My 800 time is straight garbage. How can I improve?

Dropping your 400 will absolutely help. Develop speed endurance in a lower stress way than what you do during peak track training. There's a lot of ways you can do this. For example, you can run something like 6x100m after a few of your easy runs every week. No, it won't get you in tip top 400m shape, but it's easy on your body.

You can do something like 10x30s hill as a workout, that may be as anaerobically taxing as 10x200m on the track, but hill running is generally a bit safer early on.

After your tempo runs you can do 4–6x200m or if you're not on a track, just do 30–35s reps and pretend it's a 200m, or do what I do and find two trees and say, "Yeah that's about 200m."

You can make some anaerobic endurance gains in the weightroom too. Seb Coe was a fan of circuit training, think lots of jumps and squats and lunges with short rest. This isn't a replacement for heavier lifting, more of a supplement.

OP -

IMHO good input from previous posters. Some thoughts -

Forget about weight, just eat healthy and train - your weight will take care of itself. For current training: this season is already set, so roll with it and enjoy.
Your current PRs of 61 / 2:22 (avg 71 pace) / 5:15 (79 pace) indicate plenty of room for aerobic development. And at your age, there should be plenty of room for speed development as well.

With aerobic development between now and next spring, you can shoot for an improved differential in 400m pace vs 800m pace. Right now, you have a 10 sec differential. A decent goal for the next year could be to reduce that to a 6-7 sec differential. With zero 400m improvement, that would take your 800m down to 2:14 - 2:16. And, if you can improve your 400m down to 57 (probably doable if you put in the work), then a 6-7 sec differential would take your 800m down to 2:06 - 2:08. This probably requires that your fitness has improved to where you can run your current 800m pace for 1600m, so like CopperRunner said, around 4:45 or I'd say perhaps a bit faster.

What would that look like in an actual 800m race, so you can imagine it for next year? It means you have enough 400m speed to comfortably cruise at 31-33 sec per 200m, plus enough aerobic fitness to maintain that pace for two laps.

So how do you get there? You said you are currently doing 30 mpw. I'd suggest summer training in prep for XC, along with speed development. Something like:

Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri - 2 miles AM, 5 miles PM. easy runs. Gradually increase the length of the AM runs over the course of the summer, up to 5 mi. At that point, it would be about 45+ mpw.

Wed - 5 x 1000m with 200m jog. This should be done at a "comfortably hard" but sustainable effort. Not VO2 max. Look up an online running calculator and use your best 1600m time from this spring, to determine pace. Alternate this with a 20 minute tempo run, every other week.

Sat - 5 x 80m Hill Accelerations, with full 5 minute rest. Start at mile pace, max speed last 40m. Then 3 sets of 10 jump-squats (build up to 20) and 3 sets of 10 lunges (front, side, angle - build up to 50). Alternate this with 12 x 200m hills at approx 80% 400m pace, with 3 min

Sun - Rest is an important part of training. I suggest a day off to let the body recover and rebuild, after that Sat workout.

Notice, I am not including a long run in this example. It's debatable either way, and can be structured with or without the long run. But if following this regimen, your build from 30 to 45+ mpw should be sufficent summer work imo. Or, instead of the tempo run every other Wed in this example regimen, you could do a 10 mile progression run: 5 miles easy, 3 mi moderate (steady-state effort), 2 mi tempo pace.

Re 1600m - With good summer prep and with a solid (and fun!) XC season, you should be set to significantly improve your 1600m. Let's suppose you succeed in dropping your 400m to 57. Plus 6 sec = 63 pace for 800m. Plus another 6 sec = 69 pace for 1600m. That's 4:36. Or, maybe the 400m improves to 58 and aerobic development allows for a +7 sec pace differential. That would be 65 pace for 800m, plus another 7 sec = 72 sec for 1600m (4:48).

TL;DR Summer mileage, plus aerobic development sessions, plus speed sessions. Then XC. Suggested goals for next year: 57-58 / 2:06 - 2:10 / 4:36 - 4:48. At a minimum, shooting for sub-60, sub- 2:12, sub- 4:50.

Good luck - have fun :)

Yeah I'm definitely aerobically weak, just judging by my 3200 (11:55). Thank you, this was thorough as well. Is it ok if my hills are far away and I have to run to them or would It just be better to do accelerations on flat ground, or with a parachute?

Makes sense. I'm a newer runner so I haven't developed a strong aerobic engine yet. Thank you!

If the hills are about 2 miles or less, that's a nice slow jog warmup / cooldown. 4 miles or more? Maybe bike there and back.

BTW - how to figure 80% 400m speed: 61 sec / 0.8 = 76. Half of that is 38 sec / 200m. It's a good general starting point. If following this plan, gradually increase speed slightly over time, but only if it feels too easy.

I wouldn’t bother with the parachute honestly, it creates resistance and this is about speed. Just do fast sprints, 60-100 meters, no more than five reps. Find a flat grass or turf field, and run with the wind to your back (you’re teaching yourself speed so wind resistance isn’t helpful for this exercise)

Wait is that not just basically ideal mile pace?

Yes, Grasshopper. Sort of!

But instead of adapting the pace from current mile pace for a still-basically-out-of-shape developing runner, and instead of dreaming up "goal mile pace", it is an adaptation of Extensive Tempo training for long sprinters.

The pace is dictated by current max 400m capability, rather than being dependent on the factor of aerobic fitness. With proper aerobic development over time, this *could* be somewhere close to approx mile pace. But for now, it is an extensive tempo session.

Let's imagine a runner 50 / 2:00 (60-sec pace) / 4:40 (70-sec pace). Has some speed but is comparatively underdeveloped aerobically. While working on aerobic fitness over time, the 12 x 200m hill session would be run at about 31 sec. ... going back to your question, yes, we could imagine that a well-developed miler with 50-sec speed *may* have an "ideal mile pace" somewhere in the ballpark of 4:08 ... but that wasn't quite the point of the 12 x 200m hill session.

If you look up "Extensive Tempo" for long sprinters, you will see why I suggested it as part of your off-season summer speed development. It wasn't actually because of the mile :)

Near max 6x150s with a walk back once every week or two this summer should help with the long speed necessary to break 60 and 2:10. For the xc training, be sure to build up to a 3-4 mile tempo or broken tempo (e.g. 3x 1 1/2M) once a week over the summer, as well as long track repeats. The long run should be expanded over the summer to 8-9 miles, once a week.

Get plenty of sleep and start doubling as your mileage increases to over 50 per week.

Ok a little update for you. This is peak week, and I ran 2:17 (1:09/1:08). How does this change the picture? I don’t know if it’s aerobic or from anaerobic development.

Hello, I just wanted to give you an update. By the end of the season, I ran sub 59 high to sixty and 2:16.8. My mile however remained the same. So now I'm confused on what to do here

Hello. So a little update. I broke 2:20 and ran 2:16 high along with a sub sixty 4x400 leg, although my Coach isn't sure by how much.