A 400m event is staggered started. Should training not reflect this? Not all the time, alright, but at least once per wk?
I think that what you do is more important than what your competition does. You should be the motivating force in your life, not you parents or your coach. If you cannot motivate yourself than you had better find a different event than the 400m because in the 400m 9/10 your competition is at a different distance than you. (And if you do see your competition next to you, you’re getting passed which sucks)
Rather than training your runners to sprint w/competition of other people you should train them to run by themselves at race-pace w/out the motivation of a competitive runner. As my favorite coach always says “Mike, you should be kicking for domination, not out of despiration.”
ok do kay. So we are all talking relaxed running here? Are we not? That seems to be the general theme of things. Always run relaxed. Well, i sure agree. When i first started the stagered type running, i was getting flogged, i improved fairlly quickly, mainly because i had no formal training before hand. Then i got to a stage where i was within say 5m of the slowest top guys and around say 10m of the top guy. I struggled and struggled to get there, and seemed to get beaten more easily. Whats going on i asked? Well, my coach said that i ran better out frount, but as i got caught and passed, i tightned up and lost speed. So relax more and go with the flow when they catch you, just stay relaxed. Sure easy enough said than done i said. But sure enough, as session after session went on, my stagger got further and further towards the fast guys untill i had pretty much mastered the art of staying relaxed when caught. Now i was the fast guy. Now when someone catches me, i dont care, they may even put 10m on me, i dont care, cause i know, i’ll catch and pass them at the end (if im in shape that is).
Now, lets put running by ones self all the time to the test. The only time you run against another person is in a competition, yar? Now it took me lets say around 100-200 efforts to learn how to relax. Maybe 4-6mnths. How many competitions would i have lost due to tightening up when a competitor comes beside me? Gee, that would be in my case, I would be not even half way there. Years in other words. So, why not get used to that mental thing in training? Run your own race you are all saying! How many people have you come across that really run there own race? Not in training, in compition. You could be relaxed as hell in training, but the majority of people i have seen run, get spooked by other runners. unless they have been taught otherwise.
So my question now will be this! What way do you guys train a person to completly forget about his/her oposition when they are behind? Not being sarcastic here, i would really like to know. We seem to be getting in a big mind thing here. Be relaxed. How do we teach that under pressure? By ones self = easy. When you are behind but physically capable of passing, how do we teach that pressure? After all, all that we know is a learned skill. You were not born with it, its all taught. How do we unlearn a being under pressure when behind to a, I’m running my own race, i have complete confidence that my race will continue to be smooth, relaxed and fast?
Teach me, please.
This is an interesting example you’ve brought up. Many coaches have seen the difficulty in getting the leadoff 4x4 runner to run his own race because the staggers are for 3 bends rather than 2. Is it better to concentrate in training on isolated execution or simulation of the competition situation, or a combination (how often)? Thoughts?
Really tough topic. What about teaching 400m runners to run the first 30-50 at between 85-95% then asking them to be aware of their competition on the back stretch. For example, I’d tell my 49sec quartermiler he is probably running the back stretch too fast if he is blazing by the 47sec quartermiler on the backstretch. Of course I’d already know by practice sessions if he is ready to pr by 2 seconds. I usually know the athlete pretty well but it is always tough telling he/she how to run the race.
But in practice we do intervals, SE and pacing, so we know where each athlete is comfortable. I had experience with this in h.s. I decided at the state meet that i was going to go balls out and run the first 200 like it was my last race ever… needless to say I ran the first 200 at about 22.5 and at about 250 the monkey was on my back and I ran 49.8 after being consistent between 48.3 and 48.9 the 3 weeks leading up to the state meet.
So what should we teach, i have seen h.s, college, and professional athletes blaze the first 200 and hold on for dear life and actually win in respectable times. But this can’t be the correct way. I think it has to be a mixture of running your own race and being aware of your competition. Knowing when you are going to peak and judging from practice what your peaking time range might be. But this is a topic I could use lots of help with also.
In my opinion, I think it is better to concentrate solely on isolated execution. Beat it into the runners head not to alter your race strategy when the heat is on. You run the way your training prepared you to run and you’ll be fine. I was told by a wise man once that “. . . running fast is almost effortless because you have done your training prior to the meet. Most athletes struggle come meet time because they feel they have to press and “go faster” when in fact they do not.”
As long as you do the training you need to do throughout the season prior to a meet, then you have nothing to worry about when the pressure is on.
