Help with my 800m, for next year.

the best thing you can do right now is focus on having a solid cross country season. work hard during xc and that will carry over to track. dont worry about doing track workouts until, at the earliest, february. take a 2 week break after cross and put in a good strong base with peak mileage at 50-60 mpw. as far as weight training goes, do lower weight higher reps and dont worry about speed workouts during the base phase. there's no secret workout that will make you better only hard work and consistency. when working out on the track do different workouts that are speed oriented. since you are focusing on the 800 I'd try and stay between 200 and 1000 as far a repeats go. you dont have to follow one thing i say but please promise me you'll do one thing...disregard anything the430miler tells you. good luck man and have fun.

First of all it appears that you do not have the speed to be a speed racer, but if you put in the proper strength work and the proper foot speed work you should be able to run under 2:05.

You need to start getting in some mileage PRONTO. If you have taken some time off then you need to start running again to get in a great base. This will help with your strength. Try by the end of the summer to be around the 55-60 miles/week range.

You need to be doing strides every other day, as this will help with foot speed, and if you do them barefoot on grass it will prevent a lot of foot injuries that you might get from 800m training.

Generally, high school runners will run huge positive splits for their 800m races. This is because they don't have the strength to keep the tride length and foot speed up. They haven't done the proper lactic buffering work that needs to be done.

You need to run your 800m races kind of like this:

Start out the first 100m FAST, as this will get your heartrate up and feet moving. Then settle into this pace for the next 300m, and try to stay relaxed. Then with 400 to go you need to push that 2nd last 400. You push here because at 400, you will start to feel the lactic acid buildup. Pushing with 400m left for 200 will just keep you on the same pace. The last 200 is all aout how much you want it, and no amount of training will better prepare you for this than doing workouts such as Nate Brannen did.

He would run 3x600 maybe twice a week, doing them like this:

He would run the first 400 at 800 pace, then slow down slightly for 200, then blast the last 200. By doing this he was teaching his body to fight off the pain and run through it.

Hope this helps.

I disagree with JAYCEE re lack of speed, it's not the main issue.

There's some horrible drop-off the moment you increase race distance, to a guy who can run 2:15 a sub-20 5k or sub-11 3200 should be a stroll in the park. I'd focus on lots of steady running and long intervals with short recovery. The way I see it is if you can run 2.15 now then improving your aerobic capacity to the point where you can run a 17min 5k and 11min 2M then your 800 will go down to the 2.05-2.10 region just from that.

I believe I did say that because the OP is not a speed based runner, he needs to put in the mileage and get some strength. Strength is where aerobic capacity comes from.

you're right - i misread your first paragraph, my bad

gatorxc wrote:

disregard anything the430miler tells you.

why? he wants to get good.

430miler's post should read: why? he wants to get good?

sorry, but 2:15 is not blazing.

running 70 MPW might be better than anything else.

the 800 is still a distance event when you can't break 2.

do some 100's and 200's every now and then to keep up what speed you have. 400 time trials for fun as well. You can do this on a Long day, but just go fast from time to time, like twice a week, nothing much or hard, just go fast.

as you get closer to track season, workouts like 3x600 or 4x400 would be good, there are better ones. To do these, at your current PR I suggest you need to run around 1:39 for the 6's with 3 min rest, and around 61 for the 4's with 2 min rest. If you can do those workouts next spring, you'll be running 2:08-2:03 which is probably where you can be reasonably. Anything shorter than 300 is worthless unless youre doing 10 of them at least.

circuit training every week starting in sep/oct will also help dramatically. Someone as fast as you will never be good, but you could be a sub 2 runner one day, but it will require lots of work.