Calculating Splits for the 400 meters

Last Updated on November 16, 2012 by Jimson Lee

I wish reporters would realize it takes about 1 second to account for acceleration out of the blocks.

In Michael Phillip’s Furious Pistorius Blade Runner slams IAAF, Oscar Pistorius, the South African Paralympian, ran 47.65 before he was disqualified for running out of his lane.

They quote:

[… Pistorius clocked 47.65 before his time was wiped out. He has a best of 46.34, but significantly last night he ran quicker in the second half of the race than the first, with hand-timed splits of 24.4 and 23.3.
…]

Of course his second half is significantly quicker! The second 200m has a running start! His “splits” can be calculated as (1.0 + 23.4) + 23.3, so he ran a very even paced race.

UPDATE: The video of this race can be found on YouTube:

Non-even paced 400 meters

Not everyone can or should run even paced splits for the 400 meters. Butch Reynolds and Mike Larabee, the 1964 400m Olympic champion, are names that come to mind. But this race strategy can backfire sometimes.

On a non-even paced 400 meters, it is best to run the first 200 meters within 1 second of your 200 meters personal best, and the second 200 meters 1.5 – 2.0 seconds slower than the 1st with a running start.

For example, if your 200m PB is 21.0 seconds

1st 200m = 22.0
2nd 200m = 23.5 – 24.0
Projected 400m time = 45.5 – 46.0 seconds

Thus a good ballpark for 400m projection is double your 200m PB plus 3.5 – 4 seconds.

I discussed this in my previous article on Feedback on The Limits of Human Potential.