What is the best distance for strides for an 800 runner? And what kind of speed should they be at? I get tired of running longer for xc so I like to do some 200s once or twice a week.
What is the best distance for strides for an 800 runner? And what kind of speed should they be at? I get tired of running longer for xc so I like to do some 200s once or twice a week.
find a football/soccer field, take off your shoes and run the length of the field, end zone to end zone. If there's enough grass to run a little longer, even better. Don't go 100% effort, more like a relaxed 90%. Not a bad idea to incorporate some technique/form drills as well. We'll sometimes do a couple strides, then some sort of skipping, a couple more strides, another skip drill, couple more strides, something like high knees drill, then finish with 2 more strides. Don't worry about recovery time. Nice, easy/slow jog/walk between strides is fine.
If you add some general strength/mobility exercises to your daily routine, you might be surprised how beneficial they are for increasing speed & improving stride efficiency.
In keeping with the "strides are alactic" theory, they should not last longer than about 35 seconds. So 200m is fine, just make sure you take more recovery than you would after a 100m stride.