With the success of Disk’s thread on this fairly quiet forum I thought I might see if my story might generate any interest/discussion and in doing so, maybe I’ll be able to get some more direction with my training.

My name is Scott Clayton. I’m 21 years old and my 400m PB is 50.9 -16/02/08.

Throughout the 2008/09 season I moved from Melbourne over to Perth and didn’t really do much exercise. I just spent my days adjusting to the life of shift work and living off a typical first experience living out of home diet. It was cheap and fatty. Then I got onto the beers over summer and long story short I blew out to 95kg’s in April of 2009.
After making a trip back to Melbourne and have everyone gasp at the amount of weight I’d put on I decided enough was enough and to get back running and eating healthier. I set my sights on the Perth City to Surf 12km and the 12km leg of the Blackwood marathon(as I had done it the previous year for work). The regular long runs I had been doing starting at the beginning of May meant that I had started stripping a few kg’s and was getting aerobically fitter fairly quickly. This was the first time in my life I had ever done long runs. My previous athletics training had always had a 100/200 focus and any run longer than that was generally unheard of to me. Anyway come June I got to 13 in the beep test and at the end of August for the City to Surf I did the 12km in 50mins. Finally I felt and looked much better.

Come September I started doing my long runs every second or third day and between them I would run sessions I thought were more specific to 400m like:

2x(300,200,100,50)

2x200,100,50

400,300,200,100,200,300,400

3(4x150) jog b/n. 6min rest b/n sets

(3x300)x3

1000m, 800, 600, 400, 200, 60, 30 @ 75% (2.30 jog recovery)

8x200 30sec jog rec

Anyway as a result of lack of commitment, motivation and direction I probably never ran these sessions hard enough and barely did drills (if any at all) before them. I just thought after a few weeks of these sessions my speed would just come back quickly and naturally. I never trained very hard to pull out my 50.9 in 08.
I now weigh 85kg’s but I feel very weak compared to the 85 I weighed in 08…
So on the 23rd I ran my first 400m of the season. I honestly thought a realistic expectation for my opening 400m of the season was going to be around 52 seconds and by the end of the season, with consistent training I could go 49.5…boy was I wrong.
I ran it in 56.73 and I felt horrible the whole way around. I felt weak, powerless and slow. I drove home and did some 400m research on the internet and spoke to a couple of people. I read a little about Pure speed, speed endurance and Lactic Acid tolerance. After having a read I have pretty much decided that I need to get some speed back and I looked at doing a few of these sessions each week instead of what I was doing:

5 x 200m (7mins) (90% effort)

4 x 150m (15mins) (98% effort)

500, 300, 200 (20mins) (100%)

I would also incorporate the following after doing my run throughs and drills before some sessions..
4 x 30m from blocks
3 x flying 30m (with a 20m run up)
3 x 30 overspeed work (slightly downhill)


Haha so that’s the end of the story. If any of you got through all that please share your thoughts.

The basic outline of sessions looks fairly sound but it comes down to how well you balance the sessions into your program and obviously the execution of your sessions. The sessions you have been doing are actually really good background work for 400m but as you said you didn't really push yourself in these sessions so it may have not been at a speed fast enough to be specific to 400m racing. As nationals are not until april you have plenty of time to get into shape. Lets assume you are in 55 sec 400m shape now if you did another couple of races I would do the following training leading into April.
Nov through to Mid Jan
Sat - Short speed work like the 30m block work etc you outlined below
Sun- Tempo- Sessions up to 3000m in volume at 75% max speed for that distance (no quicker) with short recoveries. Eg starting at 10x200m and building to 15x200m with 30-45 sec rest. Lets say you can run 25 sec for an all out 200m then you would run these in 37.5 seconds. Your not aiming to kill yourself in this session so if you are struggling you should extend the recoveries initially.
Mon - Rest or maybe easy 20-30min run
Tues - I would keep on with something like the 3x3x300m session you have been doing and alternate with sessions like 6x200m with a slow 200 jog recovery at between 400-800m pace.
Wed - Tempo like Sunday
Thurs - Hills - 2x2x1min hill (jog back/20 mins rest). Try and run the hills at an honest pace so that your really needing to work hard on the final rep to maintain your pace in the last rep
Fri - Rest

Mid Jan - March
Sat- Compete or race stimulation sessions - 2x2x200m (1min/full recovery) - Aiming for 1st rep in each set to be at the first 200m pace of your 400s and then the fianl rep with whatever you have left
Sun- Tempo
Mon - speed
Tue - Rest or easy jog
Wed - 300m, 2x200m, 4x100m with long recoveries - Aim to run the 300m at 400 race pace and then the other reps at quicker than 400m race pace
Thurs - Tempo
Fri - Rest

March through to nationals
Sat - Compete
Sun - Tempo
Mon - Speed
Tues - Rest
Wed - I would alternate something like the 2x2x200m sessions from above with other stuff like 200, 180, 160, 140m 120m with good recoveries to be able to attack the reps. If racing on weekend I would probably do the latter session as the other one can take a while to recover from.
Thurs - tempo
Fri -Rest

I would also get a good gym program going at least 2x week up until April. Hope this is of some help.

A lot of these sessions are based off similar ideas to a program utilised by a fromer coach of a 44 sec 400m runner.

Sounds good , should incorporate Clyde Hart principle of rhythm running eg 10x200 @30 sec pace then at next phase 8x28 sec etc etc then every 3 onths depending on your speed and fitness reduce the time and reps with 3 min recovery.The importance of this exercise is to maintain even pace all the way with good technique.
I incorporated this training into my program and got down to 6x26 which was damn hard lol

One always hesitates to give advice without a personal knowledge of the athlete full situation, but I would agree with Bailey fan.
Clyde Hart principles are very sound as shown by the results his athletes gain.
If you have not already done so then you could study his training programs and see how you can adapt them to your personal situation and the West Australian track season.Look closely at his programs which contain a great balance of aerobic:anaerobic work.
From the comments you made I suspect that your aerobic work could have been made a little more specific to 400m needs.I suppose that your overweight problems(need to lose weight) along the way affected the type of aerobic work you did.
Again from your comments I suspect that you are really more of a" coming to the 400m event from a sprinters" physiology background.So train to your strengths.Hart's "intermittent aerobic" type of work
is probably better for you than the Lydiard "continuous aerobic" work you presumably did in order to race at 10-12K.
Good luck,you are a very young man and with an ability to race a decent 400m already shown in your
Victorian experience there sems no reason why you should not continue to progress into that sub 50s group.
Finally,at the level that you wish to achieve a good coach would be invaluable.Something to think about if you are self coached.

All that sounds pretty similar to what i've been doing. keep it up. it definitly works if you can keep your body together.

i've come from a 100/200 background and this year started training for 400s as a bloke i train with is involved with the 400m fast track program in nswis. We do a bit of work with all the nswis coaches and Mike Hurst who trained Darren Clarke.

my pb before any 400 training was 49.49 and this year i've only time trialed a 300 but got that down to 32.8. cant wait to race.

i guess we will be looking out for you pushing for a comm games 400m spot with that sort of 300m time.

mate i'd be stoked if anything like that happened. Got my first real 400 at the end of November. That'll be the real test

although 300m races are rare Rohan Robinson's best time was 32.9h

being able to run a 32.8 you are looking at possible 45 high 46 low. thats a big jump from 49.49

running anything under 33 for 300 is quality

i look forward to that haha.

I can definitly feel the longer work helping my 200s out aswell.
fingers crossed for a good season.

what are your 100m & 200m pb's