It seems like you could get a guy who does 44 in the 400, give him a little distance training, and he could run two 50s no prob which would give him the 800 record by over a second.
I mean, 50 sec is a kinda good 400 time for a high schooler. It seems like someone should be able to do that twice.
Totally lame.
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the conjecture isn't lame
if you consider individual elite athlete's & ratios between doubling distances, the 400/800 sticks out like a sore thumb
the ratio for longer distances is ~ 0.47 :
some examples :
800/1600 : 1'43 / 3'42
1500/3k : 3'32 / 7'30
5k/10k : 13'00 / 27'00
ok, not all 0.47 ratio, but near enough to get a baseline
look at what you get when you use 0.47 with various 400 times :
45 - 1'35.8
46 - 1'37.9
47 - 1'40.0
48 - 1'42.2
plenty of elite 800 guys have 45 - 47 basic speed, but you're not getting above sort of times
I kind of see his point, actually. Take another event that is good, but not national caliber for high schoolers: the 800- 1:55, 1600- 4:10, the 3200- 9:20
Professionals can run under those times for around 3 times the distance. So, why can't a professional run under 50s for twice the distance?
Obviously, it's because of the physiological requirements of the events and the differences in the requirements for the 400, which is much more anaerobic, and the 800, which is more aerobic (believe it or not).
I think the reason we see pros going 3 times the distance at the same pace the high schoolers can do in the 1600 or 3200 is because those events are almost entirely aerobic and most high schoolers simply aren't developed yet.
Obviously people have been talking about this for over 20 years. Juantorena ran 44.26 for the 400, but his best 8 was only 1:43.44. Of course, according to Horwill's claim, he was only running 100-110 mile a MONTH!
Threads like this are put up every now and then, the answer stays the same.
You take your average 44.5 400m man, give him endurance, he would break 1:40 blaa blaa blaa. The problem is with all the endurance training the 44.5 man is no longer a 44.5 400m runner anymore.
He's detrained his fast twitch muscles to the point that he's now a ~46.5 400m runner and low and behold, looks very similar to alot of the guys we have running the 800m now.
This is a stupid argument that needs to be put to bed.
ventolin wrote:
times :
45 - 1'35.8
46 - 1'37.9
47 - 1'40.0
48 - 1'42.2
plenty of elite 800 guys have 45 - 47 basic speed, but you're not getting above sort of times
The above "People" you're referring to simply do not and have not existed on this planet.
Killa Mike wrote:
The above "People" you're referring to simply do not and have not existed on this planet.
I'm pretty sure that was his point. That the typical ratio doesn't apply to the 400/800.
wouldn't it be because the guys who can run 45 on the 400 are completely anaerobic and to move to the 800 requires an aerobic capacity that they just are not built to handle in any way? that's the answer that makes sense to me. the two systems are completely different and if you're gonna drop a 45, you probably aren't going to have it in you to learn the necessary endurance. it seems like an extra lap shouldn't be that much extra, but it's a completely different system you're using.
Killa Mike wrote:
ventolin wrote:times :
45 - 1'35.8
46 - 1'37.9
47 - 1'40.0
48 - 1'42.2
plenty of elite 800 guys have 45 - 47 basic speed, but you're not getting above sort of times
The above "People" you're referring to simply do not and have not existed on this planet.
Thats the point he made dumbass
looking at the ratios in a bit more detail, i'd wager that you probably see 0.45 for 400/800 & more like 0.48 for 5k/10k with some sort of gradual increase in the ratio from those two points
mathematically, you coud give a very simple expression to describe it ( just a starting point ) :
ratio with increasing distance = endurance component / ( speed component + endurance component )
with 400/800, the speed component is large, so ratio is small, with 1500/3000 speed component is less ( ratio increasing ) & with 5k/10k it is least & therefore ratio highest ( doesn't really work with 1/2M/M as we are probably going beyond optimum range )
thinking about 400/800, there have probably been kenyans who've existed who were 50 / 1'46 guys which gives a 0.47 ratio ( running mostly off endurance ), but with 800 we aren't interested in ratios but absolute quickest times - with absolute quickest times you need speed to run 1'41/1'42 & therefore you aren't going to get same high ratios