300m test time vs. 400m race?

I’m a 400m runner trying to get sub 49,0 this summer. My personal best is 49,85 which I ran last year. I’ve run 300m at 35,6 in practise and I would be curios to know anyone’s times in 300m and also what time you’ve run in the 400m race.

Last yr. ive gone 35.9 in practice and a week later ran 49.8. But went out in 22.5 and died the last 150. Also this year indoors ive run 35.9 the first meet of the season in competition (our only chance to run 300 meters) and i ran the 4x4 3 times and split 50.5.
Id say with a 35.6 in training you should have a good shot in going sub 49 especially if you can go out at that pace. My teamate last week who has a 200 p.r. of 21.59 last week split 47.4 and he went out in 22.2 and 34.4.

Hey Quick, are you at Moorhead State?

nah. Cortland.

I have a 300m time of 35.4 but I die over the last 100m! My 400m time is 52.48!

i’'ve run 34.7(with a running start) and my 400m opb is 49.66 flat and i;ve split 48.7

There is no direct correlation without knowing the state of endurance on the other side. If someone is a strong performer at 600m, then the 300m times won’t need to be as fast to get a good 400m result. Also there’s a difference between males and females. An example from my experience was 35.2 with a 49.91 400m for a woman.

I know it’s off the subject but what is a relay split from a 4 x 4 worth(second, third, or fourth leg) vs. an open 400m time? I’ve heard, depending of course upon the performance level, that it is a difference of about .7 faster for men and .9 faster for women or just .7 to .9 as a general range for all. Any ideas?

The problem with relay splits is that not everyone runs the same distance and on top of that it takes away the mental stress and other factors involved in the start. Therefore without seeing it on tape or in person no assumptions can be made.

As long as you time the baton when it crosses the line regardless of who is carrying it in the 4 x 4, each athlete is being timed over the same distance. Still, just looking for a decent estimate as to what the difference is between a second, third or fourth leg of a 4 x 4 and an open 400m time.

I would suspect that the diff might be smaller for women due to strength issues, though I havn’t really been able to come up with any conclusions.

Thanks Charlie. While I’m off the subject of this thread again, I’d like to know if you count build-up numbers of say 6 x 60m (that you indicated as part of WU II) as par of the overall sprint volume for that day. I did not think that buildup numbers were included in the total but wanted to see what you do in this case. Especially since some do include the B-U distances as part of the total volume of sprint work.

I’d start from the end of the WU.

A single 300m race isn’t enough to estimate 400m potential, you need to test for example 3 x 300m or 300-300-200.
Two retired 400m female specialists (1 sub 49 and a low 49) told me that their best 300m in practice was equal to their 300m intermediate time during 400m PB. One was endurance-type and the other speed-type. However,for elite female in general, the difference between 300m training trial and 300m intermediate time is in the 0 to 1 second range.

I think it may be more important to monitor the testing from year to year in regards to the athlete. As C.F. said some runners are more strength based IE good 600 runners. Others may be sprinters trying to move up. So the real discrepancy in the final 400 time of the athlete is likely to occur in the final 100m of the actual race.

But if your athlete is able to drop his time from say a test of 36.0 in year one and a 49.0 400 race result in year one,and the next year he TT’s a 35.3 at relatively the same time of year you can expect him to run a faster 400 when he races.

To me the value of testing is more looking at how the athlete progresses or regressess from year to year.vs what a tt can predict for a race.

Hi Guys,

I have had pretty good results in predicting a decent 400m time with a 2x300m format.

Most of the time if I can get within 1 sec on back to back with a 3 min RI and 95% effort, I know my 400m is coming around.

If this ability to have very close repeating 300m times isn’t yet present (meaning I die on the second one), the last 100m doesn’t even matter because the results of the 300-300 spread will just be amplified in that last 100m.

so what is your calculation?

What? Are you guys serious? I must just suck then. I ran 34.8 (more like 34.4 because they pressed the stop watch very late). I don’t think I could ever break 50.

When I was 16 years old I ran 300m in 35.03 and 400m in 48.30. Electronic timing.

I wouldn’t say you suck. You just arn’t very fit. I have never coached a person who could run 35point for 300 and not run under 50. A few have even run 47point.