Why are women so bad at the 800?

What's really interesting is, some of the greatest 800m runners have had gender issues.

Fantu Magiso

Francine Niyonsaba

Pamela Jelimo

Caster Semenya

Maria Mutola

Santhi Soundarajan, the Indian 800m record holder was stripped of a silver medal won at the 2006 Asian Games after failing a gender verification test, disputing her eligibility to participate in the women's competition.

Jarmila Kratochvilova the 800m world record holder, which is the oldest record on the books. I know someone who ran against her twice and swears she is actually a man. Jarmila's 1:53.28 was ran in 1983, she came back two days later and set the 400m WR. No surprise, she never married and never bore children.

What's really interesting is, some of the greatest 800m runners have had gender issues.

Fantu Magiso

Francine Niyonsaba

Pamela Jelimo

Caster Semenya

Maria Mutola

Santhi Soundarajan, the Indian 800m record holder was stripped of a silver medal won at the 2006 Asian Games after failing a gender verification test, disputing her eligibility to participate in the women's competition.

Jarmila Kratochvilova the 800m world record holder, which is the oldest record on the books and will never be broken by an estrogenized women. I know someone who ran against her twice and swears she is actually a man. Jarmila's 1:53.28 was ran in 1983, she came back two days later and set the 400m WR. No surprise, she never married and never bore children.

You forgot to include photo links for Kratochvilova

http://nd01.jxs.cz/724/739/39142e390b_31881047_o2.jpg

http://s236.photobucket.com/user/pekkavasala/media/juha%20vaatainen/kratochvilova.jpg.html

TrackCoach wrote:

Jarmila Kratochvilova the 800m world record holder, which is the oldest record on the books and will never be broken by an estrogenized women. I know someone who ran against her twice and swears she is actually a man. Jarmila's 1:53.28 was ran in 1983, she came back two days later and set the 400m WR. No surprise, she never married and never bore children.

I saw her in person several times, she's actually quite feminine now and definitely looks better now than 30yrs ago. And yes, she may have taken steroids but she is definitely female.

It's true that there was something like a state organized doping program in Czechoslovakia at that time, however nothing in extent comparable to what existed in East Germany and Soviet Union.

For example, it's well documented that Kratochvilova actually didn't participate in that program, she wasn't forced to. Instead her coach was ordering some stuff from USA which he keeps claiming (till today) was vitamine B12. For me, it's a clear sign that what was there was just some Mickey Mouse drugs compared to the real stuff in the US.

autoxfil wrote:

WRs:

Distance Men Women Percentage

100 9.58 10.49 91%

200 19.19 21.34 90%

400 43.18 47.6 91%

800 01:40.9 01:53.3 89%

1500 03:26.0 03:50.5 89%

5000 12:37.4 14:11.2 89%

10000 26:17.5 30:21.0 87%

HM 58:23.0 1:05:12 90%

M 2:02:57 2:17:42 89%

This completely destroys the suggestions that the "800 is the hardest thing on a woman's body." What a total crock.

Only one of you above has nailed it. There is a massive difference between racing and training for an event that takes 120 seconds (for most elite women) compared with 105 seconds or less (men). Think about what happens in the last 15 seconds of an 800. Think about what your coach and all those books said about "energy systems"...yes, that part when your eyes glazed over and you started thinking about Molly Huddle.

An 800 isn't hard on women's bodies per se. A maximal 120-130 second effort is hard on everyone's body, and much different than a 105-second effort.

Duh.

The result of people not getting this is that you see all of these sub-elite/college women (and many HS boys) training like Duane Solomon (as long long sprinters) when they should be training like Brenda Martinez (distance runners). Fortunately, most slow/beginning HS boys (2:05-2:10) are training as distance runners, so they have the aerobic capacity to (1) finish the event and (2) improve into that 1:5x range where things get both "easier" and much, much harder.

do you even coach? wrote:

Only one of you above has nailed it. There is a massive difference between racing and training for an event that takes 120 seconds (for most elite women) compared with 105 seconds or less (men). Think about what happens in the last 15 seconds of an 800. Think about what your coach and all those books said about "energy systems"...yes, that part when your eyes glazed over and you started thinking about Molly Huddle.

An 800 isn't hard on women's bodies per se. A maximal 120-130 second effort is hard on everyone's body, and much different than a 105-second effort.

Duh.

What the heck are you trying to say?

The last 15 seconds is aerobic for men and women.

Listening to opinions wrote:

Interesting. What kind of adjustments in training would you make for high school girls trying to break 2:20?

