Sub 1:50 800m Training

Also incorporating Hadd style heart rate training on easy runs and workouts is a great way to make sure you are properly recovering and a good way to watch you’re cardiovascular efficiency progress over the season.

Some feedback / results of self experimenting with the interval based method... aerobic and cardiovascular capacity skyrocketed. Started with training back in october 19 after 4 years of doing nothing. I run mostly on trails or a soccer field, managed to remain "almost" 100% injury free. I am training on average 5 times a week, sometimes more if work allows for it. Lock down has not been that hard, thus was able to keep training albeit w/o pool or gym nor track.

Oct - Dec:

3x8x100m w/ jogback recovery @ 18s-19s

15x100m w/ 20s standing rest @ 18s-19s

3x5x150m w/ 35s standing rest

2x8x200m w/ jogback recovery (38s, 1m15 jog back)

3x3x300m w/ 1m standing rest, anywhere between 52s-56s depending on how was feeling.

As a rule of thumb, 50% was jog back recovery, 50% standing recovery.

2/3x weekly 6-8km continuous run at 5:15-4:50/km pace.

For workouts warm up always 3km jog, cool down 1,5km. Max km / week 40km, average 30km.

1 x week swim with 30s on / 30s off, in a 3x6 schema. Kept this until lockdown in March.

Jan - Mar:

Started with KitKats 400m trainings. For those unfamiliar with it, it includes stuff like:

4x3x150m 1st rep jog back, 2nd walk, 3rd jog as "aerobic work"

300+50-40-30 / 200-40-30-20 /100m-40-30-20 ladders for lactic capacity

300+150, 150+150 with long recoveries

3x3x300 w/ 1 min rec standing

Was hitting the 150s anywhere between 21,0s and 24,0s on grass from standing. The training is very hard and I did not even try the hill sprinting it includes, also reduced these sessions to once per week.

Added quickly SE1 work like 3x4x50m w/ 1:45-2:30 rest since had trouble hitting 13s in 100m from standing (!). Pure interval work limited to these SE1 split runs (HR always at 140 after pauses) and recovery days. Is a good way to work on speed when no indoors available and temperature bellow freezing...

Also started with speed bounding and more lifting work.

"Easy days" 2 or 3x6x100m @ 17-20s w/ 20 sec standing recovery depending on how was feeling. Never two hard days in a row. As much as possible on grass, no indoors available. Warm ups for workouts still about 2,5kg jog.

Average km / week 25

Results in 6 months, being 29yo:

BW: 82kg -› 79kg

HR rest: 55 bpm -› 46 bpm

Warm up pace (while fresh): 5:30m/km —› 4:45/km

"Pain barrier" -› 4:35m/km –› 3:50m/km

6x150 from standing on grass: 28s w/40s standing rest -› 26s w/20s standing rest

8x200 w/ 2 min rec from standing on grass: (january -› april) 33s HR@150 after rec-› 27s, HR@120 after rec

300m @ 42s: required pause went from 8 minutes to 3 minutes until next rep

3x300m w/1 min walking rec, from standing track: 53s -› 48s (did not push it hard in april, I think 47,0s is doable)

3x6x100m from standing on grass, 40s recovery: 18,0s -› 15,0

Standing 150m on track and spikes: 20,0s (january -› april)-› 18,6s

50m fly w/ 15m run in on track and spikes: (january -› may) 6,00s -› 5,4s

Squat: 3x6x90kg -› 4x120kg

Worth to mention that 8 years ago I was able to run 100m in 11.10 FAT and the 50m flys in under 5s... while my speed is down I would say by 10% as an effect of age and lazyness, my recovery times are down by 50% wrt the times when I was actively training.

Especialy during these lactic workouts I am unable to feel the lactic acid burning as I used too. I think my speed is down that much and my aerob capacity up that I am not able to hit speeds high enough... BTW I hate continuous slow running, so I think that my "pain barrier" actually could be faster than stated here with some weeks of preparation.

Also, I think that most of the speed regains are from remembering again how to coordinate my legs at speed, rather than from the training itself.

Thank you for sharing, please report back later.

Small correction: the 6x150 @ 26s requires now 30s recovery, I wrote 20s in my original post. Swimming workouts help a lot for recovery if you take care of not using the legs too much (crawl is good) and can still get an excellent cardiovascular / pulmonar effort.

Also worth to mention, if someone tries it, you will hate being alive in some workouts, especially the 3x3x300 or 3x6x150 in the cold can be very painfull and hard after some years of no training... Continuous jogging is definitely a more agreeable way of training especially if you have a nice landscape to look at.

OldSub4, if we are lucky and you are still reading this forum, I have a few questions regarding how you might adjust the 800/1500 m training regimen down for a HS runner, who thanks to Covid has basically not raced alot, but has used the past year to put lots of Tempo runs at 5:20 and 1,000m repeats and long runs ( 13 miles @ 6:20-:6:30 ) into the bank.

