Why is he so good?

you are basically talking about me back when I ran in high school. I played football all 4 years and was a pretty good 200/400 runner until I switched to the 800 my senior year and ran 1:54 on maybe 20 miles a week at most.

Having learned alot about the event through running at the college level and coaching it at the high school level, the 800 is truly a speed event although many still do not see it that way, especially at the high school level. The fact of the matter is that sprinters do not want to run it or do not have the mental toughness/speed endurance, and the distance guys dont have the wheels.

You can be a really good high school distance runner and maybe get under 2 minutes or close, but if you really wanna be good at the 800 (1:57 or under for high school) you will either need to have EXCELLENT endurance (4:20/9:20/15:30) or a level of sprint speed far superior to your average 1600/3200/5k kids/cross country runners.

Although a speed-based 800 runners overall endurance may be inferior, it is alot easier to run a 1:56 (2 58 second laps in a row) if you can sprint significantly faster than a 58 for an open 400 as opposed to having to sprint the whole 800 like most distance guys have to. For example, a good high school distance runner might be able to run a 2:00 off a 55 second 400 PR, but those 2 laps are going to feel alot more uncomfortable if he has to run close to his top speed the entire way. In comparison, when I was in my tip-top 1:49 shape I could literally jog a 54 despite being a pathetic 5k runner. It is alot easier to teach a fast guy endurance with basic tempos/longer runs than it is an endurance guy to be fast.

If you want to focus on the 800 you really need to work on your top speed.

The 800m is in the middle of sprinting and endurance. You can be good at it by having either a ton of speed or a ton of endurance.

The 800 is in the gray area where endurance guys and sprinters meet. He would do better focusing on endurance and you would do better focusing on 400m speed. IMHO - endurance is an easy thing to work on, while sprint speed is a bit more difficult.

I was in a similar situation to the one that you described. I routinely ran 2:01 - 2:02 and never broke 2:00 in HS. There were plenty of guys in my area who could run 50 seconds or better for 400m, and they routinely ran sub 2:00 for 800m, but they struggled to run faster 4:40 for the mile. In the mile, I ran 4:28, and usually beat the 400/800 guys who ran sub 2:00. In college, I ran sub 2:00 and the first time that I did was after our XC season. Our coach wanted to prove the point that with a very big base, we could carry our basic speed for a longer period of time. We lined up and ran an 800 shortly after our last XC race of the season. This was the first time that I broke 2:00 in the 800.

Every person on Earth can cover 800 m in a particular time regsrdless of their training. Why would someone not be able to run 1:54 based on their genetic talent?

SMJO wrote:

Every person on Earth can cover 800 m in a particular time regsrdless of their training. Why would someone not be able to run 1:54 based on their genetic talent?

it depends. if you have a kid that is just not a natural sprinter and he wants to be a good 800 guy he is going to have to put in a ton of miles to develop the kind of endurance and work on speed necessary to run a fast "Distance-runner style 800", for example a 59-60 off 55 quarter speed.

If the kid can run a 50 second 400, then he is going to be much more comfortable running at a fast pace and with some race experience, interval workouts, and longer/tempo runs he will be much better at the 800. being able to split something like a 55-60 for a 1:55, he will usually tire out more with a slower 2nd lap, but his speed will make the first lap easier and thus compensate in comparison to the endurance kid

You really made that complicated. Some people just can run pretty far and fast with no training according to how it is "supposed" to be done.