Rower-turned-runner Ollie Slack is 10 days away from his debut Marathon in Rome. Tonight is quality training; one of the last speed sessions before the big day.
Opening up with a 1 mile warm-up, Slack then continues to reel off 3 reps of 1200’s with 15 minute breaks. These long breaks allow him to perform at a searing pace of 83 sec/400m. The fact that these intervals are run on a treadmill make it possible for him to maintain even pace throughout.
By the 3rd run, the leviathan Slack with the 26 inch thighs still seems unlaboured in his footstrike. Even though he had rolled over his ankle in November of '06, it was now a thing of the past and his new-found confidence was screaming at him to force the pace over the last 400 of the evening to an 80 sec clocking.
A jog/walk cooldown and a stretch, followed by a shower of hot and colds (an aspect of the training that I can’t really monitor but one that he claims that he does) brings the last speed session of the week to a close. Tomorrow is rest and Sunday an easy 70% of max 4 miler.
just to throw my 2 cents in, the 800 is vastly different from even the 400 and certaintly the 100.
lynaiard made a comment in the 60/70’s about the vast number of people who could break 46 in the world, when compared to breaking 1:44(6 seconds slower for 2 laps).
the endurance base needed is huge & can’t be met by tempo or low milage distance training.
i can only think of junoaerta(sp), johnny grey and perhaps one or 2 other americans who did the whole interval style training stuff and succeded… perhaps borshakovsy(sp… the 2004 gold medalist). but by and large the event has been dominated by distance runners with great foot speed and not stretched out sprinters.
no guy that was solidly in the interval camp and didn’t have a distance background has ever broken 1:43(yes i know we’re not talking about olympic level performances but still…). where as kipketer went 1:41.1 before he got malaria.
supposedly wilson had something like 30k lifetime miles(read it on letsrun.com so don’t shoot me…) by the end of his career. thats more than 120,000 repeat 400’s.
its intresting to watch the 800 at the college and high school level. some sprint types… i.e. michael granville(tons of records but total burnout and was horrible in college…) dominated in high school. but if you look at the world juniors, the americans get destroyed by the guys with distance backgrounds. alan webb, granville would be the only Americans who could of compeated with that in the past 10-15 years, granville being the interval freak with 46 second quarter speed and webb being able to split a 47 at the end of his state meet and run a 3:53 mile at pre classic. both expetional talents obviously, but webb more in the mold of the east&north africans in terms of his training.
basicly to sum it up, a distance type 800m runner can get away with having a lot less footspeed than an interval type.
in high school 47-48 second 400m guys who focus on the 800 will run 1:50’s when guys with 49-50 split’s as their pr’s will run 1:51’s.
Some good points d_nasty and possibly more than the interval / tempo type focus perhaps the greatest factor from CF training could be the incorporation of all elements all year, particularly speed work. Many mid distance people train X country over winter and do no speed work, let alone weights or med ball work.
Below from a post I made last year following a dinner I attended where Steve Ovett was the guest speaker.
[i]
The whole Ovett V Coe rivalry was pretty much a beat up by the media. It was a friendly rivalry rather than animosity and they get on pretty well now. They only raced each other on the track 5 or 6 times. This wasn’t due to them avoiding each other but different prep. Coe was mainly a sprinter and indoor runner who came into the season very race fit. Ovett was more a cross country / road runner who came into the season strong but not very fast and it took him a long time to get into racing shape to run a decent mile or 800m. It would have been stupid for him to have try and tackle Coe early in the season. They raced in cross country and road races and Ovett won every one of those.
He and Coe stole a march on the competition for a few years as they trained harder and it took them a year or so to catch up. They (C&O) won a lot of races because the others couldn’t match them in fitness or speed. But after 2 or 3 years the others caught up. If you raise the bar, people rise to that. After that competition became pretty tough and races harder to win.
The UK is not producing world-class middle distance athletes (same for sprinters???) as the work ethic has gone. Athletes today want results and expect it to be given to them on a plate. When he was competing they didn’t expect anything, they trained hard because they enjoyed it. It was what you had to do to produce success. Earning a living from it was a bonus. Now there so much publicity about money that young runners think about how much they can earn and get side tracked into thinking about that and not getting the results first.
What is needed to beat the African domination? Run faster! There is no other secret formula. You just have to train and race harder.
He got into middle distance and met his coach, Harry Wilson, as a 15 year old when he was invited to a training camp. He caught the wrong train and was late. The first person he met was Wilson and Ovett told him he was in the sprinting group. Wilson told him it was full but took pity on him and told him to join his middle distance group. He had trained as a sprinter and wasn’t used to 1000m reps with short recovery. On the 3rd one he lost consciousness and didn’t remember much after that. When he came to and the mist cleared he remembers Wilson leaning over him as he was vomiting violently on the ground. Wilson told him he has a future in middle distance running.
