Hybrid training for 400 to 3000 range

I was an 800m guy in college so ran 400-3000m in races, I was also big on the weight room so I’ll give you a sample week that isn’t 60-70 miles per week and workouts dialed back a bit so you can focus more on lifting and actually make gains instead of just maintain.

Monday: 12x400m starting at 3k pace working down to mile pace, 2:00 recovery between reps unless you want to jog a lap for recovery. +Upper body lift

Tuesday: 3-5 miles easy

Wednesday: 8x150m or 300-250-200-150-100 about as fast as you can handle with enough recovery that you aren’t losing much pace rep to rep. +Leg day (this will fry your legs)

Thursday: Easy 3 miles and/or 30-40 minute bike/elliptical/swim

Friday: Easy 3-5 miles and a few 50-150m relaxed sprints, 400m pace at the fastest and 600m or less volume total

Saturday: 8-10 mile run at moderate intensity, OR 3xmile or 6-8x800m at 3k-5k pace with 1:1 rest. +Moderate full body lift, 12-20 reps per set kind of stuff and core work

Sunday: off or some easy active recovery like going for a hike or a walk or playing some basketball with friends.

This got me a Nick Symmonds-esque physique at 6’2 and I was fast enough through those distance ranges that I wasn’t embarrassing myself at any of them, and I ran fairly competitively 600m-1500m

It isn't that hard.

I also follow Nick Symmonds training plan for 800m and in result I can run any distance up to HM

run

Yeah I was going to say Symmonds' training logs are public. The base stuff he did had a lot of strength work in it (doing stuff up to 8 x 1k @ T). Combining elements of that with the right amount of speed work could have you competitive 400-3k. I think it's right that the 400 might be tough to be ready for at all times unless you're naturally better there than the longer stuff.

Realistically pretty much any 800/1500m program gets you close. Take a baseline as something like

monday. Easy run + speed (flying 40s, 8s hills, maybe a couple 150s)

Tuesday easy

wednesday tempo work (4-6x4-6 mins)+ 4x200m@800mish

thursday easy

friday. 8x400@1500m. 2:30 rest early in the season work down to 60s when it is racing season

sat. Easy

do some strength and drills. You are going to give up a bit of 400m performance but you are doing enough fast stuff so you can sprint. You could tweak it to be more speed based but your 1500m/3000m will suffer.

I would basically train like a 400m runner that runs high mileage of SLOW easy miles with lots of high quality speed training. My 400m PR came from when I ran 100+ mpw of 9 min per mile with 2 vVO2 Max workouts per week as well as 2 days of 8-12 all out 10 sec hill sprints (2-3 min jog between). Besides those 2 (or 4 if you count hill sprints) workouts, I just jogged to 14 hours per week (2h/day in 14 runs/week).

This led to PRs from 400-3k

(for reference, I was sub 8:30 in the 3k and 51.x in the 4, never got to race the 8 though)

Train like a strength based 800 runner?

I think training like a 'mixed' 1500 runner is best for almost all track events though

to me, train for the next concrete thing. if you do XC, get ready for XC. if i did TF only, i'd cross-train for the summer. then pick a tighter range to prepare for. yeah, i could run 100 to 5k too. i didn't try to get ready for them all at once. if you want progress, pick an end.

Proper 800/1500 training will include plenty of work to make an athlete better at all adjacent distances. So following anything intended for that purpose will yield good results. Nick Symmonds' training is one to look at. I actually think Joe Rubio's guide for 1500 training would work here, ostensibly Joe focuses on aerobic development but when you actually look at the training plan, it's still quite speed-oriented and was only considered an aerobic program in comparison to the alternatives of the era.

FWIW if someone ever finds out what Colin Sahlman is doing at NAU that might be the place to look, he's having quite the season from 400 up to the 5k.

Deep dive into Igloi or Verhuel training. Those methods could work for you.

Honestly just train like a mile/800 guy. The 3k is still considered mid distance. Good approach for high school kids I think. When I first started coaching on Mondays during the specific period I would have an 800 workout, a 1600 workout and 3200 workout. But at time because the group was so small kids would be working out alone more or less. So one indoor season I had everyone training for the mile but still raced their preferred events at meets. I did taper them differently based off their race at states etc. This way everyone always had at least one person around their pace and it was my most successful season at the time. After this I moved to more of an 800 group which had the 800 types and usually slower/newer runners (lower volume) and a miler group for kids more doing mile/800 or mile/2mi focus.