Running over 10,000 meters at 800m pace over the course of 1 week

do not do this please

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Online Coach 2018 wrote:

Day1 - 2x 500m @ 800 pace , 2mile jog

Day2- 3x 400m @ 800 pace, 2 mile jog

Day3- 4x300 @ 400 pace, 2mile jog

Day4- 5x 200@ all out, 2 mile jog

Day5- 6x100@all out, 2mile jog

Day6-10 miles.

Day7- 1 hour swim

repeat .

Do 8 weeks of this , say hello to a new PR.

This is crazy.

Do this , you still need time in the weight room.

lease wrote:

Some of Igloi's guys probably got in 10,000m (or more) of ~800m pace work during the course of a week.

Of course, they got a lot of *every* pace during the course of a week...

A lot comes down to how you get the mileage. Doing things like 8x100 on easy days doesn't take much out of you. And doing things like 10x200 are pretty doable. Even 6x300. You just got to be real carefull about those 400m+ runs as they take a ton out of you.

It is far from the dumbest 800m training idea I have seen.

Please quit annoying people on letsrun with your pointless posts. You're becoming more like Island by the minute

Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

But what really matters is just getting faster. Sprint! Drills, flying 30's, plyometrics. Move that 400m pb downward and the 800 will follow.

But that online coach 2018 chap publishing a program with anaerobic sprint work each day for five days is a recipe for a disaster. I don't know about you but I am not made of glue & rubber. I work on a one day hard, two days aerobic, cycle. Improving speed comes from frequency and stride length, the first improves with drills, the latter improves with hills/steps and gym work also range of motion exercises.

600 to 1200 meters at mostly 400 pace or slower is not stressful at all. There should be recovery days ideally but a few hundred meters at pace is leagues better than 10,000.

2x500 or 3x400 is far more "aerobic" than any long or tempo run. You use more energy anaerobically, but you use more aerobically too. And it's race specific.

Training for 800m with long runs is like training for powerlifting with pushups.

You need more Marshall Burt and less Igloi.

jamin wrote:

Genius?

As many pointed out, it certainly isn't original (running high volume, many days a week, of fast paced repetitions). But trying to incorporated quite a few 300/400/600 goal-pace-for-800 reps into a week will likely be too hard.

As those others pointed out, the gold-standard of high volume "fast/quality" reps is igloi. (and Schul's interpretation/variation of his coach's methods). But they weren't trying to knock out tons of 800 pace reps. More like 5k pace, or a little faster. And Schul, when he went on his own, did mostly 100's, which kept him from going too "lactic", allowed for quicker recovery, keeping him fresh, allowing him to then do higher volume. He did these high volume 100 rep workouts twice a day for weeks on end!

I guess the equivalent, if there was one, for 800 training would be to do something like 50 m reps. Not all out sprinting, but 800 pace mostly, and stopping before HR gets too high, recover on short walk, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. (but like I said, what worked for 5k for schul, there maybe not be a variation that really works for 800. I know Gray said he trained in the "igloi" method, but that was more about the variation in long easy strides vs short quick ones and running by feel)

Law of specificity. The more time your body spends getting use to race pace the more comfortable it will become. I think this type of training is worth a shot for all runners with min 2 years training under their belt. I'm sure everyone will scream overtraining and injury etc. but again, law of specificity. Simulate the race pace as much as possible

I don't think day 1 or 2 are that awful.

I used to frequently do 4x400m at a little faster than 800m pace with two laps jog recovery. Another was 1x600m and 2x300m at 800m pace. I don't recall either as being particularly horrendous.

I'm not so sure about the wisdom of doing a bunch of these type of things back-to-back. We used to be on two rep session + a race, or three rep sessions a week.

i like this a lot wrote:

Law of specificity. The more time your body spends getting use to race pace the more comfortable it will become. I think this type of training is worth a shot for all runners with min 2 years training under their belt. I'm sure everyone will scream overtraining and injury etc. but again, law of specificity. Simulate the race pace as much as possible

You are not supposed to be comfortable in an 800. Simulating race pace for 12 times the race distance is not simulating the race.

Bad Wigins wrote:

2x500 or 3x400 is far more "aerobic" than any long or tempo run. You use more energy anaerobically, but you use more aerobically too. And it's race specific.

Training for 800m with long runs is like training for powerlifting with pushups.

I don't agree. It's true you use more energy aerobically compared to a long/tempo run, though not any more than you would with threshold or faster.

