Sub 1:50 800m Training

1:56.4 anchor on the SMR today, off less than 15 miles a week. Splits were 54 and 62. I should be able to go 54 and 60 next race because I will be used to getting out that hard.

Pmoax wrote:

1:56.4 anchor on the SMR today, off less than 15 miles a week. Splits were 54 and 62. I should be able to go 54 and 60 next race because I will be used to getting out that hard.

Those are horrendous splits...but I won't go into that yet. What I will go into is your training. If you have 22xx speed, you almost have as much speed as Coe, Snell and Kipketer did. Yet you are 12-15 seconds behind them in an 800m race, because you are AVERAGING 2 GOD DAMN MILES A DAY. 15 miles a week, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 100-140 miles is very high milage for an 800m runner (Snell, Ovett). 80-100 is high milage (Cram, I'm sure others too). 60-80 is moderate mileage and what a lot of top 800m runners settle in at during the base phase (Coe, Cruz, others). 40-60 is low milage and what some 800m runners get down to while in the peaking phases or before that when the mileage drops. 20-40 miles a week is what old men, children, first time runners and hobby joggers do.

You went full low mileage, man. Never go full low milage. You don't buy that? Ask my friend Sean Penn who did averaged 12 miles a week over the winter. Went full low milage, went home empty handed.

Bottom line, I think you have a lot of potential and no matter how many sled pulls, hours in the gym or pylos you do makes up for the fact that some 800m runners are doing more mileage PER DAY then you do in a WEEK. Your 2nd lap of 62 seconds is proof positive of that. You could be a 1:48 guy man, shape up.

My thoughtsGiven the 48 point 400m, 152 800m (not as good), and 27 min 8k, clearly to move forward in the 800m you need to get stronger. I think at a basic level you need to be able to run 15minutes for 3 miles to run under 1:50 given your 400m speed. Getting better aerobically is going to be about patience and persistence...it just takes time steeping yourself in consistent mileage, medium paced intervals, and tempos. read this thread and you will get all the base work specifics that you are looking for.I think the Clyde Hart approach will get you a little faster (my suspicion is that you didnt have many people pushing you in college and your beating the XC runners during intervals tells me there was too much rest involved) but will have limits unless you are a 46 guy moving up.Best of luck..

Pmoax wrote:

1:56.4 anchor on the SMR today, off less than 15 miles a week. Splits were 54 and 62. I should be able to go 54 and 60 next race because I will be used to getting out that hard.

Ditto on this. I appreciate anyone doing an experiment but the experiment seems to be proving that you need more aerobic power to hold your speed.

yepeyepye[[e wrote:

You went full low mileage, man. Never go full low milage. You don't buy that? Ask my friend Sean Penn who did averaged 12 miles a week over the winter. Went full low milage, went home empty handed.

Tropic Thunder reference?

Pmoax,

I'm curious to know what you do as aerobic training within that 15 or less miles per week, esp in the run-up to these recent races.

Your 1:56.4 were you leading or in a pack or very far off the leaders?

Yes, I agree I need a little more aerobic element if I decided to focus on the 800 for the rest of the year. But let me ask this, do you think I would still have 22.3 speed and 48 relay capabilities if I were doing ton and tons of aerobic work......

The point I'm trying to make is that every one's body responds differently to different training and therefore we cannon make generalizations especially when it comes to an event like the 800. I'm NOT saying that low milage is everbody's solution, far from it, you need to experiement to find the best equilibrium.

Last year my relay pr was run off of 54/59 splits, I would like to be able to go 53/58 in the open race in the next 3 months or so, which I think is entirely possible.

I was pretty far off the leaders *cough* New Bern *cough* we were in last and I was 50m behind 7th place.

This week's training will be

S:5 Mile Run

M: 2X450m @59 with full recovery, 6X300m @45 with 3:00 recovery + Weights

Tu: 5 Miles + 20X100m @14s with 56s recovery

W: 6X200m @25s with 2:30 recovery

Th: 5 Mile Run + 20X100m @14s with 56s recovery

F: Pre-Meet

S: Meet (4X800, 400, 800)

Pmoax wrote:

I was pretty far off the leaders *cough* New Bern *cough* we were in last and I was 50m behind 7th place.

This week's training will be

S:5 Mile Run

M: 2X450m @59 with full recovery, 6X300m @45 with 3:00 recovery + Weights

Tu: 5 Miles + 20X100m @14s with 56s recovery

W: 6X200m @25s with 2:30 recovery

Th: 5 Mile Run + 20X100m @14s with 56s recovery

F: Pre-Meet

S: Meet (4X800, 400, 800)

You realize that this is way more than 15 miles in a week, right?

i count 15mi of steady runningor are you counting 20x100m as 2k? or little half mile warmups and strides? then what would the mileage number even mean? haha Mr Seb Coe would laugh

logic desirer wrote:

You realize that this is way more than 15 miles in a week, right?

atletabanana wrote:

i count 15mi of steady running

or are you counting 20x100m as 2k? or little half mile warmups and strides? then what would the mileage number even mean? haha Mr Seb Coe would laugh

logic desirer wrote:

You realize that this is way more than 15 miles in a week, right?

