Hi all.

Long time lurker but have joined up to post a question regarding people's thoughts on improving a 400m sprinters "endurance" for the 800m.

Essentially the athlete in question (no it is not myself!) is aged 38. He can run 400m in about 54-55secs, yet his 800m times are abut 2m6s-2m8s.

Not 100% sure on the ratio, but I was lead to believe that a 400m+6secs x 2 gave an idea of the 800m time (in this case a 2m-2m2s 800m).

From speaking to him, he is dead keen on running a sub 2 min 800m. He informs me that he trains by himself (as where he lives they do not have a track club or any form of senior athletics). He states that he is always worried about his pacing due to his ability of not training with others.

He runs on a heavy grass track that is sand based - interestingly he informs me that running on tartan results in approximately 4-5s difference that his grass track over 400m i.e. a 60s grass time would be 55-56s on tartan.

Looking at him run, his flexibility is poor. He has good upper body strength, but seems "robotic" in his action i.e. not smooth - almost like a power athlete trying to run the 800m. It appears his knee lift is higher than required and a smoother leg turnover would assist.

Curiously he tells me that he "fears" the second 400m. This was noticeable in his race on the weekend end where he ran the first lap in 60-61secs smoothly, then literally he slowed down between the 400m-600m mark (he believes to conserve energy for a kick in the last 100-150m). He believes he is stronger but is scared to push through the 400-600m mark. His training doesn't really exceed 600m - he feels scared to run hard over this distance.

Which goes to my question - what would be good training (both physical and psychological) is getting this athlete to go through the last lap. I thought of him running negative splits - to overcome his fear of training over 600m, such as doing 1klm runs with the second 500m done faster than the first (a Pat Carroll favourite). Or doing say a 600m-800m run with a 200m hill sprint.

I would rather not go into the issue of aerobic versus anaerobic training for the 800m here - the focus is on "toughening" up this fellow. I know he observes these forums so he can get feedback by observing but I do have his email so I can pass on the information or direct him here for comments.

Welcome , i also lurked around this forum too lol, maybe get him doing 10x400 reps at a certain pace, not too sure but there are pleeeenty of experienced coachess and runners on this forum that have a wealth of knowledge regarding the 800, this thread will prolly become massive

He needs to get into town and bust a few sessions with other athletes. Where abouts is his exact location?

The choice is his either way, go harder and get serious or accept lesser results.

10 x 400 is a poor suggestion i would say

i think its pretty simple if its a mental issue and not a physical one then get him to do some flat out 600's running hard all the way through with a long recovery in between. that should get him used to pushing through the 400-600 mark.

the 600 run with a 200 hill sprint is also a really good idea, assuming that the hill sprint is placed at the end.

another thing to do might involve some cheering from people he knows from the 400 mark onwards to get him going, could possibly work

How do you know its a mental issue?

The way I see it it seems his problem is that he isn't fit enough and his endurance sucks. get the bloke out running tempo runs of 20mins holding his heart rate just below threshold.

Get him doing long runs.

Get his endurance up, then once he is fit enough he will be able to hold it for the entire 800m. If he can run 54-55 sec 400m, then breaking 2mins should be easy as, as long as he is fit enough, which clearly he isn't

I would assume its mental as well, only becuase the original post said he was scared and had a fear or running that distance.

I think a good session would be;

600m TT / walk 300m / 300m race pace / walk 150m / 150m Fast

My bad, I missed that bit

get him to do 900m runs.

i had the same problem a few years back with a 400m runner, we did heaps of 300m and he always blew up at the 350m mark.

shooter i have no idea how you missed the fact that it was a mental issue, it's written everywhere haha.