Are you saying, Most athletes are under prepared physically when they turn up to a meet? Most athletes have not done the required training come meet time?? Otherwise, they would run relaxed when under pressure? Is that what you are saying?
No, that is not what I’m saying. It’s just the opposite. Most runners HAVE in fact done the proper training prior to competition. But when they actually begin the race something in their head tells them that they should deviate from everything that their training dictated they should to. Instead of having complete faith in their training and just run their race, they change up and feel they have to do something else and as a result, they end up running sub-par.
He is saying that when a 49second quarter miler comes to the starting line versus a 47 second quartermiler he needs to run his best and accept the fact that he will probably be beaten, because well let’s face it some people a just slower in other events. Sure there is a mental aspect to any race, jump, throw, and you can probably do a lot more than you think you can by simply believing in yourself, but if you change your race to beat somone you have no chance in hell of beating, you’re going to run YOUR sh*ttiest race and possibly ruin it for the entire relay team. And who would want to do that?
So if you can run not only relaxed and pushing your own envelope but with FAITH in what you can do as a runner odds are you are going to do very well.
In reference to competition pushing you faster, I can completely relate. I myself only seem to PR when I’m running against guys that totally destroy me, beating me by 2-3 seconds, but there is a difference between gambling with a win, and pushing yourself to the very limits of your soul. I saw a collegiate 400 where it looked like the guy in lane 6 was going to dust everyone he was about a half second ahead of the second place guy, but coming into the back straight he choked, and actually fell across the finish line, only to be beaten by the guy that had played it conservative in the first 200. Kinda sad eh?
I believe that if you don’t have confidence in your abilities and training, along with guts, that you won’t win a 400 race. But you sure as hell won’t get third if you have a lot of guts.
agreed, in a meet i ran at last year, i slipped out of the blocks (bad surface it was really hard tar-like and the spikes wouldn’t go in properly) and I saw myself last, and stayed moving, got up pissed as hell and managed to make rd place in that heat, qualifying for the final. Sometimes a little motivation makes you focus just that much harder. Not always, but sometimes.
So, if like you say, Most people struggle to get there, yet most people Have done the training, Lets talk about how we can condition these particualer guys who come unstuck in competition. The guys who have done the training, the guys who you tell, Look, your done the work just do your own race and see what happens. But time after time, they choke.
I trained a guy for the 100m for around 10mths. He was a high school guy who, against runners he knew he could beat, ran smooth and relaxed and ran like a 11.35. I did all what you guys have said, yet against unknown runners to him, yet i knew he had the speed to beat them, he worred so much. I saw him once, he destroyed them all in the first 10m. Except this one little bloke, out of the corner of his eye, he saw this little bloke. He could see him panick. His shoulders went up around his ears. He went completly upright. His stride length reduced and he ran like a 12.3. Pathetic. He knew he had done the training. He knew what he was capable of. Had he of ran like he did a wk ago when he ran 11.35, he would have won by like 0.5sec.
This guy, i trained just like charlie is saying now, and you, Train speed and speed endurance and special endurance indervidually, Tempo as a group. I beleive, we could have taught this guy relaxation under pressure in a simulated training situation. As i have been talking about in previous posts.
I do that in training, or i stumble on bad grass and get aggresive cause i think, man, that will slow me down, and then , bang, i go off like crazy.
True, the aggression just pushes the adrenalin up and you’re so mad at yourself that (I think) you don’t care about anyone else, and you run your own race and takeover from kicking yourself for your mistake 
I agree with everything in your post except for when you said ". . . when a 49 second quarter miler comes to the starting line versus a 47 second quartermiler he needs to run his best and accept the fact that he will probably be beaten. . . "
I was always taught to NEVER “accept” ANYTHING. At least not before you even try. If you get beat you get beat; that’s part of life. But don’t accept your fate before you even compete. If you do that then guess what? You WILL be beaten, each and every time.
Yup, that was a mistake on my part. I understand now that I am wrong 
thanks for catching that one.
True, but the place not to accept it is the last 100m!
If the 49 second quatermiler runs the first 200m as fast as the 47 second quatermiler he might end up runnig the quatermile in 51, because he dies down the home straight.
If you run your race wisely you can work miracles agains faster guys who give it away the first 200m.
Take Marc Raquil in the WC03 final in Paris as example…how many guys did he pass?
You are absolutely right sowjet.