Speed Work on the Track
June 13, 2009
This morning I did 4×400m with lots of rest. Last week, my goal for this week was to run the 400s in 72-74 seconds. My goal this morning for this workout was to go sub-70 seconds each piece, or 8-10 seconds faster than my goal pace of 78 seconds per 400m. My times:
1. 1:09 (400m)
2. 1:10 (400m)
3. 1:11 (400m)
4. 1:11 (400m)
The first piece was hard, but I was hoping that I would be warmer and looser for the successive pieces so that I could stay under 1:10. I’m pleased with my consistency, though. I think I could have done 1 or 2 more at around 71-72 seconds, but my goal for this workout was 4×400m so I stuck to that and will probably do more reps when I repeat this workout in a few weeks.
So, not bad but not great. There is a BIG difference between running 400s in 78 seconds and running them in 70 seconds. I did this workout in about 45 minutes, so I had about 10 minutes rest between pieces – a huge amount of rest given the duration of work.
As always, to put things in perspective, the world record in the 400m is 43.18 seconds, set by Michael Johnson in Seville in 1999. In these videos, it’s hard to appreciate the speed when viewing the runners from ground level. But when Michael Johnson (and the rest) crosses through the 300m mark and the camera is almost directly overhead, you get a better sense of how phenomenally fast these guys are. I think if I were 100% prepared to run a 400m, at my current level of fitness I think I could run it in about 63 seconds. I just counted 20 seconds (the difference between Johnson’s time and my own) – that REALLY makes me appreciate just how fast he is. 20 seconds is an eternity.
