I will vote for the decathlon as being the hardest to prepare for, and 400 hurdles as hardest competition.
From the poll list Id say the marathon is the hardest to prepare for. They train 2-3 times per day, 7 days per week, year in year out, & only race the distance 2-3 times per year. It takes them a few weeks to months to recover from each race & they look pretty gaunt all the time. However if the field events were added to the list, Id say triple jump.
To me the difference between the 400H and 800 is the mental side of the comp.
Judgement between hurdles makes the 400H that much harder.
A couple of mates do both 400H and 800m and have said they are physically worse after 800 than 400H, but take longer to recover from the hurdles than 800.
I would add Javelin to list of hardest athletic event.
As for ironman and tour de france riders - they are mad. Riding 6 hours a day for 2 1/2 weeks is wrong.
We believe the 2 is the most difficult sprint to get right on a consistent basis. Maxing the curve and maintaining fast sprint rhythm in the homestretch is tough.
Although we don’t believe that training for it is the most difficult of all the events listed. The real good ones are probably predisposed in some way.
You don’t finish in pain running 100m. The 400m hurdles by it’s very nature forces the athlete to show restraint and work more on restrictive stride patterning.
Now the 400m sprint. That’s a race with no resting place.
Out of the stuff listed definately the 800. It is brutal and painful.
However, ultra-marathons i think are much harder. I have helped crew and work aid stations at a few ultras in Colorado (Hardrock 100 and Nolans 14 (~110 miles) ) and those guys are hardcore. Few races other than ultras have even the best competitors run under sleep deprevation and hallucinations! Most ultras also have massive elevation gain. One of the slogans for Hardrock is “from sea-level to Mount Everest and Back” and that is the total elevation gain. Nolans requires the competitor to summit 14 mountains over 14,000’. I really admire the mental strength those guys have, they are definately crazy.
The funniest things i ever heard from one was: “Ok, i am about an hour behind the leader, so i need to throw in a surge for the next 5 hours”
And:
“I only PRed by two hours”
And to think that i though a couple of tenths of a second was a good PR. 
Triathalon is a BIggy, 3 grueling events, running, swimming and bike ride :eek:
Maybe I’m biased because it’s my event, but the 400m is the hardest race to run. In an 800 you can be in 4th or 5th around 3/4 of the race and still come back and win. If you’re in 4 place at 3/4 of the 400m, then you’re done. You can run independetly in the 800m, it doesn’t matter who’s in the lane next to you, you’re going to run a pace. In the 400m no matter how fast you are, the people around you affect you. If the guy next to you goes out too hard, then you most likely will do the same, and die in the end. If he goes out too slow then you think you’re doing fine, and come 300m you find out you’re back 4th or 5th place, and you’re done. And the 400mH is very hard, I ran 300mH in high school, and I don’t want to run it again, but one thing I noticed I could run those hurdle guys down late in the race because I was so much faster than they were. Look at Angelo Taylor, he’s a 400m runner, that runs the 400mH. When you watch him, you can see how much faster he is than everyone else in the race. Sanya Richards is a 400m runner, look at how versitile she is. Monique Henderson, ran 400, 200, 4x100, and 4x400 for UCLA, as did Michael Johnson for Baylor. Ashton Collins from the University of Texas in 2001 ran 3 800m races all year and won the Louisiana 4A state championship in the 400 and the 800. The 400m can prepare to be competitive at almost every event from 100 to 800.
The question is Which event is the most difficult? What I find interesting is that people equate ‘difficult’ with plain hard work. What’s so difficult about hard work? It may not be fun, it may be unpleasant, but its not what you would call difficult, its just a matter of discipline. Maybe my definition of difficult is different to others?
I’m not talking about the work it takes to be at the elite level. I’m saying from high school to the elite level, 400m runners are much more competitive in other events. How many 800 runners can come down and run the 400, 200, 4x400, 4x200 (is a major event here in Louisiana), and the 4x100. And though most 400mH have just as much versitility, they usually don’t have the speed.
That is why I said 400H, because the difficulty of the event is sticking hurdles in the race. By the that essence it takes all the elements of 400 and 800 plus the ability to judge space and speed.
400 hurdles may not have speed of 400 or endurance of 800, but they can run damn well in those events. I can remember Kris A (Great Britian 400H) outruning 400m Olympic champion in a 4 x 400m in Olympic games (Barcleona I thiink).
How many times have you seen a guy who is good at 400mH, but only takes off 1 maybe 2 seconds in the 400m. The 400mH is hard race because you have to know how to go over the hurdles, but the speed is no match for the 400m. That is what makes the 400m the hardest race to compete in, the rate of speed at which you go around the track. If you don’t have the speed, then how strong you are doesn’t mean a thing.
gf and THEONE get it. It’s the essence of this forum. Its why people who ask for prescription workouts are doomed to failure. Not many others actually seem to get it. It takes time and a step backwards to consider the bigger picture. Its what makes the 100m so difficult to improve at once you have gone past the easy progress of youth and the simple gains of fitness.
Only 8.77% understand. That’s about right.
I kind of understand why you would pick 100m, but you’re not really explaining. I go to the park everyday and try to explain to these football players why they wouldn’t beat me in a 100m race. You have to react quickly to the gun, go through your drive phase, get to top speed, and hold it longer than everyone else. It’s not just get up and run as hard as you can like most people think it is. If you make a mistake, you lose.
This is more of a definition issue than a difference of opinion. It depends on whether you look at it from a preperation, planning, margin of improvement perspective, or from a raw physcial discomfort angle.
another vote for 400m and 400mH for the most difficulty on a raw pain scale… but i agree that as the distances get shorter, the harder races become from a technique point of view- the little things matter more because you have less time to fix them if they go wrong. one wrong step or slightly unbalanced landing in the 100mH and you get destroyed. often at the high school level where i hurdle, the race is decided at the first hurdle.
Define most difficult???
(most pain,hardest to prepare for, hardest to run, hardest to be the top in)
You already know my vote.
PS Everyone wants to be a 100m runner when they start out in track.
Just to comment on the TdF thing. I rode a 100 mile bike ride yesterday, they average about 70-80 miles a day in the TdF. Today, my whole body is fucked. Imagine doing that for 3 weeks straight, I couldn’t do it.
To comment on the topic at hand. 100m obviously calls for perfection. Any small screw up and you’re fucked. And oftentimes when you run in something like HS track, I know for my school at least, theres usually 1 or 2 invitational meets and then the Zone meet, and if you fuck up in the Semis there then all your training for the year has been in vain (somewhat).
I’m gonna say 400m simply because it calls for both endurance and speed.
400 hurdlers deserve specs. The amount of lactic acid in a 400h or even a 400m runner’s body is 3x the deadly amount for a regular person. We run races that would KILL people.
The only reason I think the 400H is harder than the 400 meter is because it’s more techinical, plain and simple. It requires more focus and endurance than any sprint should.
But on a difficulty scale, I’d have to say that ALL of the events are extremely difficult on some level. Whether it’s the training or the focus or this or that. Each individual event has something special that it takes to do well in whether it’s the difficulty of training or the level of focus during the event.
(It’s got a different name but the 100mile run in 24Hours sounds like the most difficult distance race)
The 100 meters is hard for someone with alot of slow twich muscle fibers just like a marathon is hard for someone with high amount of fast twich muscle fibers. We have to look at the event that is most competitive.
The 100 meter dash.