For 400 meter runners, there may come a day when you will be asked to move up to the 800 meters, especially if you are tall, light & lean, and haven’t improved over several seasons.
For 800 meter coaches and athletes, you are probably asking yourself these questions:
- What the ideal mileage for 800 and 1500 meter runners?
- Should mileage differ for GPP fall training, pre-competition, and the competition phase?
- If you train long to short, how fast and short (in distance) should your sprint sessions be?
- How much volume should you do for track workouts?
- What pace should you use for various distances? How close to race pace, or faster?
- Should you do Tempo running?
- Do 20 minute runs or LESS have any value?
- What are the rules for pacing ‘base mileage’ and ‘recovery mileage’?
- Should VO2 max pace change every 12-14 days to prevent workouts from losing value and effectiveness?
- And the most important question of all….
Where is the 800 meter race WON and LOST? … and HOW do you prepare for that?
Can you answer these questions? And then there is the 1500m and Mile.
Peter Coe, the father and coach of Sebastian Coe, once said, “The 800 and 1500 meter events are physiologically very close, but very distant psychologically”
This Blog attempts to answer these questions in various posts (and future posts), with comparisons to Elite training plans just to understand the physiology behind 800 meter training.
800 meter Training with Scott Christensen
If you want all these answers today, Scott Christensen has released an easy to watch 4 lecture video series. Scott was the USATF Level II Lead Instructor for Distance running for over 14 years.
His lecture is called ‘Preparing the Elite Junior Middle Distance Runner (800-1600m) and aimed at taking your high school level middle distance runners to the next level.
It’s broken up into 4 sections:
- Athlete and Event Profiling for the Middle Distance Events
- Training Modalities for the 800m and 1600m Events
- The Multi-Paced Training Scheme for the 800m and 1600m Events
- Key Workouts for Each Pace of the Multi-Paced Training Scheme
The program normally costs $67 but is on sale until Friday midnight (February 11, 2011) for only $47.
Special Bonus
Coach Christensen is going to run a live Q&A chat session for the first 150 people who registers for the program (time and date to be determined). That way, you can get specific answers to questions you have from watching the
videos.
I wish all coaches who have products for sale offer such a post-sale service. To me, this means credibility, and to demonstrate his or her knowledge on the hot-seat. See you in class.
>> Click here for Scott Christensen’s Preparing the Elite Junior Middle Distance Runner (800-1600m)
Jimson Lee
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Just a quick note to thank you for offering Scott Christensen’s fine materials for the 800/1500. I have enjoyed them immensely and believe they will pay dividends for our distance track program this Spring. I’d also like to request that Scott put together a series looking to a special emphasis on cross country. I’d be very interested in hearing him weigh in again on XC! Thanks again!
-Mark Mueller
Warwick High School
Lititz, PA
@Mark, thanks, I really think the videos were great for a coach and athlete considering moving up to the 800m from 400m. Scott is a great guy and I like the fact he uses a science based methodology to from his training. (He teaches Physiology and Anatomy at the HS level, so it makes sense)