The Winning Formula for the 800

Over many years of racing and studying others racing the 800m, I have figured out a formula that works great for succeeding at this distance. It's mostly a mental approach because the physical part of running for around 2-3 minutes is not that complicated.

Here's the main problem (which is also applicable to other distances, but to a lesser degree):

You don't believe you can finish strongly if you run hard in the middle.

First of all, let's backtrack to the beginning of the race. Everyone has about 7 seconds worth of energy to expend in a hard (almost sprinting) effort that won't hurt the remainder of your race, whether it's the 800, 1600, 5000, etc. So I tell my runners to go out hard for 5 seconds - not going for the full 7 seconds provides a little safety factor, both physically and mentally. But at the end of that 5 seconds, you MUST dial back the effort. The key to doing this is to make sure you are not "racing" the other runners. You should still be running somewhat briskly, but you shouldn't really be pushing the pace. Other runners may pull ahead of you here.

Before you know it, you'll get to the 200m mark, and you should be hitting this at about your goal time divided by 4. I think of the entire first 200 meters as a part of the race to largely ignore, in that - as long as you run that first 5 seconds hard - it will pretty much take care of itself. You will quite likely complete that first half lap just how you want to.

The next segment is very short: simply the 100m of the second turn. It's the only part of the race that you should look ahead to what is coming up. As for any turn, you should shorten up your stride, and don't worry if you slow down a bit because it's only 1/8 of the race.

The most important part of the race is the next 300m, which I call "The Middle 300." Starting on the home stretch (with 500m to go), work as hard as you can. The key to this 300m segment is that you get two straights and only one curve, so it's a part of the race that you should be able to run fast. Many other runners will slow down here because they are thinking ahead to the final 200, believing they need to "save something" in order to have a good sprint at the end. But you don't have to do that because you WILL have a good sprint at the end; everyone can sprint at the end.

During this 300m segment, you must have the mindset that you don't care how you will feel in the future (specifically, with 200m to go). The reason you can do this is that everyone will feel very, very fatigued during the final 25% of this race. So you can either be the same as everyone else in terms of where you are time-wise and fatigue-wise or you can be several seconds ahead of them and feeling the same level of fatigue. If you need a goal to get you through this part of the race, try to beat other runners to the beginning of each curve. This is actually an important tactic because you don't want to have to swing wide on a curve to pass a runner that you are overtaking.

The final 200 doesn't take any special approach - just run as fast as you can. Don't slow down on the curve, but try to speed up by increasing your turnover rate. Once you hit the straight, run like a sprinter with the best form you can muster.

One final key point is to be sure to give maximum effort all the way across the finish line. The 800 and 400 are races in which runners can almost literally become paralyzed within a very short distance of the finish line. I have seen 30m leads disintegrate within 50 meters because the leader "locks up" and almost can't move.

Will you get passed in the final 50 meters? It is possible, and if it happens, you can rest assured that the person who passes you should have been even further in front of you than they were had they run more efficiently. That is, it isn't a case of you not running well, but rather a case of a runner who is markedly better than you who just underperformed.

Good luck!

Research The Course

Last year, I wrote a post about the importance of knowing a course so that you don't miss a turn and go the wrong way. Another important reason for knowing a course is so that you do not encounter unexpected features that freak you out.

This week, the team I coach will be running a course with hills. The last thing you want to do is to start a race, run along smoothly, feeling great and then: OMG! Where did that hill come from?!!

Hills are no different than any other feature that might be on any given course, in that there are certain techniques to run them. If you know you have one or more hills in a course and if you know more or less where they are, you can plan ahead.

So, to continue the example I started above, the course that the frosh-soph and junior varsity divisions will be running this week starts out mostly flat for about a half mile. At that point, there is a fairly steep hill that goes for about a quarter mile. After reaching the top of the climb, the course heads out onto a loop that goes around the tops of the adjacent hills - the loop is about a half mile. During the second half of that loop, there are a few small, rolling hills. Then, you find yourself back at the top of the quarter-mile hill. Down you go, back to the path that you started on, and then you mostly retrace your steps to the finish line.

Since you know that there's a steep-ish hill at the half-mile point, it would be wise to not kill yourself in that first half mile. Then, knowing that there aren't any significant uphills after that point, you can pretty much run as hard as you can on the loop part and then all the way back to the finish.

I was able to race on this course a couple of years ago, and it was fun because, even though it is a difficult course, I knew what the terrain was like, so I was able to plan how to run it. Different runners may want to approach the same course in different ways, and I always encourage runners to make a plan of some sort and try to follow it. After the race, it is always important to assess how you did. Did you execute your plan? What parts worked? What didn't work? Was there a part of your plan that you did particularly well or poorly? Is there some other way you could have run it that would have resulted in a better place?

If you have had experiences where you have either had a plan and it worked or didn't work, or if you didn't research a course and had a bad experience because of that, please share in the comments.

"So, I ran a race. Now what?"

I'm going to write a lot about racing in upcoming posts - what you should do before a race and during a race - but what about after? Of course, there's the cool-down jog and stretching, but you should always take time to think about your race. What went well? What didn't go well? Was there anything that surprised you?

Part of thinking about the race is the course itself. Hopefully you got a chance to run all or part of it before the race, but now that you raced on it, you can start to develop strategies for when you run it next time, or at least when you run a similar course next time.

When did you pass people on the course? On the uphills? On the downhills? When did people pass you? More importantly, when you passed people, did you finish the race ahead of them? Or did they pass you back later? Same for when people passed you.

Lots to learn from every race - I find that I use things I learned 25 years ago sometimes, so be sure to put all of this info in the back of your mind for later....