I coach HS girls and boys distance runners and definitely try to account for the additional time girls and slower boys are running. We have had moderate success, especially on the girls side. We currently have 5 girls who have run under 5:10 & 2:20, an additional 3 under 5:20, 5 more under 2:30, and 9 more under 2:35. I know this is not astounding, but we have just 400 girls in the high school. I try to build a tolerance to the effort in training while emphasizing power/strength and relentless work on form. It is difficult to pull workouts out of context, but an example is step and surge workouts. Our town has a college built on a hill. There are thousands of steps. We run the steps emphasizing knee lift and quick touchdown and at the top go right into surges of varying length and speed depending upon the energy system emphasis desired on that day. The idea is to fatigue the legs/hips similar to late in middle distance races and learn to adapt and handle that time running fatigued. This fatigued state is also key to work on form issues. We also run very few intervals without changing pace and getting faster throughout, much like the theory behind progressive runs on a smaller middle-distance scale. This keeps them running longer reps and dealing with pending anaerobic issues that they see late in 800s. This is just one approach and I'm sure others have better examples.

"pending anaerobic issues late in the 800?"

The later stages are AEROBIC. Get a clue.

This is the real problem with the 800. Clueless coaches.

I've never coached a second in my life, and I don't want to come across as jerk, honest. But I wonder about the "relentless work on form," particularly at the HS level. Goes back to the ole' "pie chart" of what training/considerations will get you the most bang for your buck? If someone is a pro - or has pro-like motivation AND time on their hands - then I guess one can consider addressing EVERYTHING that might be in the pie (although even then you have to wonder about effort put into one lesser slice taking away from more important slices [e.g., "drills" potentially compromising workouts]). But for your typical HS athlete with limited time and/or limited motivation, I wonder how defensible it is to put significant time/effort into "relentless work on form"?

And in the case of form, there is both the "how big of a slice is it? question above, AND (potentially making the slice null) the, "Do we REALLY know what "better form" is? question (see Cain/Salazar, potentially).

sljdflksjdf wrote:

"pending anaerobic issues late in the 800?"

The later stages are AEROBIC. Get a clue.

This is the real problem with the 800. Clueless coaches.

The issues he's talking about are the result of anaerobic work.

Trying to be a smartass doesn't make you less clueless.

Musing insist wrote:

No kitchen is that big

Good one!

The way coaches deal with 'the issues' is as ass backwards as their understanding of the energy systems.

There is a reason why David Rudisha trains with Brother Colm O'Connell.

Watch, listen and learn, ye coaches of the 800:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmXN-kQZ04M

The example given was very good. The workout emphasizes characteristics that will help middle distance runners without just working on form to look "better".

I will add that overstriding can contribute to common shin injuries. If certain drills reduce overstriding and young runners are able to train with fewer injuries and fewer interruptions, they will likely improve.

I would say there are 2 reasons

The first reason is physiological. A 49xx adult male should expect to run sub 1:50. So women are better at 400m than they are at 800m compared to men. I would say this is because on the 800m they are losing more on 2 systems power and aerobic (to simplify) capacity compared to the 400m which is mainly power

Secondly steroids. They are more effective over power events 400m and below - in my opinion

minong wrote:

Am I missing something, are we not counting Paula's WR?

I arbitrarily chose the women-only 2005 London result, not the 2003 mixed-gender race, from the list I was using. 2003 would be 91%, a very strong WR, as we all recognize it to be.

No balls.

re: "We currently have 5 girls who have run under 5:10 & 2:20, an additional 3 under 5:20, 5 more under 2:30, and 9 more under 2:35. I know this is not astounding, but we have just 400 girls in the high school." - I would say you are successful. It takes better coaching to have "5 girls who have run under 5:10 & 2:20, than to have one girl run 4:45.

I think those hills are excellent for building 800m runners. One of the biggest problem for girls and boys as well is what to do when the body is fatigued. Kids know what to do at the end of a 400 or mile, but the 800 presents a different problem when your legs feel like you are stuck in quicksand and you have a full 200m to go. To be a successful 800m runner, you have to accept the hurt and no amount of training will help you beat it, you simply have to learn how to manage it. Consider incorporating a tag at the end of each workout, H.S. girls hate them, but pros do it all of the time.

Someone mentioned the 10k was thee incorrect women world record and so is the marathon, any reason for that?

Women often lack the speed necessary for sub 1:55 times.

Ana Quirot had a 400 PR of 49.61

800 best 1:54.44. +7.61 sec. Per 400

She finished the last 200 of that race in 29.94.

Men's Wr +11% = 1:51.99

Many male college runners can add 5-6 seconds to their 400 best and achieve an 800 time (1:45-1:50), yet we rarely see this in women.

Jelimo is a good example of that with 52, 1:33, 1:54 4/6/8 performances.

Mutola 51.37, 1:22.87, 1:55.19

Miles Clark. 49.4 1:56.4

Joetta Clark. 52.2. 1:57.84 @ age 36

The elite 800 women presently are a bit disappointing to watch. Even a 1:58, is about as exciting as a college men's 1:46.4