A Practical 800m Running Philosophy Part 3: Box Clever, Simulate Racing and Bread ‘n Butter Sessions
This article series was written by 800m legend Peter Hoffmann. Peter Hoffmann partnered Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe as one of Great Britain’s three 800m athletes at the 1978 European Championships in Prague and was also part of the 1976 Olympic 4 x 400 metres squad at Montreal. He is the author of several books – most notably A Life In A Day In A Year-A Postcard From Meadowbank which follows a ‘year’ in the life of an athlete and includes life at the 1976 Olympic Games and the 1978 European and Commonwealth Championships as well as details about his training and racing, giving an insight in to the requirements to run 1 minute 46 seconds for a half mile.. Peter is available for athletics advice on 400 and 800m running.
Article Series Contents
Part 1
1) Introduction
2) Dream, Baby; Dream
3) Control Your weight
Part 2
4) Practice Running FAST!
5) Strength and Power
6) Cardiovascular System
Part 3
7) Box Clever
8) Simulate 800 metres Running-Regularly!
9) Bread ‘n Butter Sessions
Part 4
10) Quarter Miling
11) Three Rs-Resilience; Rest and Racing
12) Afterword: A Hypothetical 800 metres Training Week
7. Box Clever
There are lots of little maxims out there; some of them are wise. Amongst them, less is more, is excellent advice.
The Greeks had a word for it – practice the golden mean – nothing in excess, everything in moderation.
Most often you should only train once a day and rest up for 24 hours before your next session. It will help prevent injuries in the long term; help you recover from the previous day; and equally importantly you’ll have a zest for the next session.
Similarly, it’s better to under-train than to over train.
As mentioned, escape abroad to the warmth when the weather is at its worst.
The only occasion to do a double session is to incorporate a further weights/gym-work session into your week; the best day to do this is when you’re undertaking your easy run.
Try to always run with the wind – practice running quickly and with good technique. And talking technique, if you don’t have it, identify with someone who does and copy them. El Guerrouj was the most beautiful runner; as is Bernard Lagat.
It’s still useful to have heroes; adopt a phenomenological approach; identify with someone you admire and respect and when those key moments of choice come along ask yourself how they might behave or react in this situation. What would they do?
Closer to home find a good mentor. When my good friend Paul Forbes (a 1 minute 45 seconds 800m) and I were teenagers we trained regularly with sub 4 minute miler Adrian Weatherhead. He was a decade older and taught us much, mainly informally often when we were warming up or warming down after a session or out in parkland doing a steady run.
Get into a good training environment and squad.
Training should be hard, but fun.
Try to run sessions where sometimes you’re the top dog – it’s good to be confident and to reinforce this attribute; on other occasions run with peers to introduce a little bit of competition and edge; and occasionally train with people who are better than you, but not too often as you want to be a very positive athlete and racer. But such sessions will help push you and take you out of your comfort zone.
Back in the 1970s, at weekends we had the best training squad in the world featuring World number 1 David Jenkins; World Student Games silver medallist, Roger Jenkins; 8 Nations gold medallist, Paul Forbes; GB 400 metres hurdle international, Norman Gregor; sub 4 minute miler, Adrian Weatherhead; as well as myself, an Olympian and European Junior silver medallist.
It meant that if we were running 6 x 500 metres each athlete would take one run from the front with Adrian on the last rep.
It meant for a much higher quality session than we could have managed alone. But, it was also important to get away from that elite squad at other times to prevent burning ourselves out.
Listen to your body. What is it telling you? Athletes tread a fine line – it’s like being a tightrope walker making continuous fine adjustments to achieve that elusive balance between two polarities – being honest with yourself and staying disciplined – getting out there and just doing it, but also being sensible and taking the occasional day off too when you’re feeling exhausted or coming down with a cold.; as mentioned above it’s always better to under train than to over train.
And as in all important areas of life, prioritise.
You only have so much energy and those aspects of training that are most important should never be at the mercy of those areas which are less so.
Distribute your energy like it’s gold and allocate it wisely.
Be at your freshest and at your very best for the key middle distance track sessions of the week.
Make sure you’re turning up for these sessions with an eagerness – with an appetite – you’re excited and slightly nervous and apprehensive and not knackered, tired or unenthusiastic, where you end up just going through the motions.
In other words don’t sacrifice quality for quantity.
And talking of quality here’s some further radical advice – simulate half mile racing – regularly.
