Dalilah Muhammad believes she could break 2:00 in the 800; ran 12x400 avg. 71 with minute rest

LM wrote:

Curious Joge wrote:

Can any of you run 12x400 with 1:00 rest faster than your mile pace?

If she’s a sub 4:50 miler she can definitely break 2:00 with her 50-flat open 400 speed. I bet she could run 2:06 in the 800m hurdles if that was an actual race.

Yes, especially if those 1' recoveries are walked. I could do 6×800 w/2' walk a little faster than mile pace as well.

With an honest jog around 8'pace it would get close, but I could still manage a little faster. Maybe a 1-2s a lap (probably closer to 1).

With a walk....4-5s a lap or so. Comes down to your characteristics as a runner...aerobic guys would absolutely not be able to do that. If you have a massive anaerobic cap, those fast workouts can be blown out of the water with any decent amount of rest.

Sounds like you could do about what she did then. If 5:05 is really her max, which is hard to believe if she does it consistently in practice, that would be about 76 per lap and then she averaged 4-5 seconds faster for that 12x4 workout.

Either way I could see her breaking 2:00 in a well paced race where the winners go 1:58-1:59

From timescalculator.appspot.com

With a 50.0 400m, to break 2:00 you need 4:42.5 for a mile. It is dubious that she could break 4:45 in a mile, so I think she could not run sub-2:00. She could be close, though.

Curious Joge wrote:

Can any of you run 12x400 with 1:00 rest faster than your mile pace?

If she’s a sub 4:50 miler she can definitely break 2:00 with her 50-flat open 400 speed. I bet she could run 2:06 in the 800m hurdles if that was an actual race.

This has always been my favorite workout. I always found that it translated very closely to my 1500m pace. When I can run under 2:00 800m, I'm doing at least 64s/65s all the way though, so I don't understand how 71s can translate to sub-2:00 800m, but she's coming from the sprinting side and I'm coming from the 1500m side... so who knows...

intenserunner wrote:

Curious Joge wrote:

Can any of you run 12x400 with 1:00 rest faster than your mile pace?

If she’s a sub 4:50 miler she can definitely break 2:00 with her 50-flat open 400 speed. I bet she could run 2:06 in the 800m hurdles if that was an actual race.

This has always been my favorite workout. I always found that it translated very closely to my 1500m pace. When I can run under 2:00 800m, I'm doing at least 64s/65s all the way though, so I don't understand how 71s can translate to sub-2:00 800m, but she's coming from the sprinting side and I'm coming from the 1500m side... so who knows...

12x4 in 64-65 with a minute rest to barely dip under 2:00? What can you run the 400 in when in that sort of shape? And you’re in about 4:00 1500 shape when doing that?

This is likely the best overall range ever by a woman for shorter track events:

100 Metres 11.88 0.0 Knoxville, TN (USA) 10 APR 1998 1015

200 Metres 23.03 +0.6 Gainesville, FL (USA) 19 APR 1997 1131

300 Metres 36.07 Sydney (AUS) 14 SEP 2000 1172

400 Metres 49.40 Indianapolis, IN (USA) 14 JUN 1997 1230

800 Metres 1:56.40 Zürich (SUI) 11 AUG 1999 1228

1500 Metres 4:31.41 Knoxville, TN (USA) 11 APR 2003 966

Based on this, if Dalilah can run 4:30 for 1500 (which I think she can), then she certainly can go sub-2:00, at least with a bit of focused training/racing at that distance.

Am I the only one thinking she should be doing 71s 400s in her sleep?

Cmon this workout was probably easy for her

alabama runner wrote:

From timescalculator.appspot.com

With a 50.0 400m, to break 2:00 you need 4:42.5 for a mile. It is dubious that she could break 4:45 in a mile, so I think she could not run sub-2:00. She could be close, though.

That calculator assumes a linear drop off from 400 to 800 to mile but her drop off would likely be curvilinear.

She can break 2 wrote:

Am I the only one thinking she should be doing 71s 400s in her sleep?

Cmon this workout was probably easy for her

Nah it's pretty short rest, and shes not coming from the aerobic side. If you are a 16:00-16:30 5K runner yes that workout is pretty easy. Can tell you when I was a 2:00/4:35 type high school junior, I would've been able to do it but by #8-11 it would've been hard.

Curious Joge wrote:

Can any of you run 12x400 with 1:00 rest faster than your mile pace?

If she’s a sub 4:50 miler she can definitely break 2:00 with her 50-flat open 400 speed. I bet she could run 2:06 in the 800m hurdles if that was an actual race.

She would be pretty close. If she can run say 49.5 and 4:50 then she’s gonna run 2:01 or so.

This website is good for estimating:

She could just run an 800m race during indoor season.

