Workouts to suggest 1:55/1:56 in the 800?

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The 800 pace workout we use is 3X400 with 4 minutes. The average time for this workout is a good indication of what you can achieve for 800 in a meet. This is also good once a week prior to peaking for a race pace workout. Some others:

6X300 with 2 min

600 min time trial (often used 10-14 prior to a peak race to get pacing right.

600 at 800 pace, 90 sec rest, 200m all-out

3X4X200 30-45 sec rest, one lap walk set break (the so-called "Russian Intervals")

This time of year the 800 workout I do is 2x(4x200), 100 jog between reps, 400 jog between sets. Do the 200's at race pace - so for you, that's 29 flat.

There are better indicator workouts of course - stuff like 400's or 600's, or 500/300 but you don't want to be doing those now. 200's with short rest at 800 race pace is an appropriate workout for January. If you can average 29 flat then you can run that in a race.

thanks for the info so far. does anyone else have any indicator workout suggestions?

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coach bc wrote:

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/kosmin.htm

that's interesting, I'd never thought of that

Well, a lot of it depends on whether you're a 400/800 guy or 800/1500 guy.

I ran the same 800 times off of 30 mpw, and 50 mpw two years later, but had a faster 400 than most of the guys I was racing in college (who were more 8/15 guys)

Some workouts that could indicate 50-51/1:55-56 might be:

2 x 800 special (run 400, jog 200, run 200) in 56/28

4x400 w/ 5 min rest in 55-56

8x200 w/ 2 min rest in 27-28

10x200 w/ 1 min rest avg under 30

500, 400, 300, 200, 100 at 56-57 per 400 pace. 1 min per 200m recovery

Like any event, spending time at race pace is pretty critical. Of course you could longer intervals at a slower pace to build strength early in the season. But there's no point in doing anything slower than mile pace. If you're doing stuff at 800 pace, do a mile of intervals; if you're doing stuff at mile pace, do 2 miles of intervals.

This is letsrun, so people may disagree with this, but this is a good rule of thumb for coming up with the rest for an interval set:

400 pace: full recovery

800 pace: running time x 4 for rest

mile pace: running time x 2 for rest

5k/10k: running time x 1/2 for rest

You can always do less rest than this, but if you're getting much more, the workout won't really indicate much except your ability to do pretty fast workouts with a lot of rest.

Good luck. BTW - if you're a sub 50 guy, you can go out in 55-56 and hold on. If you're a 52ish guy, even splitting is the way to go. You just have to really roll the last 300 to make that work.

thank you this is excellent

Easy:

2x600's

YOU MUST RUN 1:25 30 sec rest then run an all out 200 in under 30.

8X100's run the turn jog the straights

Keep up your milelage.

1X800, race pace.

100x400m and then 100x200m should do the trick.

If you not sure then you need to buy a coach.

a good indicator for a 1500 guy is 6x300m w/ 2min rest. Average pace = 800m pace.

Butterfly wrote:

Easy:

2x600's

YOU MUST RUN 1:25 30 sec rest then run an all out 200 in under 30.

8X100's run the turn jog the straights

Keep up your milelage.

do you mean 30 seconds rest between both 600's? and then how much rest between the second 600 and the 200?

Thanks for the ideas everyone

How about running 800m in 1:55/1:56 ? It's not like the marathon where a PR performance will take it out of you for weeks afterwards...

do you mean 30 seconds rest between both 600's? and then how much rest between the second 600 and the 200?

If you're gonna do that 2x600 workout it should be:

600 at pace, 200 jog rest, 200 at pace. 5 minute rest. Repeat. No need for more than 2 of these

There's a lot of good variations of that workout.

400 at pace, 200 jog, 200 at pace x 3 w/ 5 minutes rest

or to sharpen before a race:

300 at pace, 100 jog, 100 top speed x 4 with full recovery in between.

You should do two workouts a week, and go easy for two days in between. One workout should be fast - at 800 pace, like above. These you get basically full recovery on (rest is 4x longer than time running). The other workout should be strength at mile pace (8x400, 4x800, 1200/1000/800/600/400/200, stuff like that with rest equal 2x times longer than running time). Do strides, drills on other days. If you don't have a meet you could add a third workout - like a short 2-4 mile tempo run.