 800, at least on the mens side. In the 800m you're riding that line pretty dang close to your all out speed. I'd say a lot of guys who run 1:50.xx can run a 400 in 48.5 or so. That means their average time per lap is almost 90% of their fastest speed over 400m, and their first lap is a bit higher of a percentage. Thinking of the 800m as a distance race is flawed, even if approaching it in training as a distance race can definitely have success with certain athletes. Having to use a lower and lower percentage of your max speed for one lap just seems like such a huge advantage, so why not prioritize developing that? This is why I (and so many others) love training discussions when it comes to the 800m, because you truly can come at the event from so many different angles and still come out running a competitive time.

so these aerobic intervals might be something like 200-400m @ 5k pace totaling around 3 miles of volume? and if thats the "B" workout, what might the "A" one be, a 800m paced session or something even more speed oriented? my gut says speed just because while its hardly the end of the world to do 800m pace in the early season, that kind of work is pretty hard on the body when compared to true speed dev stuff.

another thing I'm wrestling with is having over 2 quality sessions a week. I know its common in more 400/800 geared training, but where would that cut off be on how much mileage you can do along side it? I know the actual answer is probably the highest dosage of mileage without taking away from recovery and the quality workouts, but for anyone whos done this type of training with 3+ quality workouts a week (plus maybe a longer run of 60-70'?) what were the results?

Trying to bump this, as I'm toying around with something like this for my own 800 training.

Been looking at what Brad Mathas does (Justin Rinaldi coached), and am curious about the fartleks they do in early season (1' on 30" off, 40" on 20" off). They look to be maybe 3k/5k pace with pretty short recovery.

what'd you find out?

I'm not who you replying to but I am the OP. I ended up switch training groups this year and moved down with our more speed based guys after a few years running (poorly) in XC. for the summer my training was kind of bleh, did some extensive tempo stuff and some hill sprints, and a bi-weekly continuous tempo run but wasn't all that consistent and started later than you'd want cause of a minor foot injury. ended with a 6 mile tempo averaging like 5:40 pace with my last 8k being ~ 10 seconds off my XC PR. in the fall I did a weekly top speed workout, a speed endurance workout most weeks, then some kind of shorter aerobic stuff as my third workout mostly as fartleks like 30'' on/off or 2' on 1' off. pretty similar to some of rinaldi's stuff actually. I didn't do any real threshold wok from august to now, maybe 1-2 actual true tempo workouts in that stretch. indoor was speed, 600-800 pace, and racing for the 3 hard days a week. I had my best 800m racing season to date during indoors, and was probably good for around 1-1.5 faster than my 400m PR but didn't race any. for me personally, switching to this style made me feel way smoother in my first lap than in years prior and I think thats part of why I was able to run much better. but it also completely killed my range. while I was never good at the 8k, I was at least competitive in the 1500 and 5k. now I think my 1500 would probably be 10ish seconds worse than last year, 5k more like 50. but my 800 improved by 3+ seconds from where I was year over year during indoor and I was much more consistent. outdoor hasn't been great, but its aso not over so we'll see.

For sure it depends on the runner. In HS, Flatt was about 2 seconds faster than Conor Sahlman, even though there was zero similarity in how they trained.

Probably the biggest "trend" I've noticed over the last few years in the middle distances. Sure there are some true distance folks that just cannot bear the idea of not counting miles per week, but I think in the 400/800 that's just not needed.

It is all about running FAST and you just cannot do huge volumes of that kind of intensity needed.

Dang there seems to be some very serious repercussions of this type of training. All in all would you say it's worth it? Say I'm a 50.xx, 1:56 guy who already sucks at XC. Would you recommend starting this type of training and dropping XC? ( I'm trying to go in the 1:52-1:53 range next year so I could have the opportunity to walk on to a local school.)

I dont see where dropping XC in the Fall is helping you. I don't see how it's hurting you either.

From XC on you need to start to get fast, but you have all track season for that. You arent going to be racing any 800s in Sept any way.

I wouldn't drop XC. You can work on getting fast during XC - stuff like speed development, building strength, and doing plyo are all doable during the offseason.

Thank you