Why am I not seeing results in my top speed?

Your FT fibers and sprint central nervous system are probably tired. The combination of two weekly all out sprint sessions (especially 8x100m) and a lot of lifting will fatigue you. If you want to see faster race times, you need to dial the sprint volume way back for 2-3 weeks.

I only had one week, which was last week, where I did two sprint sessions. Two lifting sessions a week seems pretty conservative to me, to clarify I don't do all of the lifts I mentioned before in the same day. What is an ideal balance for a distance runner looking to improve their speed? I'd love to hear your thoughts on effective strategies for this since I'm a huge beginner in speed and power development.

That sucks.

I also have terrible top speed, but haven’t made any effort to change that.

There is no way to significantly increase top end speed. It's a function of the combination of fast and slow twitch muscles and no training will ever change that.

The best analogy I can think of is throwing ability in baseball. Lifting weights or throwing heavier objects doesn't make any difference. Outfielders Khris Davis and Aaron Hicks are about the same size, but Hicks has been clicked at 105mph for throws from the outfield compared to 70mph for Davis.

Your reps are too high for it to be a true max effort

Try 4 x 30m instead

Or

3 x 100m with 10 minute rests

Jai wrote:

Your reps are too high for it to be a true max effort

Try 4 x 30m instead

Or

3 x 100m with 10 minute rests

That`s true ! You have to do only 3-4 x 30 m all outs.

There's no point to doing that stuff.

You should focus on your 800 and 1500 / mile training.

Agreed!

try doing harder workouts that are focused towards your events, for some runners, the top speed is natural and for others, they have to work for it.

try doing something like:

4x400m with 3minutes rest (at a fast pace)

4x800m at mile pace with 5-10 minutes rest

4x300m with 2 minutes rest at mile pace

you need to work on your lactic acid

4:57 guy wrote:

That sucks.

I also have terrible top speed, but haven’t made any effort to change that.

His top speed definitely isn’t “terrible” if he is sub 4:10 or close. Or he is the next Seth hirsch lol, but even he didn’t quite go 4:10

Train what is trainable, OP (threshold, aerobic).

As Aztec said, sprint speed is genetic. It's why the world top 100m list is dominated by athletes of west African descent. Whitey can train all day, don't make a difference.

You would be MUCH better served using that physical and mental energy to train your threshold.

I DO believe you should train sprint speed 1x week or every 2 weeks, but it is icing on the cake, NOT something to be spending multiple sessions per week on. There's no bang for the buck, as you have already found out.

Sprint speed is genetic. Vo2 max is largely genetic. What you CAN improve, hugely, is your fitness. Spend your time doing TONS of threshold--multiple sessions per week. Practice race pace in small amounts at the end of easy days or threshold days. Like 2-4x 400m. 4-6x200m. Strides or top speed at the end of easy days.