Short 400 meter training block for distance runner

Great idea, hopefully you can devote 6 weeks to it. You should have two speed workouts per week, plus 2-3 sprinter tempo sessions.

Workout 1 should be maxV. Do drills, plyos, and flying 20s. Finish with a few 60s. As weeks go by, move the 60s out 100s, 120s, 150s.

Workout 2 should be speed endurance lactate tolerance. Try 5x200 with 2 mins rest. To run 52, you would need 25+27, so target 27 on the 200s if that isn't too ambitious. After 3 weeks, switch to split runs. 200+200 with 45 secs rest. 2 sets. Then 250+150 same deal. Then 300+100. That's 6 weeks.

I'll add that my workouts in the last week have included things like 400, 200, 200 in 59.5, 29.5, 29.7 with long rest (at least long rest from my perspective, 3 to 5 minutes).

I have read up a little bit on how a whole season's training block would go for a 400 meter runner - from fall through summer - but am mostly curious about how to incorporate some of those elements effectively in the short term.

This is quite helpful. I think both the max speed and the speed endurance lactate tolerance could be low hanging fruit compared to any training I've done in the past.

My 200 meter time is likely a good bit worse compared to my current 400 meter time, so repeats in 27 may be a little ambitious currently. Maybe in a couple weeks.

Perfectly great thing to do to work on your speed, which you seem you already have plenty of with a 3:52 1,500 PB. Biggest problem for me in my 30s with 400/800 type workouts is that they don’t burn enough calories. Something like 5 x 300 with full rest is a typical workout. That’s not even a mile of work. I like tempo 200s (200 as fast as you can stay heel-toe, 100 walk) with something like 16 x 200 with 2 mile warm and 2 mile cool, which gives me some speed and some volume.

That brings up some further questions - primarily centered on the volume to aim for while training for the 400. I would typically be completely in favor of a longer warm up and cool down with 16x200, but it feels like this would be primarily aiming to improve 1500 meter racing with secondary benefit in the 400.

Secondarily, do 400 meter runners do doubles? How would an easy 3 or 4 mile jog as a second run daily effect my ability to benefit from sprint workouts? I usually double when training seriously, but if that is detrimental to training max speed, I'd drop the doubles for a few weeks.

Good point about the calories - if my volume is a lot lower for a few weeks, I'll be sure to keep track of how I'm eating.

Doing doubles like that will definitely hurt your adaptation and recovery. If you're getting restless, I would consider a few things:
* Jump on a bike for 15 minutes
* Jumprope for 10 minutes
* Do some yoga
* Do a mobility/core routine
* Jog a few minutes, do half your drills and a few gentle accelerations.

Sprint training is different and you need to avoid some of your instincts about volume and rest periods. For example when you do 6 flying 20s, you should take a full 3 minutes rest between reps and focus intensely on each rep. Your nervous system and muscles need to be sharp. If you start to lose coordination and speed, before you get to 6 reps, you should stop. For the 150s on that day, you take about 8 minutes rest and absolutely hum them. Don't strain, but focus and hold top speed right through. Obviously if you just jog the reps the workout would be a joke. If you do these workouts as intended, and aren't used to them, you will be surprised at how tired and sore you might be. You need recovery to benefit optimally. Don't worry, sprinters don't get fat. On the tempo days you can do 2500m of 100s and 200s at 70% on grass with 30 secs recovery.

Definitely helps to have those specifics - as you say, a lot of this sort of training goes against my instincts.

With the 2 speed days per week and 2-3 days of sprinter tempo sessions, what do the other 2-3 days look like? Easy 3-4 mile jog? I've seen that sort of thing mentioned in the Clyde Hart's training.

I ran in a low-key all comer's meet tonight and ran 57.0. This was about what I expected. I'd say the final 100 was less painful than I expected, but it felt like my form fell apart more than I thought it would. I could race open meets weekly this month, although I'm not sure that is the best way to optimize my short training block.

