5 Lactic Tolerance Sessions For 800m/1500m Runners Used By Elites
The middle distance races – 800m and 1500m are very demanding because they require the athlete to be primed aerobically and anaerobically at the same time and ready to take on a huge amount of lactic acid.
Especially for those targeting the 800m, anaerobic glycolytic training (lactate tolerance training) is essential to reaching peak performance.
The following training sessions are aimed at improving the lactic tolerance; your ability to maintain pace as the by-products of repeated anaerobic lactic energy production accumulate and have been extracted from elite runners’ training logs.
1. 5 x 200m @ first 200m of 800m pace (2min recovery)
4min recovery
2 x 300m @ first 300m of 800m pace (2min recovery)
5 min recovery
400m max effort.
Nick Symmonds completed this training session a few weeks before placing 5th at the 2012 London Olympic Games in 1:42:95 (his personal best). He ran the 200m’s in an average of 25.0, 300m’s in 37.5 and 38.0 and 400m in 52.5.
2. 2 sets of 4 x 200m @ 800m goal pace (30sec recovery)
8-10min recovery beween sets
This training session has been integrated into many top 800m runners’ programs. Kelly Holmes (Olympic 800m champion) claimed that this was one of her most important, yet most challenging training sessions she would complete. She would do this session around 1 week before an important race and try to run all of the repetitions in just under 29 seconds (sub 1:56 pace).
3. 400m, 200m, 400m, 200m @ 800m goal pace (3min recovery)
David Rudisha (800m World Record Holder) would complete this training session around once per month from March through until the major championship event (usually August). Despite usually running this session on a dirt track at high altitude, Rudisha would run the 400m’s in 50-51 seconds and the 200m’s in 24-25 seconds. Rudisha once managed this session in Germany prior to the Rio Olympics in 49.2, 23.7, 50.2, 24.2, which is a little quicker than his 800m pace across the board.
4. 400m, 600m, 400m, 300m, 200m with 2min recovery.
Pace: Starting at goal 1500m and workout down to goal 800m pace.
Unlike the first three sessions in this article, this session combines 800m and 1500m pace repetitions. This Seb Coe special starts with the first 400m and 600m at your goal 1500m pace and progresses to running the final 300m and 200m at around your goal 800m pace or faster.
Seb Coe completed this training session in the weeks leading up to the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games in 55, 1:22, 53, 36, 25. The training log was rounded up/down to the nearest second.
5. 2 x 600m @ 800m goal pace, 2 x 200m @ 400m goal pace (5min recovery)
1:43 800m / 3:32 1500m runner Benson Koech would complete this training session leading into important races. In several interviews, Koech expressed the importance of completing long repetitions (400m+) at goal race pace for middle distance runners.
Koech would usually run the 600m repetitions of this training session in 1:17-1:18 and the 200m repetitions in 23 seconds. On one occasion Koech opened up the session with a 1:15 600m and managed the second 600m in 1:17 but struggled to sustain the hit his targets in the 200m’s running 24 seconds followed by 26 seconds.
[The times for Koech’s session above have been amended after clarification with the source.]