The workout she posted actually suggest she could run a much faster mile. With that aerobic capability in mind and being capable of running 52x over hurdles, I think she could run 1:59 under the right circumstances. I don't think it would happen in the way she perhaps thinks it would. Her recent workouts would have to have been over-distance, perhaps not 12x400s, which is more suited for a miler, but instead, 6-8 x 400s averaging 60 seconds. That the kind of workout a sub-2 800 H.S. boy would do. And, she would have to be in a race where she dose not have to worry about 800m tactics and can just tuck in behind a 800m vet. I think Dalilah could certainty jump into an early season 800 and run 2:02/2:03 under just about any circumstance, but getting to 1:59 won't be easy. Btw, there is a side of my that says don't doubt the world record holder in the longest anaerobic event, but she has run 11.4 in the 100m which tells me she is a sprinter, which actually works against her in the 800. I have seem 'true' sprinter 400/400h types would you suspect a decent 800 should be a breeze, but at the point the starts to tap into their aerobic systems they nearly shut down. - granted, some of this is mental

She could probably run sub 2 in an 800. 400 meter hurdlers are beasts, and her 400 and 400 hurdles times are extremely elite. Plus her body type is good (same height and similar frame as Ajee Wilson). That being said, she should run an 800 indoors as part of her off season training if she cares to prove it. On the men's side you can look at a guy like Joey Woody (now head coach at Iowa) who was a world championship silver medalist in the 400 hurdles, but also ran on the 4X800 world record relay team and ran 1:47 indoors in the 800.

not how it works !!! wrote:

team Unruly Bush wrote:

You know what's easier than a 12x400 workout? Entering a local early season meet and running an 800.

Four-hundred metres & 400mH athletes do better in 400m repeat workouts than 400m & 400mH athletes are able to race 800m. Post an 8K or five mile tempo run by D Mohammed in sub-30 minutes before I believe D Mohammed is near elite 800m fitness.

This a ridiculous premise. There are several 800 runners who can break two or close to it that struggle running 6 minute pace for threshold. What a ridiculous post with zero clue of how 800 training should work.

It's also worth noting that she could run 400 hurdles faster than most 1:59 male 800 runners on the boards could run a flat 400.

That's beside the point. SMU and Naser are considerably faster in the flat 400m and it's not obvious that they would run sub 2. Sprinter 200/400 types often cannot do it, despite marvellous speed.

I see 12x400 (1 minute jog) in 70-72 as the workout of a low 4:40s runner. With a sub 50 carry in Doha and 52.1 400mH best, in a thin sprinter, I see a sub-2 capacity. Men's 800m runners are slowing about 5-7 seconds per lap from their 400m bests. Brazier-45/51; Korir-44/51; Coe-45.5-50.8, Amos-44-45/50.8. She'd just have to hold that to just under 10 seconds.

If she can run under 2 flat, then she's a world class 800 runner and can get into Diamond League meets. Don't think she's that good. Running 800 meters is not the same as running 400H. They're different events requiring specialized training. If skills carried over they'd be a lot more 800 runners with 400H background, but I don't think there's a single one. There's very few 400 flat runners who moved up to 800 and were successful.

LM wrote:

Curious Joge wrote:

Can any of you run 12x400 with 1:00 rest faster than your mile pace?

If she’s a sub 4:50 miler she can definitely break 2:00 with her 50-flat open 400 speed. I bet she could run 2:06 in the 800m hurdles if that was an actual race.

Yes, especially if those 1' recoveries are walked. I could do 6×800 w/2' walk a little faster than mile pace as well.

With an honest jog around 8'pace it would get close, but I could still manage a little faster. Maybe a 1-2s a lap (probably closer to 1).

With a walk....4-5s a lap or so. Comes down to your characteristics as a runner...aerobic guys would absolutely not be able to do that. If you have a massive anaerobic cap, those fast workouts can be blown out of the water with any decent amount of rest.

BS. 6x800m with 2 rec faster than mile race pace. You have no clue what you are talking about. A challenging workout is 10X400m at mile race pace with 2 min rest. You think you can sling 6X800 @ mile race pace ? hahaha with 2 min rec?

I could do 12 x 400 in 65-66 with 200 jog (in about 65 seconds so similar to 60 seconds standing rest). I had decent wheels and I was in 1:56-57 shape at the time. Perhaps she can break 2:00 but not on the basis of that workout.

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

Great SI Profile here:

https://www.si.com/olympics/2019/08/07/dalilah-muhammad-400-meter-hurdles-world-record-lawrence-johnson-analysis

Expect most of us distance fans will get geeked up over her workouts:

"Muhammad spent the fall of 2018 focusing on strength and foundational work during long and arduous training days. Among the early workouts that stuck out were multiple 12 x 400-meter sessions with 60 seconds rest. Each lap had to be run between 70 and 72 seconds. She would nail the times and come back the next day to run a mile time trial anywhere from 5:07 to 5:17. For 800-meter work, she could comfortably run 2:06 and she believed in a race, she’d dip under two minutes."