My name is Jaime Lopez de Egea, I am 62 years old and I was an elite athlete, in the Junior category. In 1974 I made 1'47''9, (I think that in that year the senior world record was about 1'43'') with the training that I am going to expose. My coach at that time was Antonio Amoros, who was 2nd in a Cross of Nations, current cross world championship, and he was trained by Gerschler and Reindell, creators of interval training. It took me several years to understand why I made this mark with that training (from my point of view).
The reason why I put it in this forum is for you to give an opinion of the training.
January, February, March and April of 1974. Winter season training and cross competition.
May, June and July of 1974:
Monday: 40 x 100 m with a pace of 13’’ recovering 100 m running slow.
Tuesday: 20 x 200 m with a pace of 28'' recovering 45 '' stopped.
Wednesday: 15 x 300 m with a pace of 45'' recovering 1 minute stopped.
Thursday: 2 x 2000 m with a pace of 5'45'' recovering 4 minutes stopped.
Friday: 12 x 400 m at 1'01'' recovering 1'15'' stopped.
Saturday: BREAK
Sunday: 1 hour and 15 minutes running slow for mountain circuit.
My opinion is:
1º Absence of the speed endurance, but the Monday training of 13'' rhythm are 4000 m with a pace of 1'44'', therefore the body has a training of the characteristic stride and arm from the 800m high level.
2º During the rest of the week, thanks to the intervals, a high-end aerobic resistance is achieved.
Conclusion: I think that aerobic capacity is very important for the 800m because in the end it does not win the fastest but the one that is able to have better oxygen exchange capacity of the cells. And in reference to the 4000m (40x100) is like training the muscles for the 800m high-level rhythm, because it is not an anaerobic training since there is 100m to run slow to recover and the fast distance is very short, but I think it's like introducing into the memory of the muscle the speed of the middle-distance runner.