How do I train for the 400/800?

400/800 is a strange one. Here's a quick plan to get you started until track season starts. I really don't think you need to concentrate on special endurance or really any kind of race pace stuff until the start of the season but different people will say different things:

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mon-sun:

4x40y(full recovery), 35 min easy run

plyo, 35 min easy run, lift

4x120y(full recovery), 35 min easy run

plyo, 35 minute easy run, lift

40 min easy run, lift

70 min easy run

rest

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as you get close to the season, i would replace the Wednesday workout with something more intensive, here are some examples:

4-8x200 with minimal recovery (good for 800)

4x300 with long recovery (good for 400)

8x200 @ race pace with minimal recovery (great for 800, tons of race pace work will really really help you in the 800)

3x400 with 10 mins recovery (good for 400 and 800)

you can even mix in slower pace stuff with the fast stuff - this might help you, considering you described yourself as more distance-oriented guy. here is example:

4x150 with full recovery + 6x300 @cv pace with 1 minute recovery

if you decide to pursue 400/800 during the season, I would replace the saturday long run with long reps on the track instead when you get to early season. something like 5x1000m @ cv/threshold pace.

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few notes:

- 400/800 training resembles sprint training more than distance training.

- this means consistent lifting (work on being explosive) and plyo to develop that fast twitch. i've always been told to train like a boxer but you do you.

- current mileage should put you at around 35 mpw. imo, that's pretty much the sweet spot for someone of your profile, but do what feels best.

- do what works best. i've heard of people running sub 1:50 off of 90 miles a week, and i've heard of people doing the same thing without running a rep longer than 300m on the track. again.

OP, this is an outstanding post. I suggest that you download it immediately because sometimes threads here get deleted by mods because of stupid follow-up posts.

As a 400/800-m runner myself, I have some additional thoughts, but it's 2:00 a.m. here and I am on my cell phone. I'll try to post them later today.

Poster with a very long handle: thanks for giving such detailed advice.

I just read a pretty detailed training article by Clyde Hart about the 400m. It was posted on this site so you should be able to search for it. I’d be very interested in any similar articles for other distances.

This is fantastic. What are your thoughts on how often to do the more aerobic work (CV/VO2) approaching racing season? Especially for someone severely lacking speed?

I'm not the poster you replied to but I'm a believer in keeping up the aerobic work pretty much year round for 800m guys. the thing is that I don't think you can train optimally for the 400m and 800m simultaneously, one of them has to take a hit. for OP, I'd probably keep some kind of aerobic workout in the place of the longer run or in the place of the 120s. 200s/300s/400s @ mile-2 mile pace, 1' 2' 3' reps at 5k pace on equal jog rest as a fartlek, or even just mile/1k reps @ threshold-y pace with a minute standing, just anything like that weekly until its time to peak. with the high school racing season things get tricky. maybe you just use the dual meets as your speed endurance/race pace workouts and focus on maintaining your aerobic strength with your workouts in practice. maybe alternated with some of the workouts suggested above (200s @ 800m pace, etc.). for a runner primarily focusing on the 400, definetly replace the long run with the aerobic workout and just pretty much ignore it in favor of speed endurance, speed development, and special endurance. you don't need to do vO2 max work to run a great 400m in my book.

Coach took his athlete to 47/1:50. The crux of it was:

* Doesn't follow the traditional distance plan of 2–3 workouts + longrun. It really feels like in this training no one day is more important than the other. Sure, there's harder days and easy days. But it's a lot different from a distance runner being like, "Oh, it's Tuesday, time to tempo hard!"

* "Move your feet fast everyday." Doesn't mean top end sprint reps every day, and it doesn't have to be literally every day. But he advocates for explosive drills, some hills, some weights, or some short sprints as often as possible.

* Lots of relatively low stress aerobic development. He did lots of things like 5x5 min tempo w/ short walk-jog rest. The paces aren't lightning fast and I'm guessing a lot of it really was based off feel. Guys like this often struggle with continuous tempos, so breaking it up is often a solution.

