800m Men in X-Country and Mental Toughness

I here you.

I'm an 800 guy who runs for my xc team, and it's pretty tough...though I'm nowhere near your times. I do pretty well on the shorter track stuff, but come race day, those 5 miles seem endless

800 meter runners are not distance runners. It's OK in HS when the race is only 5k, but not in college.

The same talent set that enables you to crush the 800 makes it hard for you to race at ten times the distance. That's not a matter of toughness or mentality. It's a matter of what your body was designed to do.

A 10k runner has no idea what you go through over the last 300m of your races because he lacks the talent to push his body that far that fast. The measure of toughness in our sport is not how well you can do an 8 mile tempo run - it's how well you race in the race your body was designed to run.

But, most college distance coaches were 5k/10k guys, so they, and your teammates who puff out their chests of their 14:45 PR's, believe that an 800 guy is just a 1500/XC guy who lacks the toughness to move further out. NO basketball coach every tells his 7 footer that he lacks toughness because he can't run the point, but track/XC coaches do this all the time with middle distance runners.

For you, the Fall is the first part of track season. That Pre quote everyone throws around here applies - focusing on XC is sacrificing your gift. Focus on your gift.

Ovett, Coe and Ryun were olympic gold medalists or world record breakers at 800/880 and ran cross country seriously. It takes mental toughness.

You pansies are making the rest of us look bad. I wanted so badly to be a distance runner/xc runner. I trained like one for a long time. It just wasn't in my genetics, much like it isn't in the genetics for most sub 1:50 collegiate guys. We aren't built for it...nothing to do with toughness or getting bored or any of that garbage.

I'm pretty sure I know who this is. Dude use xc as a base, that's it. Have fun with it. I have the same problem, taking it too seriously. You know with the training you're putting in, you're going to be in insane shape when track comes. Take more off days too.

I think you're taking your practices too hard. Save it for the races.

My coach is pretty good about preserving my speed for the track season. I do pretty much the entire x-country regimen, but instead of doing the long hard intervals on Monday/Wednesday I only do Monday. On Wednesday I do 100 sprints to remain in contact with fast twitch fibers. Not great for the x-country season but probably the only thing keeping my sanity together. I feel like I'm on furlough for the day.

On other thing. I either completely die at the end of my x-country races or lay down the hammer in the last 400 meters. Nothing in between. More often than not its lay down the hammer which my teammates mistake for me not running hard enough earlier in the race. They don't seem to understand I can always (unless I've gone out at a stupid pace) hammer at the end. Feels more physical than psychological. I can't stretch out that speed over the whole damn course.

The better your coach is at individualization, the better you will be in XC. You need to be training differently than your teammates. Robbie Andrews, Andrew Wheating, Leo Manzano, all were 800/1500m types and could do well in XC. They didn't always do the same stuff as their teammates because that wouldn't have worked for them. There are different ways to achieve the same goal and it seems like you need better individualized training.

Something like 200m 3k pace and 400m steady for a few miles instead of the normal long tempo or a ton of shorter repeats with short rests instead of the long repeats that aren't your strong point. Also your mileage and pace might have to change. You probably shouldn't be doing as much mileage, instead focus on nailing your hard workouts since you will see the most improvement from them and can probably handle a bit more anaerobic work than your XC teammates. Basically you have to work your strengths and do what works for you. A day where you sprint 100's isn't good individualization. It is like your coach knows you should train differently, but just doesn't know exactly how to go about it properly.

If you think you can always hammer out the last 400m, then try to break 2 mins in the last 800m. You will have more fast twitch reserves at the end, but you also need to learn the race and understand how to make it hurt for longer.

Ovett once said, "Basically I'm a sprinter who can run cross country."

Ike low wrote:

Ovett, Coe and Ryun were olympic gold medalists or world record breakers at 800/880 and ran cross country seriously. It takes mental toughness.

mentaleighthundred wrote:

I either completely die at the end of my x-country races or lay down the hammer in the last 400 meters. Nothing in between. More often than not its lay down the hammer which my teammates mistake for me not running hard enough earlier in the race. They don't seem to understand I can always (unless I've gone out at a stupid pace) hammer at the end. Feels more physical than psychological. I can't stretch out that speed over the whole damn course.

God - this is me too.

