Figuring out best distance

I have found that my best distance is 962.78 meters. I am a solid 800-meter runner, but possess a bit more endurance than the other 800-meter runners. Likewise, I am decent at the mile, but I usually get tired after 3 laps.

It just takes running different distances and doing a lot of calculations.

Serious answers?

It depends on the specifics of the athlete: footspeed, endurance, strength, size.

Are you wondering about yourself? If so then give some stats.

fmr runner wrote:

It depends on the specifics of the athlete: footspeed, endurance, strength, size.

Are you wondering about yourself? If so then give some stats.

Yeah, I'm trying to find my own forte.

Footspeed...fair (40-300m. 55-400m)

Endurance...fair: can build up to solid distances at decent speeds over time, but tend to have a hard time with anything over 12 miles.

Strength...mediocre to poor. I can do 45 pushups...5-8 pullups...150 situps, but my coordination is pretty bad.

Size...6'2"....165. Long torso, thick legs.

what's your 200 or 400 PR?

25/55

bump

If you can run 25 then you have some good speed. You ough to be able to run a good 800m.

Sorry to tell you, but 25.0 for 200m is very, very average speed. You'd have virtually no chance of ever breaking 2:00 for 800 meters, which means you're wasting your time at that distance (unless you have two X chromosomes).

How about this: What distance do you LIKE running the best?

I've never trained for anything less than 5k, hence, the XX speed. And it's XY for the record. The 25 was in a week of 125 miles.

PRS:

23 something 200 (never raced it... just a split in my 400)

49.87 (49.7 4x4 split) 400m

1:51.87 800m

3:58.35 1500m

9:47 3200m (ran it in practice)

16:17 5k (junior in high school, havent run since)

5'7

145 lbs

Pushups: 90 in 2 minutes, 100 situps in 2 minutes

My general advice is always move up. The intro to "Run With The Best" says they think the Kenyans dominate because their 800m guys have speed that 400m guys usually have, which makes guys with 800m speed move up to the 1500m, then guys with 1500m speed move up to the steeple/5k, and so on.

Coe bucked that tradition. I know I'm not gonna set the world on fire...but at 165, going up doesn't seem like a real good choice. Plus, I live in the deep, hot south, so training for 10k+ is hard.

Then try the method that got me through high school math: guess and check.

Realist wrote:

Sorry to tell you, but 25.0 for 200m is very, very average speed. You'd have virtually no chance of ever breaking 2:00 for 800 meters...

I hope you're kidding. I have done numerous "all-out" 200's in practice and never run 25. Also I've raced 400's and never broken 55. I have broken 2:00, though not by much, and I don't have great endurance. If you can run 26.5, then you can run 56.0, which means you can break 2:00 with good training (4 seconds per lap rule). For someone with 25.0 speed, a 53.0 and potentially 1:54 are possible.

All things are not linear.

But if they were, a 24 second 200, a 38 second 300, and a 53 second 400 are in the range of a 2:00-flat 800 or a 2:37 1,000.

Then you have guys like Alberto Salazar whose 400 PR is supposedly 59 seconds, and yet he's run a 4:03 mile or thereabouts.

Oh fack. Closer to 39 for 300.

I've hit 26.3/41.3/57+/2:03/2:39+ and would have run faster in the longer stuff had cars and dogs not screwed me up.

[quote]Realist wrote:

Sorry to tell you, but 25.0 for 200m is very, very average speed. You'd have virtually no chance of ever breaking 2:00 for 800 meters....

[quote]

Damn, I wish you would have told me this in 1984, when I finally cracked 25 with a blazing 24.9. My 1:55 was probably downhill!