Sunday, May 2, 2010

Wednesday and the 800

It's a done deal that Greg will run his first 800 on Wednesday and I'm cool with it. The head coach and I had a long talk about it and agree if nothing else, one meet breaks up the training routine and let's see what we get. Fine and I'm cool with it. Ran a meet yesterday in terrible weather. Rain and strong wind that was breaking umbrellas. Greg took a 4th in this invitational with a 53.1 but came back with 51.6 on the anchor of the 4x400. This was also a 4th place finish but he took out a runner on the back turn and made an exciting race of it challenging for 3rd. We'll see that happens Wednesday. I agree with Eric that it is late in the game to learn how to run an 800. As for college, not much has changed. But one never knows, do one!

Dave

3 comments:

Sub 5 at 50 miler said...

To me, his 53.1 under poor conditions (and 4th in a big meet) sounds encouraging. I'm looking forward to further reports, and also can't wait to see how he "enjoys" an 800. PLEASE tell him not to go out too fast. Even 60 to 61 seconds would be reasonable. If he runs a 2:02, I think that would be an excellent time for his first 800. And if he feels good, he can bang out a 58 second 2nd quarter and take a stab at sub 2.

Mark

Eric said...

I think Mark's advice is spot on! If Greg goes out in 61 and kicks in a 58 because he is feeling good down the backstretch and the homestretch that will be a great race.

Sub 5 at 50 miler said...

Even a 62-second first lap wouldn't be a bad idea, if he has a good sense of pacing. Sub 2 is probably very ambitious for a person's first attempt at a distance. I wouldn't be disappointed with 2:04 or 2:05. But with his speed, a 62-58 wouldn't be out of the question if he felt good. Anyway, I realize part of this depends on where he is when he gets the baton, etc., but he should not feel he has to make up all the time or distance in the first lap. I think a 400 runner might be tempted to go out too fast because face it, a 58 second lap will feel "easy" to him, but would probably be disastrous by half way through the second lap.

Another approach is to tell him. Well, go out there and run and see how you feel. It's really up to him to learn. I had NO coaching in high school. In fact, my brother and I had to "coach" the team, because our coach knew NOTHING about track, and just wanted a little extra money. In college, I had Truce as a coach (need I say more).

Mark