One week he thought he would see how far he could run and started off running 15 miles (24k) in morning and 15 later on in the day. The first few days were pretty tough but after that it became not too bad. He eventually did 225 miles (400k) and could have done that on a regular basis but thought’ what’s the point?’ too many athletes nowadays are overcoached and told exactly what to do. They need to find out more about themselves.[/i]
NZ has a proud history in middle distance due to the Lydiard influence yet went through lean times in the 80’s and 90’s when there was less emphasis on mileage. Interestingly every mid distance person I know who has had a real improvement claims it has been due to an increase in the volume of long runs. That all said many confuse long runs with easy running. Lydiard himself said they aren’t the same (just like CF says about tempo not necessarily being easy) he also had a large component of speed and other work all year round with guys like Snell running 100m in local club meets as well as 2+ hour runs.
good points guys. I was thinking yesterday, how many Sprinter types, interval types etc dont say about the 30k+ of long runs they do each week because of the “its only a easy run, i dont really count it” mentality? 5k warm up, 2k warm down. With hard intervals inbetween. Those small k’s start adding up.
I believe it is considered similar, but that depends on the athlete you have wanting to train for it.
A distance runner coming into 800 would have a larger endurance base and the 400-sprinter type much less. In saying that though the theory of them running a similar 800 time is plausable. Just depends on where you look at it from or come from in terms of past years training.
—Yah but the guys winning the races now-a-days are sayin’ it’s a short race.—
The main reason I think that it is so hard for a 400 runner to get kicked up to the 800 is because of the energy demands. In the 400 you spend anywhere from 3-10 seconds in massive O2 debt. I remember reading in that crazy Lactate Threshold thread that a 45~ second 400 runner has a lot different energy demands from a 51+~ 400 runner. A 51 second 400 runner might spend 100-150 meters dying, while a 45 second-er would run on fumes for maybe the last 75-50 meters.
If you try to kick up a 400 runner who spends anywhere from 3-12 seconds in debt, and put them in a race where they spend 40-25 seconds in severe O2 debt, they’re not gonna be a happy panda to say the least. (MMm… Panda’s)
The flexibility of the athlete also plays a huge role in their viability in events outside their own. I know a few 800 runners that were “usefull” college decathletes (Their olympic 1500 times evened out their pathetic shotput). However, I know 2milers that just flounder when they get thrown into the mile. The same is most definately true of 400/800 runners.
Organize the workouts for your 800 runner in a way that keeps them interested and excited to train and most importantly free of injury. Stay event specific by always returning to race pace -goal AND fitness level paces- at least once every other week, if only for a light workout. 800 runners have such a demanding event that they benefit from a variety of stimulus. Why the heck not screw around and have a whole lot of fun?
That was confusing to write points down. Just think: “It’s opposite for someone dropping down a distance.”
I forgot to mention the corrallary(sp) to my statement, and that distance runners spend laps in roughly the same level of agony (Yada-yada i know they’re not in O2 debt for the same proportion as the 800 or even the 400 physiology yada-yada… 5k hurts. End of story)
So for them to run a race where they only have to spend 40-25 seconds seriously fatigued is like the world’s shortest race!
I agree there, I was NOT fit when I ran my only 800m race but that last 200 was where the race began! And it HURT!! (2:06 and laid on the ground for about 20 minutes haha; also ran a 600 in 1:26–that one wasn’t so bad leaving out the last 200!!)
Agreed but you need to be in good enough shape to be competitive at the 600m mark…that is part of the battle and possibly the key just as with the 300/ 100m issue with 400m. Running 90+ seconds for the first 600m ain’t going to cut it.
Depends who you are running against!
Run a 1;20 600m and then try to break 30s 200m!! Competitive males need to be fast enough to run a 600m in around 1;17-18, and then expect the race to begin. Females around 1;27-28. Nobody would want to run a 200m race 20m adrift, so you goto be up there.
Then after running a 1;18, you need the ability to race a 200m in around 26sec for a time of around 1;44. If you go through in 1;20, then you goto run a 24sec!! Both depend on how Aerobic you are at 600m and speed reserve to run a 200m.
If you’re racing 800 as a sprinter–which I think you would have to be to use Charlie’s ideas abotu split runs and extensive tempo–there are a couple of strategies that have been used successfully.
One is to take it out hard in the first 400/600 and push the aerobically-trained guys into oxygen debt sooner than they would like, i.e., Johnny Gray, Jonathan Johnson, and to a certain extent, Khadevis Robinson. Seems to be the most popular strategy for sprint types, but seems to fail in championship meets with heats.
The other is to hold back as far as you can, keep out of oxygen debt, and then put on a furious kick over the last 20-30 seconds. Personally, I liked this one better, but you need a serious top end to pull it off. Rich Kenah won a bronze medal in the 1997 World Championships by coming from waaaaaay back, which is the last time an American won a medal in the 800 outdoors. Mark Everett ran 1:43.2 in the same year with this type of strategy.
If you’re a sprinter, I don’t think you can be successful just sitting there and running the aerobic guys’ race.
Compare Borzakovskiy to Coe. Coe have more aerobic capacity and Borzakovskiy more anarobic. U can see how they do when they race. As lkh mentioned, Borzakovskiy stay back in the pack, then with approx 300m to go he uses his speed (45.x). When Coe has so much aerobic capacity so he can stay in front of the pack all the way. U can be a successful runner from the both ways (400/800 n 800/1500). But if u look at the list of ppl who have run the 10 fastest 800’s. Average is better at 1500.