OK sure ovett ran XC, so did Coe. But consider - Ovett was the WR holder at 2miles and even he basically sucked at XC. I mean he was good - but he wouldn't have a chance in hell at winning NCAAs. Notable for one of the greatest milers who ever lived.

XC is a long dance - not ideal for the 1500/800 type. I think at best a 1500 guy can run with athletes a level or two below him. 800 guys? A very special 800 guy might be able to run several levels below....

How many global 800m finalists could make a top-7 team at a top-10 NCAA XC team? Maybe Kaki and Symmonds? Still - hard to imagine them hustling over 10,000m...

I was a Master's 800/1500 runner who would crank 100+ mile weeks and tempos and mile repeats galore in search of better endurance. I STILL got crushed (not quite as bad) by slow-twitchers who were running 1/3-1/2 the mileage. Fortunately I've coached enough runners to know that it's the physiology, NOT psychology. Those same guys would be left in the dust in a session of 16x200.

I love cross and training over dirt and grass. I just suck racing it (except on gentle declines where I can get my stride unleashed).

Ovett would have destroyed the NCAA XC. There are videos on Youtube of him winning English XC races against pure distance runners. Ovett once ran the first mile of a 10mile XC race in 4:08 and won the race.

Peter Rono won the Olympic 1500 and the IC4A XC.

John Walker ran 1:45 and a 1:04 half marathon.

Percy Cerutty wrote that an 800/miler should never become exhausted at any distance less than 10 miles.

Aouita won an olympic bronze at 800. He would have crushed any NCAA XC.

Rod Dixon won a olympic bronze at 1500 and was a good 800 runner. He also would have smoked NCAA XC.

Brendan Foster was 5th at the olympic 1500, and would have smashed the NCAA XC.

Coe won two olympic silvers at 800 and set the world record. He also won the famous Cinque Mille XC race in Italy.

Ryun almost ran a WR 2-mile, but never really came close to winning the NCAA XC.

Peter Snell won olympic gold at 800 and did marathon training. He probably could have come close to winning the NCAA XC.

So, at least in the not too distant past, top 800/1500 runners would have dominated NCAA XC. Maybe now 800 runners are too shiftless and lazy to do the long intervals and milage to be competitive at XC. Some of them, like Webb, are able to summon the courage to do well.

If you are a true 800m guy, being counted on to score is difficult. There have been good 800m guys who were good at cross, but they were usually 800/mile types. I was a pretty good in H.S. cross, but sucked in college; however I did manage to score in the conf champ, which qualified my team for nationals. (no regional meet back then)

If you have a good coach, he has to be mindful of the fact that you are not a true distance runner and perhaps once a week, have you do hill sprints instead a long run.

Btw, I actually liked cross even though I wasn't that good at it. I am probably one of the few guys who gave up football to run cross.

1:04 half marathon is 3minutes behind luke puskedra. And walker was a 1500 specialist obviously.

Said Aouta was a 1500/5000 specialist despite his awesome ability at 800.

Peter Rono - exactly my point. OLYMPIC champion at 1500 won NCAA title at 10k xc.

To clarify - I mean to say that Ovett would not win NCAA XC right now, though I still think during the 70s/80s he wouldn't have won either.

Even if Ovett did not win a NCAA XC, you earlier speculated that he would have had trouble being among the top seven of a top 10 team. That is clearly ridiculous. He would have been very close to winning, let alone top 70. Ovett beat all the Africans to win the Commonwealth 5000. He clearly had enough talent to outclass your average college 28:30 guy.

We don't see many of the distance based 800/1500 guys anymore. Even 30 years ago, it was rare for a 400/800 guy to run cross country. But always, the good milers could be near the top in NCAA XC, even if they didn't specialize in it. Liquori (who ran 1:48 in high school), Lacy took 3rd in 1978, Webb was top ten, Peter Rono, Bill Burke won HEPS.

800m interest wrote:

1:04 half marathon is 3minutes behind luke puskedra. And walker was a 1500 specialist

To clarify - I mean to say that Ovett would not win NCAA XC right now, though I still think during the 70s/80s he wouldn't have won either.

Walker took 4th place at the world XC championship race one year, I think he could have handled the NCAA all right. He started out as an 800 specialist and did 1:45.

Ovett beat Henry Rono and Nick Rose in XC races, and they were both NCAA champs.

The 70s and 80s had guys like Salazar, Henry Rono, Nyambui in the NCAA. I don't see a lot of improvement now over those guys