Summer Training for 400/800 runners

so what are your actual open PRs for the 400/800? what about 200/1600 (if you have any). I know splits are sometimes a more accurate representation of your absolute top ability but its good to have the whole picture. secondly, its hard to understand your spreadsheet as there aren't many clear descriptions for what workouts you've got planned. the only ones that are specifically outlined as far as I can tell are the mona fartlek and 1500m intervals. of those 2, I have no clue how you'd be able to finish either workout at the prescribed paces. 6x800 at faster than mile pace? averaging faster than your 5k PR pace for an entire fartlek? good luck. I figure you're probably already committed to the basketball thing, and if its a priority to you keep with it. but if you want to get the most out of your running, junior year is about the time you'd have to start choosing one over the other (ie no more organized summer basketball, only focusing on basketball during the winter season). to give you more conclusive help, tell me your open PRs and outline what workouts you plan on doing in the summer in a reply post here, your doc is too vague.

I haven't run an open 400 in HS mostly because it is so close to the 800 in meets and the 800 is the event I prefer mostly. My open pr for the 800 is 2:00 and that was in early April but I wasn't really able to run an open 800 after that because I had a stress fracture right above my ankle, and when I got back it was all based on qualifying at that point (advancing to region, sectionals, etc.) and to get out of region you needed to run sub 1:56 so I wasn't able to advance in the open 800, only able to run the 4x800. I also only ran the 1600 once and I ran a 4:50 coming off of an injury early in the year(end of Feb) so I don't really have an accurate time for that either. The workouts I haven't been able to come up with exactly mostly due to lack of knowledge on what type of workouts I should really be doing at this time (speed, tempo, etc.) but I will say I''m not sure what I was thinking on the paces for the fartlek lol ( didn't see how fast it was rlly until u said something). But the 6x800 would be close to my mile pace I'm pretty sure? I haven't run an all out 1600 recently but 4:40 seems do able to me based on workouts from my track season and my previous 1600 time with not much training before hand. Thanks for the help!

ok for sake of conservatism, lets call you a 2:00 800m guy with very strong speed. your basketball background backs up that logic. doesn't seem like XC is much of a priority so I'd treat the summer as just a way to stay fit and healthy. especially with all the basketball you'll be doing and the injury history, doesn't seem smart to grind your face off with track stuff. the mileage is probably about right, idk how much mileage you've done in the past but I usually recommend a 10 mile increase in weekly mileage from one year to the next. so if last year you ran 20 miles a week, this year aim to get up to around 30mpw. this doesn't have to be in the middle of july though, 400/800 guys can use the XC season to keep building miles. workouts wouldn't be crazy hard, but in weeks where you're not playing basketball you could do up to 3 workouts. I'll give a rough weekly outline in a second. just for the record, 800s at mile pace are a brutal workout. I've never heard of anyone doing more than 4x800 @ mile and that was with like 5 minutes rest for a very good collegiate runner. not exactly a base phase staple, and at your prescribed rep number/rest it'd be literally impossible to finish lol.

Start with something like this for non basketball weeks: 18-25mpw
M: short hill sprints (5-6x8-10’’) or track workout ; lifting day
T: 2-4 miles
W: 6-8x600m @ 2:10-2:15 on 60 seconds rest OR 8x1 minute hard 2 minute easy ; lifting
Th: 2-4 miles
F: short hill sprints or easy 3 miles + 2-4 strides ; optional lifting day
S: 4-5 miles easy or off
Su: off

Work towards something like this over the course of the summer: 24-31mpw
M: short hill sprints (5-6x8-10’’) or track workout ; lifting day
T: 4-5 miles
W: 5-6x800m @ 2:50-3:05 on 90’’ rest OR 8-10x1’ hard 1’ easy ; lifting day
Th: 4-5 miles
F: short hill sprints or easy 5 miles + 4-6 strides ; optional lifting day
S: 5-6 miles easy
Su: off

An example of track workouts you could do would be something like

3-4x30m fly + 2x90 + 1-2x120 full go on 4-5’ rest ; MAKE SURE YOU TAKE YOUR FULL REST

4-5x150 @ smooth speed (approximately 400m effort) 3-4’ rest

6-8x200 cutting down on 2-3’ rest ; start at 36, get down to 30

Short hill sprints are 4-6 reps of 8-10 seconds all out up a hill. Take at least 3 minutes between reps. For the track and hill workouts, you can do 1-2 miles for both warm up and cooldown as you feel. Do as many or as few workouts per week as you work into things, if you feel really tired one week, just do all easy runs. You don’t have to do the workouts on the exact days outlined, just make sure you have at least one easy day between workouts.