8. Simulate 800m running – regularly
Point six begged the question what do I mean by quality?
By quality I mean training faster than your race pace.
It means races will then be partly run within your comfort zone.
Similar to athletes ignoring sprinting flat out most half milers only ever run occasional flat out 600s throughout the year; perhaps on fewer occasions than on the fingers of one hand, usually in the late spring.
And yet this is what they’re expecting their bodies to do come a race! It’s crazy.
So, get your body used to doing what it’s expected to do come race time. Surely it’s common-sense to practise this key aspect much, much more regularly so that you not only do you get used to running like this, but so that you become better too.
Each new season you hope to improve on what you’ve run the season before, yet you’ve spent up to a year avoiding doing so!
So, here’s a radical proposal – if you really want to run a fast 800m in 1.44 or better start running very fast 600 metres or similar every seven to ten days throughout the whole year.
Ideally you should be aiming to run them in 75 seconds or better.
Otherwise how can you expect to turn up for an international meet 800m and run relaxed through 600 metres in 78 seconds and maintain that pace if you haven’t been practicing it throughout the year; get your body accustomed to how it feels allowing it to make the key physiological adaptations.
Make it as easy as possible by using pacers and aim to run two or three in training at around 75 seconds with a full recovery; come race day you’re more likely to be able to flow through the 600 metres mark in 78 seconds with a speed reserve for the last quarter of the race.
Looking back I regret not incorporating such a regime into our training; the nearest Paul Forbes and I got was one lovely Sunday morning in May 1978 at Meadowbank running a relaxed session of 79; 78 and 77 seconds.
We should have done that session far more often.
More recently the controversial Taoufik Makhloufli ran an 800m in 1:44.5 (10 minutes recovery) followed by 500 metres in 65 seconds; 400 metres in 52 seconds and a 300 metres in 39 seconds the last three runs with a four minute recovery.
An alternative good session which we did however use to do was to run a 600 metres (78 seconds); 500 metres (63 secs); 400 metres (48 secs); 300 metres (34 secs); and a 200 metres (22 secs) with a good recovery.
Whatever you do, don’t shy away from these sessions.
A further great session is 3 x 2 x 300 metres with a jog 100 metres recovery and full recoveries between sets.
Aim to run the first repetition in each set at 36 seconds.
Similarly an incredibly tough session is 5 x 300 metres with a walk 100 metre recovery kicking off the first two repetitions in 37 seconds and thereafter holding on!
The world record holder David Rudisha liked to run a 400m/200m/400m/200m at his 800m goal pace with a 3 minute recovery. So if you’re aiming to run 1:44 then your aim should be 52/26/52/26 seconds.
Nick Symmonds (a 1:42.9 performer) similarly liked to replicate half mile pace in training and sometimes ran 5 x 200 metres with a 2 minute recovery (25-26 seconds) followed by 4 minutes rest; then 2 x 300 metres (37-38 seconds) again with a 2 minute recovery but this time followed by 5 minute rest before completing the session with a quarter mile at maximum effort in around 52 seconds.
By incorporating these sessions and this regime into your training programme you will steal a march on your rivals.
9. Bread ‘n Butter Half Mile Sessions
To run a great half mile you also need to run bread ‘n butter half mile sessions.
In the off-season there’s no harm in occasionally joining the milers for one of the more traditional middle distance sessions – 8 x 400s (1 minute recovery) or 4 x 600s (4 minutes rest) but they should be just that – occasional. 8 x 300 metres with a 3 minutes recovery starting with 37/38 seconds trying to hold that pace for as long as possible is excellent; and as mentioned in point 7 run 5 x 300 metres with a rolling start with a one minute walk 100 metres recovery kicking off at 36/37 seconds before you tail off; this is a very hard session indeed – in fact, label it (Ex) Extreme!.
5 x 500 metres in 65 seconds with a 5 minute recovery is good as is 2 x 4 x 200 metres (30 seconds recovery) at 24 seconds pace.
Clocks are excellent for gradually bringing on a jaded tiredness as you try to maintain speed endurance and quality-100-150-100 and 150-200-150 clocks (up and down in 10 metres) with a jog back 90 seconds recovery are excellent – they’re niggly little sessions.
(Coming Soon) Part 4: (10) Quarter Miling (11) Three Rs-Resilience; Rest and Racing (12) Afterword: A Hypothetical 800 metres Training Week
