400 Meter Dash Practicing?

Question

For the 400 meter dash, I practice with the distance team (40 minute runs). When I run my meets though, its not that I do not have the endurance to finish the races, its that I don't have the speed. My PR last year was 1:01 (Sophmore) and somehow my times have been going up O.o PR this year (Junior) 1:03...

This is confusing to me because I thought your times should go down as you get older, not higher. Could this be because I'm not working with the sprinters, but am told to work with the distance people? I did so much better last year when I DID work with the sprinters. =/

Answer 1

400 training requires lots of speed and stress work, not distance running.

You should do distance running along with your track work in the pre and early season.

Performance does not get better just because you are getting older, it takes work to get better.

What you are feeling is because you are not doing the training to race 400.

You need to work with the sprinters, but not the same workouts the 100 and 200 runners are doing.

You could do 1 day with the sprinters to work on your speed, and 2 days of stress and pace work for  your race.

Typically you should be doing repeats of 200, 300, and 400 meters, adjusting the number of intervals, the speed, and the recovery times.

Start doing a day of 4 to 5 x 200 at 29 with rests of 2 minutes.

A day of 3x300 at 45 with rests of 3 minutes.

You are going to have to do intervals related to your event.

Answer 2

The 400 meter dash is a sprint..!!!

Answer 3

Im my schools best distance runner and 400 meter dash runner. I disagree with the other 2 people because the 400 race is very mental. i run mine in 52 seconds as junior but i run long distance all day. i never practice it in practice but im the anchor to my teams 4x4 team. It could be that you worked harder in the past year or that you just giving up mentally during the race. but your coach is right for putting you with the distance runners because all distance running does is work speed, endurance, and MENTAL toughness. Just listen to your coach and work in some sprints after practice

Answer 4

maybe your coach is planning on moving you up to the 800/mile . . . but if not, you're practicing with the wrong people . . . the 400 is a SPRINT event . . . you can go on

long(er) runs with the D people 2x a week but the rest of the time, you should be doing interval work for increasing your speed . . . it's good to a distance base to work off of but, in order to run faster times, you need to run intervals (speed work) and your times will drop . . .