A new 800m record – Our Time-to-Run training programs are time-oriented. The programs are aimed at improving your 10km times, but your times for other distances will no doubt improve. The training programs serve as a good framework, for example, even if your goal is to improve your time for a half marathon or the entire marathon.
Do note, your 5km time will also improve. The 1000m interval session can be directly linked to what you can run for 5k, with a slight calculation.
A new 800 meter record 30 years later
Now that the races have been cancelled for a long time, and our life with the corona virus has been uncertain to say the least. It has also been difficult to set clear running goals. Sure, I still aim to run 10km in the future, in less than 40 minutes and a half under 90, but without races/events that goal hasn’t been the same focus.
Shorter intervals and 800m
For fun and variety, we also decided to add shorter intervals to the 10k training program for our “veterans” running team. We have been admiring our young runners, while they have been doing their fast and short intervals. With the coach now asking us if we want to do faster running, aimed at improving our times for distances below 5km, the speed in our legs has risen.
The coach modified our training program so that we normally do the 2000m intervals and the longest run on the first week of our training program, as well as the 1000m in the second week. However, after Day 8, the program has varied and becomes lighter in distance, but we get time for 2-3 harder paced training sessions towards the end of the program. We have also been offered the option to do morning runs of 20 to 30 minutes on the days where we are doing the shorter and faster sessions.
And oh, it has been nice to run “hard”!
We have had time to do 4 shorter interval training sessions in a month (I’ll put the training up at the end), after which we then ran 800m as a time-trial.
I last ran 800m as a high school student in competitions between schools in Espoo in the early 90s. My physical education teacher sent me to the competition because I had been the fastest over the distance in the physical education class. The time I ran to qualify, is not in my memory. However, I remember the race, and that I was not much competition to my opponents and that I finished last in a time of 3:09.
I remember how, in my eyes, my racing partners all looked like decent runners and I felt that I was in the wrong place. They shot off from the start like gazelles and finished well ahead of me. The memory of the massive gap to me was forever etched in my memory. I had not raced raced that distance since that fateful day 30 years ago. For some reason the time had become embedded into my memory 😀
A week ago, 13.5.2021, I was looking to race 800m again. I had no idea what time I would achieve for the distance; however, for my current condition, I knew that I wanted to improve on that high school record.
I thought I ran the run sensibly for once. From the start, I would start the familiar way, pumping hard the first 20m. Thereafter, I leveled my pace so that I would be able to run at a steady pace for the rest of the distance and that there would still be a little left to finish strongly towards the finish line. I got to pace my own run pretty well and I stopped the clock at the finish line at 2:39.
A half-minute improvement at 800m almost 30 years later. Not bad 😀
The Training sessions towards the 800m test
We did 4 harder paced running training sessions in one month. We started in mid-April and that’s how we progressed with them. So there was also room for 1000m and 2000m intervals, as well as longer runs and recovery runs. Below are the harder paced sessions.
These times are my average times:
15.4 8 x 500m (average time 1:52)
20.4 4 x 600m (average time 2:10)
6.5 10 x 300m (average time 62 seconds)
11.5 10 x 200m ( average time 37 seconds)
13.5 800m @ 2:39
It has been a really nice variation after all the years of running, to run a harder tempo for shorter intervals. The 1000m and especially the 2000m intervals require a completely different attitude and focus, so anything shorter feels at least much more relaxing and nice at the moment. Even though those 500 and 600m are already long distances when running hard 😉
It is nice to see what kind of pace your body and legs are still capable some 30 years later.
All the best in running
translated from Finnish
https://www.time-to-run.com/suomi/blogi/uusi-800-metrin-ennatys-30-vuotta-myohemmin.htm
to English by U Doyle
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