Granted it is hard to know the date of the " target peak race" as, with covid, who knows what the 2021 Outdoor Track Nationals schedule will be for HS ( late May ? / late June )

But say Outdoor HS Nationals will be mid- June and a HS MD guy has between mid- Feb to Mid- June ( 16 weeks) How would you blend in the speed endurance, pure speed work to what he has already been doing as of mid-Feb, which is 10 weeks of:

Mon:5-7X 1000m repeats with short 60 sec recovery @ XC race pace of 4:50/mile/ followed by 6-8X 18 sec hill repeats at mile-800m race pace ( been doing this since early Dec) planks+ strength work after

Tues: 45 easy

Wed: Fartlek 45-55min

Thurs: 25-32 min Tempo at 5:20 ish, working to 5:15 towards end as we get into Feb, planks+ strength work after

Fri: 45 min recovery

Sat: 75-80 min long run/ planks + strength work after

Sun: off/cross train

March will be an abbreviated XC season with 5K races 1X wk on W/E ( ?? can this sub for Tempo run)

When and how would you suggest replacing Mon workout with 800 cut downs , 1000 cut down on the every 10 days drop pace ?

When/ how would you add pure speed ie 200m at fast, 400m moderate, 200 m fast or some Oregon type stuff- assuming mid April and all of May will be dedicated to more 800m/1500 race specific work for goal times: under 4:10, possibly under 9:00 and low 1:50's ?

Thanks

dcrunner22 wrote:

OldSub4, if we are lucky and you are still reading this forum, I have a few questions regarding how you might adjust the 800/1500 m training regimen down for a HS runner, who thanks to Covid has basically not raced alot, but has used the past year to put lots of Tempo runs at 5:20 and 1,000m repeats and long runs ( 13 miles @ 6:20-:6:30 ) into the bank.

...

When/ how would you add pure speed ie 200m at fast, 400m moderate, 200 m fast or some Oregon type stuff- assuming mid April and all of May will be dedicated to more 800m/1500 race specific work for goal times: under 4:10, possibly under 9:00 and low 1:50's ?

If you want to wait for OldSub4 to reply, cool.

You posted on another thread, and I offered to help if you listed current times for:

200m

400m

800m

1200m

I don't know if this runner is a distance-type runner (thin, lacks power), partly because you listed 1:55 for his 800m

If he is more that type (height and weight, please), I still question the heavy emphasis on long repetitions, which I would refuse to run. My HS coach trained a year for CC as a grad student at Oregon under Dellinger and Bowerman.

The best intermediate workout we would do was 5 miles (this guy should be 5:30 per mile for 5) and then 6 x 300m cut-downs (54, 51, 48, 45, 42, 39) with a slow 100m jog in between. This is done in training shoes, not spikes, and is on the fly. The last two are really challenging.

In CC season in the fall of my junior year, I did one time a 5 x 800m with 10 min recovery, all in 2:08. A couple of times we ran 3 x (3 x 600m) with 2 min between 600s and 5 min between sets, run med (1:42), fast (1:36), slow(1:50).

As a senior in April, I ran 3 x mile in 4:26, 4:26, 4:18 with less than 10 minutes recovery between miles. Usually, I don't run such long repetitions.

A couple of famous workouts for elite HS runners that I was aware of:

6 x 400m on the fly with 60 sec recovery in 56-57.

100 x 100y or 100m, run on a football field, with a slow jog of about 30 seconds between reps. I did this one in college, combining other 100m workouts until I had 100 reps. Some are fairly quick, but many are at mile, 2-mile, 5k, and 10k pace.

We never ran more than 1 hour in HS, and that was only on Sundays, which was our easy day. We ran 6:40 pace on our easy day, which is about 9 miles.

In college I never ran more than 1 hour, and was 10 milers about once week at 58-60 minutes.

This has been an interesting thread and I have gained an insight. This past weekend I had an athlete run 1:49.78 for 800m. The interesting aspect is that he didn't start training till he was 21 and achieved the time at 25.

His training is on average 25-30 miles per week and most of his training is done at threshold and 3k pace.

We do little training at 800m pace although he has a pb of 48.2 for 400m

Today his session was as follows:

1k in 3:15

3x400 in 70 seconds on short rest

3x400 in 600 with 2 min rest

4x200 in 26 with 2 min rest

He has Nationals in the next several weeks and we hope that he can make the final in our country. Our other athlete has run 1:50.15 off similar training and 3 weeks ago he was doing 6x1k in sub 3 minutes on grass. Don't neglect aerobic fitness.

Thanks for the advice, guess I need it now

Bump

flyingfrog wrote:

Bump

This is an awesome thread

I've compiled a lot of OS4's posts in a google doc, might share it on here one day as a guide, kind of like the JK one.