That said, the 800 has a HUGE aerobic contribution. For a 2' race, you're able to utilize close to 3/4 of your aerobic energy. I'd guess somewhere around 50-60% of your power is coming from aerobic energy.

Developing your aerobic ability is identical to developing your 10k/10M ability. Purely from an aerobic standpoint, whatever trains you best for 10k/10M/half is what raises threshold the most. Now, this ignores specificity and the need to maintain things like speed, anaerobic ability, etc.; so I'm not suggesting you go out and do long runs and a bunch of that sort of work, because I don't know 800m running well enough to know the impacts of those factors on each other.

I would suspect you could do very well at 800 taking 3-4 months focused primarily on training like a 10k guy, but with a little lower mileage thrown in, and also adding a weekly workout like 2-6x400m at 95% of 400m speed for maintaining anaerobic capacity along with some light sprint work. After that period, 4-6 weeks of sharpening focused primarily on anaerobic capacity and energy production, i.e. your usual hard 800m sh1t.

This assumes the runner is an anaerobic oriented type guy with lots of room to develop aerobically. A big engine 800 guy probably wouldn't need as much of that sort of work and could benefit from working more on his anaerobic and, likely, speed side.

800 running is interesting too in that speed is a huge limiter. If that's a weakness, then my guess would be that should be one of the primary areas of focus. Your not running say, 1:50 if you're a 53s 400m runner. And in most cases people are slow 400m runners not because of limited anaerobic capacity but because of speed limitations. However, you could have someone that would run something like 11s flying 100, 25s flying 200, and then 54 second 400. That person has speed, but lacks anaerobic capacity.

I mean even 400 reps of 57-58 shouldn’t be too hard for someone who runs the 800 a lot. I like old fashion workouts like 20x200. That makes it very easy to hit the paces you needed. One day you could do 20x200, a day off, then 10x200, then two off and finish with 5x200 5X400 5x200. Shouldn’t be too difficult. Honestly you’ll be better off as a miler or 5k with this workout.

But what is the recovery between each rep?

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

Have you learned nothing from when you posted on my sub 4:24 mile thread last year and everyone explained to you that your 8x200m and your three pace workouts per week were idiotic?

Of course long term this plan is trash. You may get some good results early on. I say go for it but keep us updated. Run a time trial every couple weeks. You won't be able to sustain this but I'm interested nonetheless.

Hmm...Based on that thread you initially struck me as a nice guy. Perhaps I was mistaken, as you failed to communicate without insults.

What I like about it, and this is something that seems neglected by a lot of training methods, is that it could build mental toughness.

Most training programs don’t train you to be pain resistant....I mean that in all seriousness

Workouts like 8x165 all out, every step, every rep, make you an animal.

When you get to the starting line, your biggest asset is beleiving, or even knowing, you can handle more discomfort than anyone else.... Lydiard is great physiologically, but there are very few sessions of intense mental pain.

You’ll all probably think this is a troll, but if you want 1:56 in a week, light a strike anywhere match, set it on your forearm and watch it slowly burn down the wood stem. Do that a few times, don’t flinch.

Make that 6x100 a little bit longer. Instead of thinking you need to get fit, think you need to become animalistic.

So we all agree Jamin should use my program. Running is mornings , PM is :

Day 1 - Yoga

Day2 - Weights

Day3 - Pilates

Repeat

Day 7 evening Off.

Online Coach 2018 wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

600 to 1200 meters at mostly 400 pace or slower is not stressful at all. There should be recovery days ideally but a few hundred meters at pace is leagues better than 10,000.

2x500 or 3x400 is far more "aerobic" than any long or tempo run. You use more energy anaerobically, but you use more aerobically too. And it's race specific.

Training for 800m with long runs is like training for powerlifting with pushups.

So we all agree Jamin should use my program. Running is mornings , PM is :

Day 1 - Yoga

Day2 - Weights

Day3 - Pilates

Repeat

Day 7 evening Off.

Pilates and weights back to back? You madman.

For the sake of argument, let's suppose you have 2 runners training for the 800m. Let's say their only workouts at around 800m pace are

Runner 1: Once per week, an all-out 800m

Runner 2: Every day, 10x100m with 1:00 rest, focusing on smooth form

and let's say that in they train like XC runners outside of those workouts. I think Runner 2 will beat Runner 1 because Runner 2's muscle are more adapted to running at that speed.

My advice: Scrap the short distances and hit the roads like the rest of us has beens.