Atletabanana, are you retarded? Why would you not count 20X100m as 2k? Mileage is mileage, even if it is not in the form of distance runs. PMoax is doing way more then 15 miles per week. Still not very much, but more then 15.

this is my first week with more than one steady state run. my prior weeks are burried back in this thread.

i actually really like this schedule compared to your other stuff i'd maybe do a 2mile warm up and cool down on M and W or your usual warm up just to not take away from the quality of the work out and do a bit longer on the cool down, i'd even say that at this point in the season long runs aren't going to add much especially for a 4/8 guy, although i might get some heat for that one :)

Pmoax wrote:

Given the 48 point 400m, 152 800m (not as good), and 27 min 8k, clearly to move forward in the 800m you need to get stronger. I think at a basic level you need to be able to run 15minutes for 3 miles to run under 1:50 given your 400m speed.

Getting better aerobically is going to be about patience and persistence...it just takes time steeping yourself in consistent mileage, medium paced intervals, and tempos. read this thread and you will get all the base work specifics that you are looking for.

I think the Clyde Hart approach will get you a little faster (my suspicion is that you didnt have many people pushing you in college and your beating the XC runners during intervals tells me there was too much rest involved) but will have limits unless you are a 46 guy moving up.

.

Right on the money w/the lack of someone to chase in workouts (at least for the short stuff) and looking back, I do think I would have benefit from shorter recoveries. My senior year I think I was set up for going sub 1:50 (I had split 1:51 on a relay during indoors), but ended my season after foolishly doing a 40x200 workout in 26-28s. Had my recoveries been 30 seconds instead of 90-120, I wouldn't have done nearly so many, wouldn't have developed severe plantar fasciitis, and would've got a lot more out of the session.

I guess I know what I need to do. Right now for the foreseeable future I'm planning gradually working up to 70 miles per week, w/ 1 tempo and 1 800/1000 meter repeat session, plus some short speed stuff once a week to start building that back up (either 3-4 200s with plenty of recovery or some short, less than 20 sec hill repeats).

15:00 for 3 miles would definitely have me at an endurance level I've never been at before (15:00 3mile = 25:43 8k), but it might allow me to move up and try out the mile too. My coach tried that once, the theory being sub 50 speed isn't that great in an 800, but its not quite as common in the 1500 (at least in the level I was at, lol). I just never developed the strength necessary for it.

You doesn´t have to do "tons and tons of aerobic work" but when 15mileage per week is ridiculously low mileage, you could run 3times of that amount and that would still be really low.

I don´t think your "body gets used to" 54s opening, I guess you will slow down even more in the races coming if you don´t

add endurance, low intensity work in. You naturally have a very high anaer. capacity but because of you don´t combine that with good aerobic capacity or simply endurance, it´s difficult to improve the anaer. power. THE HIGHER THE AEROBIC CAPACITY, THE HIGHER THE ANAEROBIC POWER WILL BE.

This means that because of you are doing a lot of (too much in my mind) "anaerobic work" you should combine that with much much bigger amount of low intensity recovery runs (and small amounts of medium intensity LT/tempo work). Instead of 1.56+ you could come down to sub 1.50 (which is the subject of this thread) thanks to much better endurance (and enhanced anaerobic power).

another canuck wrote:

I will offer you a general answer. First of all, take an hour or so to flip through the thread. The first few pages are great and then it goes in fits and starts, but there is lots of good stuff.

I only see three pages in this thread now. What happened to the previous 50 pages?

Pmoax wrote:

I was pretty far off the leaders *cough* New Bern *cough* we were in last and I was 50m behind 7th place.

This week's training will be

S:5 Mile Run

M: 2X450m @59 with full recovery, 6X300m @45 with 3:00 recovery + Weights

Tu: 5 Miles + 20X100m @14s with 56s recovery

W: 6X200m @25s with 2:30 recovery

Th: 5 Mile Run + 20X100m @14s with 56s recovery

F: Pre-Meet

S: Meet (4X800, 400, 800)

Actually I figured as much that your slower 2nd lap time was due to being too far out of the race and thus you were running a sort of solo time trial. Personally, based on this performance alone I wouldn't discredit your training methods too much.

Your training week is interesting. What is the pace of the respective 5 mile runs? I'm guessing the 6X300m @45 and the 20X100m @14s sessions are aerobic/threshold work for you, being more a sprinter type 800m runner?

Altho I've been more a 800/1500m runner for years, I actually ran my best at 600m and 800m when doing a schedule more like yours (tho I ran fewer hard sessions). I tend to agree that for some cases individual idiosyncracies tend to defy conventional wisdom in terms of 800m training.

What's your fall/winter training weeks like? If you've posted this before in this thread please re-direct me....

The only piece of experience I can draw off of for this was my sr year in high school. I ran exactly ZERO mileage from October until April that year (but was playing basketball which was ample circuit and strength training) and then eased into a few weeks of 25 miles per week. At the first meet (three weeks of running) I went out in 54 and came home in 62...felt aweful. I kept running about 25 miles per week and once I got my endurance down was able to lay out a decent 800m (1:51 54/57). Ran a 4;11 mile though, which I think was a MINIMUM mile strength for 1:51.

You have to traing more aerobically to hold pace...yes a 54 400m will feel easier and easier but the monkey will still jump on your back at 550m...