No 800 for Wariner

Sorry guys.

"Wariner said his Achilles heel is in the race’s latter half, something that he and Hart are focusing particular attention to."

He also said he's more of a "sprinter type" 400 m runner.

It's from IAAF.org.

Well, if the guy gets tired at the end of the race, that obviously leads to one conclusion:

100MPW!!!

OK, so Wariner claims his strength is the first half, and Otis Harris claims his strength is the second half. So then, in the Olympic final, how did Wariner manage to be behind Harris coming into the final 100 and blow by him with ease?

Simple. Wariner is a pussy.

Typical letsrun.com poster wrote:

Well, if the guy gets tired at the end of the race, that obviously leads to one conclusion:

100MPW!!!

Not a bad idea for base training if he ever plans on moving up to the 800m.

Lydiard trained some short/mid-distance runners who did 120+ mpw, and I think some of them ended up winning medals at the Olympics.

Let him focus on the 200/400. Why does every lanky white guy NEED to be a distance runner?

nuff said

A 400/800 double would be pretty sweet. I don't know if it would be better than a 200/400, though.

fmr runner wrote:

Let him focus on the 200/400. Why does every lanky white guy NEED to be a distance runner?

Wariner--assuming he can beet Merritt and Clement--does not NEED to be a distance runner. Distance Runners NEED Wariner because they don't have hardly any stars......because of the 100 mpw stuff.

Now if thar 100+ mpw crap actually worked (well), you wouldn't need to be begging sprinters to become distance runners, would you?

i think all of our 400 meters should continue to run the 400. that way we can have a small amount of 800 meter runners that can compete with the big guys. we could continue to have 60+ guys ranked in the top 100 in the 400. i don't understand why american 400 meters runners don't wake up and at least try to move up.

That made no sense.

Your Exactly Right:

Edwin Moses & David Patrick (400m Hurdlers) could easily have extended their careers a few more years if they would have moved up and/or stayed with the 800. Same for Butch Reynolds.

Old School: Where are the Alberto Juantorena's ....El Caballo?

Watching Edwin Moses move up to the 800 in order to prolong his career would have been akin to watching MJ's final days with the Wizards. It would have been completely unnecessary.

You can make a case for any number of 45.00+ 400 guys moving up to the 800, but for the Olympic Champion? Idiocy.

wariner is far from the top candidate to move up from 400m to 800m

Edwin Moses in his post-prime could run split a 48 second 400m w/o being in anaerobic debt...with a little more training - and only a little more given that 400m hurdles are tough. He could have been at least 1:44 in a couple of months. Very competitive time in the world 800.

The only reson its an issue is because he's white.

Moving up is a very different thing for a 44 second guy than it is for a 49-52 second guy. Your lactate system tops at roughly 40 seconds, and your aerobic/anaerobic mix changes drastically if your 400 time is much slower than that. If you start with a 49-50 second 400 guy, your 400 is already about 40% aerobic, and if you go to an 800 in 1:49, you have something that's 60-62% aerobic, so there's a sizeable change, but more in line with going from 800 to 1500.

Now, take a 10.0 100 guy. His 100m is 6% aerobic. He goes to 200m in 20.0 (12% aerobic) and 400 in 44.5 (25% aerobic). But when he goes to 800 (57% aerobic) it is a much more MAJOR change than it is for the slower 400m guy.

Many of our top 800 guys right now (Jonathan Johnson, Khadevis Robinson, Jearl Miles-Clark) are actually 400/800 people who moved up, mostly in college, and they just don't do the 400 part any more (not fast enough). This doesn't mean that they are running much in the way of mileage. But a straight 400 guy, without effectively any aerobic power development over years, is going to have a much more difficult time. It's even worse for the 200/400 guys (MJ, Wariner, Rock) who start with blistering 200's and have to add significant stamina even for 400.

You're kidding right? Look at the best runners in the world! They're running 120, 130 miles a week. And I'm willing to bet a lot of them, especially El G and the like, could run a pretty damn fast 400. Wariner couldn't touch him in an 800, unless he trained for it by running high miles. You can't run good times in a race longer than a 400 without miles, talent or no.