* Bringing it all together. The coach's main regret was not enough VO2 max work. Not enough reps in the 2–3 minute range in the pre-comp phase, said they did too much baseline tempo work. And I tend to agree. So if you use this thread for inspiration, think about replacing some of those 4–5 minute reps with things like 600–1000m reps, or ladders (e.g. 200/400/600/800/1000/800/600/400/200), as you get closer to racing. Then of course you have to do the "specific" things and newaccountsinceyourwebsitesucks outlined some good sessions. One of my favorites is 600/400/200/200 with full/long recovery. Start at race pace or maybe a tad slower and get a bit faster every rep.

This is not your fault but I would like to start by suggesting every coach STOP calling 400/800 "middle distance", and 1500 and over "distance". Its confuses kids. Coaches, I think you mean mid sprints not mid distance. 1500 is not distance, its classic middle distnce running. No HS track team runs distance. Lets get 1500/3000, 16/32 kids thinking fast! Think Pre.

I digress to say the least. Any sprint coach can handle your 400 aspirations, and any middle distance (what you call distance) coach can handle your 800 goals. But specific workouts are abundant for those two events. These days the trend seems to be you choose whether you are more 400 based or 1500 based 800 runner. PBs might suggest your tendencies. It may be that you indeed do benefit from 40MPW? With speed work included of course.

<=400m: Sprints

>400m and <=Mile: Middle distance

>Mile: Distance

I think this is the best breakdown.

I would just train like an 800m runner who runs the 400m. This is how I went about my training in college as a 4/8 guy

So basically I would do all the intensive tempo and speed/special/specific endurance work with the 400/200 guys but on extensive tempo/easy days I would do continuous tempos (aka easy run)

For example on weekends the 200/400 guys would do 3 x 7 x 100m with 50m walk rest between rest and 3-5 mins between sets on Saturday then Sunday would be 2 x 8 min bodyweight circuit + hurdle walk overs. I would just run 30 mins on Saturday and Sunday

One workout that has been a staple for me over the years as a 400/800m runner is the Billat 30-30. (Lots of info online on the Billat 30-30.) Over 20 years ago, Veronique Billat conducted studies and determined that intermittent intervals run at VDOT pace for 30 seconds followed by 30 seconds of easy jogging at 1/2 that pace dramatically improved VO2 max over 8 weeks. Your VDOT pace is roughly the pace at which you could race for 6 minutes, but in my experience, you don't need to run Billats at exactly that pace. Since I don't race the mile, I typically do the run portion a little faster than my mile race pace and the jog portion a little slower than 1/2 that pace.

I prefer to do the Billat 30-30 on a track using cones to track the distances run during the 30 second running portions. At a 6 minute pace, a runner would run 134 m during the running portion and 66 m during the jogging portion. This would allow the runner to reach the next 200m mark just as the next running rep starts to more easily keep track of the distance run in each rep.

If your VDOT pace is slower than 6 min/mile, you might run 31-31 or even 35-35 to hit the 200m mark at the start of the next rep.

If your VDOT pace is faster than 6min/mile, you might adjust the time and distance so that you hit a known marker on the track at the end of each Billat rep. For example a 5-minute miler might run reps of 31-31, covering roughly 165 m in the 31-second run portion and 85m in the jog recovery portion to start a new running rep every 250m.

You don't have to do this workout on a track, but my experience is that without a marker on the track, runners will run the first few reps too fast and will not be able to do as many reps. The objective of the Billat 30-30 is to do as many reps as possible, not to run the reps faster. A runner might start with 12x30/30 and build up to 17-24 reps of 30/30.

That said, if all this sounds too complicated, then run at roughly your VDOT pace for 30 seconds on the road and recover by running slower for 30 seconds.

Another Billat 30-30 benefit is that the running portion of these reps is much closer to your 800m race pace than your tempo pace.

Another benefit to 400/800m runners is that recovery from a Billat 30-30 is faster than from a traditional tempo run. I found that a traditional tempo run would wipe me out so badly that I wasn't able to do my best at the next hard workout.