400 Meter Training: Blending Short-to-Long and Long-to-Short Methods – Part I
Darren Clark gets vertical: NB - this image is reversed, but shows Clark mid stride down the backstraight during a 400m race. Although not a tall man, he was maybe 5ft 10in tall, Clark had a huge stride which came “effortlessly” due to his superior mechanics and relation as seen here. His best time is 44.38. He was fourth in two Olympic finals (84 & 88) and won Commonwealth gold in 1990.
I met Darren a few times in 94 and 95 he appeared to have gained a lot of muscle mass compared to above pic. ??
Possibly due to stint with Balmain…?
Yes, Balmain doing mindless and endless weight training and various other “strength endurance”
training. Oddly, during the season, weights was optional for the individual players.
But when Darren came out of the league season in late 1991, he trained for six weeks for sprints and went to time trial over 100m and clocked 11.5sec. Little wonder Balmain didn’t fare well that season if that’s how slow the rest of their players were. But I suppose they would argue they were only preparing them to sprint for 40 metres at tops.
Anyway, Clarky was in poor condition and huge, as Sharmer recalls correctly. He then needed achilles surgery in 1992 and missed Barcelona, but he trained very well and was in very good shape by 1993 when he finished a dominant domestic season and then went on holidays to Toronto and snagged the bronze medal at the world indoors.
In 94 his other achilles needed surgery and he hung on just long enough to give Capobianco a run in the Sydney meet, losing for the first time over 400m off the blocks to another Aussie for 11 years in open competition. A week or two later he had the surgery but never came back in a seriously sustained manner.
Then again by 95 he had gone to Souths as a strength and conditioning coach and was obsessing with brench pressing 300 lbs. I think he topped that, lifting around 130kg-plus. Why? Who knows? But he was well done as an elite athlete by then. Maybe he was the only one who didn’t realise that because he tried to train up for Atlanta 96 and ran some sessions with Cathy Freeman in Melbourne. He couldn’t keep up with her, throwing up after a couple of 300s or so Nic Bideau told me.
was the last of the set, the 300m, from a 3point?
Best post on CF website… This can even be applied to life, girls, ect…
When I ran 51,20 I had splits like this: 1.200m-26,20, 2.200m-25.00. What do you think about these splits? At that time I ran 10.95 over 100m. Do you think I am able to run under 50?
1.20sec difference is way too much, and i anyway don’t advocate even splits. So you could run maybe 1sec faster. To run 49sec, 10.95 is enough speed reserve provided you have specific endurance work done.
KK,
you mentioned here or certainly elsewhere about a NSW 400m project. Was that deemed a success and is it continuing?
Thought you’d never ask KiwiJ.
Yes, deemed a success. May actually receive some funding from the national federation, but meetings to this end aren’t due until late November. Knowing the national federation, it might not come through until the end of the 2010/11 summer domestic season. Which would still be better than never, you know what I mean.
Kevin Moore, now 20, who had not run 400m until January 2010, returned from the Com Games as a gold medallist, having split 45.9 on second leg of the 4x400m team. He then acted the role of the “umpire” in the victory celebration which took the form of a cricket pantomime.
Lisa Spencer improved 6 sec on her previous attempts at 400 Hurdles and she came up again in late September to win the IAAF Oceania Area Championship 400H by 30 metres, although her time was restricted by very strong wind.
Matt Lynch ran on an Australian 4x400 relay in May but as I think was noted, he was tripped by a Japanese runner moving across lanes behind him and when he fell he received a depressed fracture of the head of the tibia (top of the shin bone). Amazingly, he got up and ran the last 350m of the race.
Matt is emerghing from a long and largely uninterrupted GPP phase following almost exactly the sessions and sequence of sessions listed in this “lactate threshold” thread. He has a bit of achilles inflammation in one leg, we think from when he had to push a training partner and car up a hill two weeks ago when the vehicle stalled.
Last week he time trialled 300m around two bends in 32.6. This was off a three-step walk-in start. He ran the first 70m into a strong wind which blew up on the edge of a very violent electric storm. The backstraight was run through a stiff cross-wind. And he picked up the taily over the last 70m or so. It is a PB. His previous PB was when he was fully rested and peaked. That was 32.8 on two straights in dead calm conditions. So I am expecting him to go sub-46 by his third 400m race of the new summer season.
We also had some pleasing results from “the nursery” and an Aboriginal teenager, Niwili Forrest, 6ft 3in and just 17 years old, has joined us. Doesn’t know anything about athletics. But super-fast learner and boy can he run. When he learns some efficiencies, he could be something very special. And a really nice kid. Bit of an artist, more contemporary indigenous style - prefers to work with paints and wax on silk with those dot paintings. His dad died the other day. Funderal this Thursday. The squad have taken him under their wing and we have become extended family it seems.
Todaty Kevin brought his Commonwealth Games gold medal to training on his return to the track after a 2-1/2wk rest. To show you what kind of a guy he is, Kevin ended the session by massaging the hamstrings and calves of training partner Matt Lynch. No airs and graces about anyone in this squad.
Matt Lynch on the fly - October 2010, Sydney Olympic Park (the 2000 Olympics warmup track)
and why
good to see things are still going ahead and will be interested to see how this season goes. Always like to keep up with how my fellow Anzacistanians are getting on 
Thanks John,
I got up at 2.30am to watch the final. The victory antics were as much fun as the race.
What about the Jamaican genius who tore down the backstraight on the second leg looking like a superstar to move in to second place, only to fade to a very distant last by the time he had to swap the baton. Spectacular FAIL ! Very amusing.
My sentiments exactly. Surprisingly amateur tactics
NSWIS400FASTRACK Project: Kevin Moore, 20, (left) and Matt Mooney, 19, right 
OTHER MEMBERS OF THE NSWIS400 FASTRACK SQUAD “CHEER” KEV & MATT ON THEIR LAST REP 
Nsw institute of sport 400m fastrack project continues to bubble along below the radar even of most in the sport in sydney, much less nationally in australia.
Currently, early in its second domestic season, the project has produced kevin moore (46.13 -gold medallist 4x400m relay comm games, delhi 2010), lisa spencer (oceania area 400m hurdles gold medallist, bronze medallist australian open championships - improved from 64sec to 58sec but still battling injury issues from before the project existed); matt lynch 46.6 - won hunter classic 2011, sixth brisbane classic 2011 - still figuring out his race model), matt mooney (selected for his first aussie team to run 4x400m relay in an under-21 match against new zealand in christchurch on 26 february 2011).
“The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be”. -Bruce Lee-
Thanks for the update KK, wondered how that was going.
Matt Mooney will enjoy that meet, they have done a good job. I went a couple of years ago and it was well done. Some good confirmed athletes http://internationaltrackmeet.co.nz/ITM/athletes/hall-of-fame-2 and a coaching seminar with Ron Warhurst & Alberto Salazar the night before.
It would be good to get the NSWIS 400m fasttrack project squad over next year along with the person who’s programme is used in it for a similar clinic.
Alternatively the NZ Champs are in sunny Dunedin in late March and there’s a spare room at our place.