200m,400m training advice

hi, firstly just to clear up a few things, i am 16, 5ft 6 and 60kg. I have competed for my A.C for 5 years originally running different distances however i have come to concentrate on the 200m and 400m over the last couple years.

My current p.bs are 24.9 -200m and 54.8 - 400m

Now for this years track season i am really hoping to knock chunks out of both events, especially the 200 which i feel is a pretty slow time at the moment. I have been training on speed and speed endurance throughout since september and have been noticing considerable improvements, especially my speed and strength.

I have a question... - in a training session we were doing 400m splits with a 1minute recovery in between 200's, this counted as one set. We had a 4 minute rest, after the 400 split, and we repeated this 4 times. My first split consisted of two 25s 200's which i was quite impressed with. I know i went of slightly too quick and the rest averaged about 27/28s. What id like to know is, if i can do two 25s 200m with very little recovery, then can this be translated, when fresh into a 400m that would give me maybe 50/51s???

Hi andrew,  Yes and No

for longer distance training i rep say 5*1k at race pace  and come race day i can produce those rep times, so the recovery is eliminated.

However not sure if it is so easily translated at the sprints where 2 seconds is a big deal.  How about running a 300m at 51 pace see how that feels?

yeah, fair point, whenever we've come across 300 reps 45 seconds has been feeling fine providing a decent recovery such as 3-4 mins inbetween. Possibly the best way to sort it is to give a 400m trial run a go and see how that goes, maybe aim for a first 200 in 26s and aim to maintain through the las 200

Hey Mate, 

im 16, 63 kg and 5 ft 11 inches so a similar athlete to yourself in that respect i also specialize in 400m and 200m although more towards the 400m. it is important to know that the quicker your 200m is the quicker your 400m is as you should be able to run one of the 200m lengths of the 400 close to your pb for the 200, to put that in perspective i run the first 200 in 23 - 24 seconds. i am currently running 200m in 22.37 and 400 in 49.09. the key for 400m training is to do a balance of speed training ie. 60m, 120m, 150m. as well as endurance training such as 300m, 500m, 600m and 1000m. If you can do a balance it will improve your speed endurance which is key for both the 400 and the 200. 

also you should look at michael johnson's videos on Youtube and he will give you some good ideas...

Also if you do 300m splits you should be doing them a lot quicker than 51 secs, say about ideally sub 40 but low 40's to start off. 

Hope this helps! 

Hi sam, thanks for your advice and great times btw! talking of 300m reps, yestersday we were doing 600m reps 500, then 300, i managed a 1.31 600, a 73s 500, and 40.2s 300 well wit a 7min rest in between. After this would u say that its more speed i need compared to endurance for the 4?

No worries mate! I would keep trying to get those down, i got my 300 reps down to low 35's high 34's. Speed should be worked in during the week you should be doing a speed session in between all this longer stuff. also when you get your times down try doing som 1k reps for aerobic fitness! let me know how you go!

yh sure will, those times for 300m reps, is that like just one fast rep, all consistent times for the 300m when your training?

consistant when i have someone to push against when i pace my own i can stay around 36's