from Hacker News

Ask HN: Over what distances are 800M runners competitive with 400M runners?

by dougSF70 on 10/20/23, 5:14 PM with 6 comments

I learned that the longest time you can sprint for is ~1 minute which is why the 400M is a sprint because historically it took 60 seconds. On the other hand 800M is not a sprint, as a consequence the physiques of 400M runners are different from 800M runners...it got me thinking is there a distance over which a mixed group of 400M runners would be competitive with 800M runners? For example 600M?

  • by atrettel on 10/21/23, 1:16 AM

    I used to run middle distance in high school track and won several races in the 400m or 800m events. At the collegiate and professional levels, there is a lot of specialization from what I know, but at the lower levels there are a lot of people who run both the 400m and 800m and even the 1600m or mile. I did. Runners who race in both the 400m and 800m are quite rare at the higher levels but not unheard of. The last time somebody won both the 400m and 800m at the Olympics was in 1976 [1].

    I agree that a runner's physique plays a big role here, especially in regards to their mixture of muscle fiber types. At higher levels, I think it is easier to train a 200m runner's endurance than to train an 800m runner's speed. The 400m is a sprint and if you do not have a good enough top speed, you will not win.

    Your question about intermediate distances is interesting. I have run 500m races (on indoor tracks) in the past and I rarely saw sprinters attempt the distance. I saw plenty of 200m sprinters run the 400m from time to time, but the 500m was just too much. This is likely because it really is just too long to sprint the entire time. Your anaerobic energy will be nearly depleted by the 400m mark, yet you still have to go 100 extra meters! Pacing, endurance, and strategy become important here, and most sprinters are not trained in these areas as much, but 800m runners are, since the race is one of the most strategy-intensive races in the sport, with the positive split strategy (running the first half faster than the second half) being what tends to get world records.

    That said, I think that with the right training, 400m and 800m runners could be competitive with each other at the 500m, and maybe the 600m, but I think the 500m is more likely to be the competitive distance here.

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Juantorena

  • by eimrine on 10/20/23, 5:23 PM

    How about 800M? You just double a 400's result (how much time it took) and that is going to be pretty fare because 800M is more exhausting than 400M but need to have 2 starts compensates the difference.

  • by dougSF70 on 10/20/23, 5:34 PM

    400M WR is 43.03 vs 800M WR is 1 min 40.91..at 400M pace the WR would be 1 min 26...the 15sec difference is due to the physique of runners optimized for different distances.