Best Way to develop aerobic strength for 800 during base

surges on your runs and picking up the last few miles of a run will help. i do a lot of my runs easy for the first 4 and run anywhere from 510-550 for the last 2-5 miles. pr's - 49.3, 149, 349.

first need a base

then take that base and convert it to muscular strength. hills, hills, and more hills. and also weight lifting.

then taking that muscular strength and convert it to muscular power. lactate, lactate, and more lactate.

there is no such thing as aerobic strength and therefore no way to gain aerobic strength.

middledistancehelp wrote:

I'm a male D1 800 meter runner.

Ask your D1 coach ... he gets paid a lot more than us to direct your training AND he will be in charge of your training in-season too, so the continuity will be nice.

It's not just the number of miles, it the type of work you are doing.

I also wouldn't blindly accept the claims on here that the last 100-200 of an 800 is wholly aerobic. If this is the case, why do your legs go dead? It's a combination of a lot of factors - aerobic endurance, speed, speed reserve, speed endurance, strength etc.

Rather than run 50+ what you need is a consistent 45. If you've never done that before it will be sufficient stimulus.

If you have more energy, do an aerobically intense workout like 5x 800 with 400 meter jogging recovery, rather than tons of mileage.

I'm a 400-800 guy too and I used to die in the last 100. Do this workout once a week or so and your last 100 will improve. The workout is cruise intervals. I go by the McMillan version of cruise intervals rather than other definitions you will find floating around.

To find out your pace, do a 5k race and add one minute to your time. So, say you ran 17:45 and add a minute to get 18:45. So your workout pace is 18:45 for 5k or 3:45 for 1000 or :45 for 200.

Get an Ironman or other watch with a countdown timer. Set it to beep every 45 seconds. Go to the track and run 1000 at that pace, which is 3:45 in this example. Now this is the key part of the workout: When you finish that 1000, jog 100 in 45 seconds, then start again with another 1000 at 3:45.

Try 4 of them at first. Work up to 6 or 8 of them. It shouldn't feel like you are killing yourself in this workout, but the heart and lungs will be working. If for some reason it feels like you are killing yourself, slow the pace down to 46 seconds per 200 and 46 seconds for the 100 jog.

Once you can do 6 or 8, then switch to 1200s and even 1600s using the same 100 jog in 45 seconds. When you can do 4 or 5 x 1600 at that pace with the 100 jog in 45 seconds, then go back to 1000s but drop the pace to 44 seconds per 200.

Hope this helps you. It sure helped me!

I would die a lot in races and workouts (last hundred or last couple repeats). Will more mileage (I was at like mid 30s and I'm also in college) probably help me stay strong at the end of these?

Gandalfthewhite wrote:

Rather than run 50+ what you need is a consistent 45. If you've never done that before it will be sufficient stimulus.

If you have more energy, do an aerobically intense workout like 5x 800 with 400 meter jogging recovery, rather than tons of mileage.

That's basically a Billat vVo2max session. It'll get you fit, that's for sure.