Georgia Hunter Bell: "The 800 is so much less painful than the 1500"

I only ran the 800 for the occasional 4x800 relay or to goof around in summer track. But I hated it. It just felt like my muscles were being ripped apart. I wanted to cry.

Strong agree. 800 is hands-down the worst. Going up in distance, in you can maintain a pace that isn't pure torture. Going down in distance, at least the race is over before it really starts to hurt. 800 is that "now sweet at all spot" where it's suicide pace held well past the point your body can handle it.

To a long distance runner her statement sounds crazy, but for someone who is more of a fast twitch runner maybe it makes more sense.

For me it was more an airway thing. It certainly wasn't pleasant for the legs but my overriding memory is how it felt like my chest and throat were on fire by the end as I lost feeling in my arms. I distinctly remember that metallic 'my saliva tastes like blood but I'm not actually coughing up blood' experience after the race.

Then again, I was a 4 person who got elevated to the 8 so I never experienced a longer race on the track.

For me, the 800m was the most painful race I have ever run, and I think that was fairly common thinking in the 90's. Never reached anything close to her level, so who knows?

Mile was most painful race for me.
800 was less so, 400 less so.
But I only really raced track in HS, so could’ve just been undertrained aerobically.

Ran a lot of both and that surprises me, as I would say the 800m was physically harder. In the 1500m, I felt a lot more relaxed for a higher proportion of the race.

As an 800/1500 guy I ran everything from 400 to 10k and honestly, if run hard, I honestly just feel like the pain is worse the longer the distance.

The last 1/4 to 1/3 of any race sucks, but give me the 400 where it’s over in 20 seconds. In an 8k I’m freaking gutting it out for 10 minutes, it’s just horrible.

So I understand the sentiment from this runner and I agree, the 800 is intense but does feel easier to me than the 1500.

Bicarb has really nerfed the 800 pain level. 16 year olds are cranking out 1:42s...

The 800 is not as painful as the 1500, you just have to try harder to do well at it.

When are rigging up at 700 meters, it's not painful. Not yet. It's just really hard to control yourself. Your body is failing and trying to stop, against your will. But that's not pain! Just difficulty.

The 1500 is a hell of pure suffering from about 800m onwards, especially the 3rd lap. During the 3rd lap, the race will never end and your suffering is eternal. Only at the bell does hope return.

Most of us are lucky to have somehow reached the 4th lap of a mile. Some people who race a mile get stuck in a permanent 3rd lap and never escape.Sort of like a Twilight Zone or Star Trek temporal loop.

I’m minded to agree.

The 800 experience is rather over dramatised and there’s a significant hint of groupthink about how often the claim is asserted and agreed with.

Even if the 800 is the most painful, it is nowhere near the most gruelling. At no point in an 800 do you get that Godawful sensation of knowing you have another 5, or 8, or 12 minutes of visceral pain to endure, whilst your body is screaming to stop.

Yes, the 800 is horrible, but the race is fleeting. It never asks questions of your mentality in the same way, because your technique can get you through it. When doubts creep in, and they do, your body can answer the questions.

And then you throw up.

On the specific comparison of 800 and 1500, it depends. I’ve been in some hideous 15s, but it depends on the first lap.

Agree. Roger Bannister, almost unconscious, was being supported in people’s arms after breaking the 4-minute mile barrier (and it took him a very long time to recover afterwards – you can see it when he was giving an interview while coughing). There are many examples of athletes (almost) fainting after finishing races of 1500m and longer, but I don’t recall seeing this happen in the 800m.

Erik Sowinski said it best about the 800, "You’re just going out there and kind of dying."

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Meet the Runner Who Leads Every Pack and Then Vanishes

By Scott Cacciola

Erik Sowinski is a professional pacer, a talented runner who is in high demand on starting lines, and nowhere to be found at the finish.

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Always found the half less daunting than the mile.

1st quarter is all adrenaline. Then lap 2 is the bell lap.

Think of all the decathletes who pass out in the 1500m, yet they can rip an 800m like nothing. 800m is not a "painful" event.

I found 1500m harder because it's really hard to pace as first loop is 300m. And lot of bunching with so many runners in it.
800m is tough to do but it's easier with only 8 runners in it and just following the lead runners and try to go faster in last 100m.

Depends what sort of 1500s you find yourself in. If its a points race/league race you'll jog most of it. Hunter-Bell does race after race with a pacer blitzing out record pace at the front.