The 57 is a nice mark to start with. I would get some training in for several weeks before jumping into another one. 5 days of training is quite a bit for a new focus. The obvious addition would be weight training. If you are handling the training well and are restless for cardio, I would try to minimize interference, and add something like rowing.

Morning workout today was 5x200 with 3 minute rest. Ran 29.0, 28.6, 28.9, 28.6, 28.9. Felt like I could have managed an average of maybe 29.2 with 2 minutes rest, or alternatively, something like 28.2 average with 8-10 minute rest.

Is there a place for 200s with long rest? I'm sure there is a benefit to each slight variation, but with a short block I'd like to optimize each workout.

Great that you didn't blow up, but you should try the 2 minutes rest to really hit the lactate tolerance purpose.

The long rest reps is on your max speed day after the flying 20s. On that day you maximize quality and speed, quite a different purpose. You can eventually stretch some of those out to 200 or 250, but 60s, to 150s will be best for a few weeks.

Ran 5x200 again this morning, with 2 minutes rest this time. Ran 28.0, 28.6, 28.5, 28.3, 29.3. I could tell in the second half of the 4th 200 that the last one would be tough. It seems the combination of sprint workouts and lower mileage is helping my speed to some degree, as I would I think 28 flat for a 200 would have been much closer to an all-out effort a couple weeks ago.

Earlier this week worked on top end speed. Didn't have a huge amount of that time so the meat of that workout was 3x flying 20m w/3 minutes rest and 4x60m w/7 minutes rest. Felt pretty good about that effort although I don't really have any data on how fast I was moving.

Morning workout of 5x200 w/2 minutes rest. Ran 27.9, 28.5, 27.5, 29.4, 28.6. Average comes out to just a touch faster than last week. After the third one (got a little excited on that one) I tried to control my effort on the 4th rep. The 5th one was basically all out.

Other workout over this past weekend was top end speed with 4x flying 20m w/3 minutes rest and 5x60m w/8 minutes rest. Took video of one rep of each - my main takeaways are that my arm carriage looks a little tight, and that my turnover looks way slower on video than it feels when I'm running.

Ran another 400 today at the all-comer's meet, and ended up running a very similar race as I did three weeks ago, finishing in 57.2 this time. Interestingly, both races played out basically the same way - someone made up the stagger in the first 200, then fell back and I ran the last 150 solo. The first week it was an older guy who strained his hamstring and stopped at 250, and this week it was a kid who made up the stagger from two lanes inside and was even with me on the backstretch before fading in the second half.

I don't know if I need to change anything in my training over the next 2+ weeks of this little block, or just stick with the same workouts. Since my 5x200 workout six days ago, I've only been able to do the sprinter tempo workouts (I've typically been doing 20x130m on grass at about 4:50/mile pace with 30 seconds rest), and I had two days with a 10 hour drive this past weekend.

Based on my 200s I thought I should be able to manage something under 56 seconds by this point but maybe the less-than-optimal last several days foiled that plan.

Workout 36 hours after last race (rest day in between).

2x500 w/10 minutes rest, 3x200 w/equal walk rest:

1:14.0, 1:14.9, 30.1, 29.7, 28.2.

Feels like a step in the right direction to running faster than 57 for 400.

Good stuff. Appreciate the updates. Any particular race depends on the temperature and wind, and other factors, but it sounds like you're going in the right direction and things will soon line up to harvest an improvement.

Nothing can be done about top-end speed, but 54 is pretty good, and you should be happy with it. You should work on improving your strength, instead.

Speed grows like a tree. It takes time. You CAN improve your top end speed. But it won’t happen overnight.

Not sure if you are saying I should focus on my strength to get better at shorter events like the 400, or that I should improve my strength to bring down my marathon time.

However, regardless of how much I can improve my top end speed, I think that a focus on improving my 400 meter time IS focusing on improving my strength. I feel that my top end speed - what I could maintain for 20 meters or so - was enough to run 50 flat in the 400. However, I know my acceleration and speed endurance were limiting factors in approaching that time in an open 400, and I think it is still valuable to work on those.