John
March 4, 2009, 2:53pm
3
How much of a benefit is there to running a 400 prior to a 200m? Over the years i’ve noticed a pattern of athletes(at least mine) running pr’s or near pr’s after running a 400m earlier in the day. But that is rarely ever the case for 100m athletes.
As an example, we’ve seen athletes pull out of the 100 or 200 in order to focus on one or the other. And we’ve seen 100/200 doublers seemingly have a little trouble coming back to do the 200m after running rounds of the 100. Since there are very few(very few)200/400 doubles at major championships, we don’t really have a good frame of reference.
Michael Johnson, Marie Jose Perec, Cathy Freeman come to mind right away.
Some of the suggestions for this have been pretty simple. I’ve been told that it’s a simple matter of being warmed up. Which obviously makes sense. But I think it’s a little more going on than simply warming up. I’m sure 3-4 rounds of the 400m prior to the 200m did a little more than warm MJ & Perec up. I think there may be a little more going on physiological than that, but i’m no expert in that area. Just the ladies;)
Seeing as how the 100 & 400m affect the body in different ways(fatigue)would the 100m leave you with “less” going into a 200 than a 400m? Is there a physical adaptation that takes place after running the 400m whether a single race or rounds, prior to running a 200m that leads to an actual benefit in running the 200m.
excellent question and a recent post stated Joel Milburn from Aus ran a 200m PB 20 or 30 (can’t recall which) after a 400m. While not at any decent level I ran a SB 200m less than 20 mins (still breathing hard on line) after a 400m.
There is also the matter of Marita Koch running a 300m 60 or so mins prior to her 400m WR.