On heavy basketball weeks, just get in easy runs where you can. 2-4 miles is probably fine. If you want to do a workout, do a more “distance” one just dial back the pace/reps a tad. you already worked some of your “speed” systems playing the game. Do as many or as few workouts as you feel like you can during your build up. Just do not get hurt, that's your main goal of the offseason.

If you can get to 48 your 800m goal should be more like 1:49-1:52.

For summer as a 4/8 guy, you should aim to get consistent 3-5 mile runs in 6 days a week, get in the weight room 2-3 days a week, and touch speed twice a week and heavier endurance stuff once a week.

This could look like

Monday - 5 miles easy and strides

Tuesday - 1-2 mile warmup, 6x150m fast w/ plenty of recovery, 1 mile cooldown. Weight session

Wednesday - 3-5 miles easy

Thursday - 3-4x5:00 @5:40-6:00 pace w/ 3:00 slow jogging recovery, weight session

Friday - 3-5 miles easy and strides

Saturday - 4x50m either flying or out of blocks, 300-200-200 around 1:55 800m pace, weights

Sun: off or cross train

This might not seem like a lot, but you gotta remember that you won’t be racing until december at the earliest, the goal is to maintain a bit of endurance, maintain that snappy feel in the legs, and maybe develop a bit of speed. A 400/800 guy is a guy that’s training to sprint hard for a long time, not to be a distance runner. Going out and running 10 miles a day at 7:00+ pace will get you in plenty good overall shape i’m sure but you’d be better off showing up to your late fall/winter training ready to rip fast 200s and 300s without too much difficulty rather than being ready to run a fast 6 mile tempo or be unfazed by a 4 mile warmup.

Thank you so much for the recommended plan. I just had one question abt ur comment in the beginning. Would 48 in the 400 rlly equate to 1:49-1:52?? I feel like that’s a pretty fast 800 compared to the 400. There’s 2 guys in particular in my region that are good 400/800 runners, but one of them runs a 46 400 and only a 1:54 800, and the other is a 48 400 and only a 1:53 800.

Thank you for all of the help it is greatly appreciated 🙏🙏

most high schoolers, especially 400/800 runners, are aerobically underdeveloped. meaning they may possess the requisite speed to run much faster over 800m than their currently capable of. you'd fall into that category. 51 400m is already fast enough to run 1:53ish in the 800m, you'd just need to improve your endurance while keeping your speed which usually takes a few years. in your case, if you dropped your 400m to sub 50 it wouldn't be surprising if you could "only" manage 1:53.

I would go as far to say that the 46/1:54 guy should probably drop the 800m and be a 200/400m guy, probably half of natty/world class 800m guys can’t run faster than 46 and they are running 1:42-1:47. Running 46 and 1:54 is like running a 20.5 200m but only a 48 second 400m.

Nick Symmonds, 2 time olympian, world silver medalist, and the former CEO of run gum never broke 47 in the 400m. He also ran 1:42.9

Here’s mine and a few former college teammates PBs from a good middle distance program over those distances to give you a good idea of where you could potentially be at:

49.2/1:49.7

52.5/1:53.6

47.6/1:46.9

50.8/1:49.9

46.9/1:52.0 (first year running 800m ever)

51.2/1:52.3

Ohhhh ok. So while I have the speed to run much faster than my current 2:00 open, I just don’t necessarily have the aerobic capacity or endurance built up yet? And so with that increasing my weekly mileage should help to do that? Last year I was more so focused on basketball during summer and fall/winter and didn’t really start track training until late February. This year I was looking to take track a lot more serious, so would the summer training of just mainly mileage rather than heavy track workouts this early in the season be the main factor in improving my 800?

I'd say that mileage is a factor, building a more aerobic foundation is a factor, but you don't want to completely ignore speed development. I think both mine and CopperRunner's example training weeks are a great place to start for the summer/winter off seasons. during XC just follow your coach but keep up on strides or short hills as much as you can.