Webb's first lap came in at 49-something which puts his second lap at about 54. Blasting out and hanging on seems like the way those guys do it in the 800 and 1500. Even Yuriy who is usually in last place with 300 to go runs positive lap splits. I don't race this way. Every time I deviate from negative splits I flame out and do badly. But there must be something to this elite strategy because they all do it.
49 to 54 is a little extreme and I believe the pacer was a second and 1/2 too fast. But going out fast and having a 2 second positive split is how the best have done it.
Webb was more like 50-flat/53-high. This is fine for the 800. The 800 is different from longer distances.
His mile AR, OTOH, was slightly negative-splitted (1:53.5/1:53.5), as are most elite records above 800m.
You've obviously not run the 800m, or at least not run the 800m at any kind of competitive level. If you surveyed 100 competitive 800m runners about their PRs, I'd venture that 98 or 99 would say they did it with positive splits.
It's got nothing to do with Elite vs non-Elite - that's how you run a fast 800m.
NO.
wawawiwa wrote:
NO.
Actually this is true. Look at the top 10 lists. If you know their splits I believe 9 of them were positive splits.
I know I could never run negative splits. I was somebody who had to be in the race to run good, so if my coach said go out and run 70 the first lap then try to negative the from there, and all the leaders went out in 60 and I was already 10 seconds back, it was futile for me to try to even catch them, my mind was already out of it.