How to train for the 800m?

Athletics carnival in 2 weeks. how to train for the 800m, 400 , 200 and 100m races?

• im female, 15 and i have my aths carnival in 2 weeks! i am a runner and i was just wandering how shoudl i train for these events? the carnival is an olympic sized track so its quite big!!!!!!! how long should my runs be ? (in km) and does diet impact on my performance? and what is the different between a 400m track on an oval and an 400m olympic track? i always think that the olympic one is way bigger.... but then agin.. they are both 400m tracks? it always confuses me? THANKS <3 ill give you 10 points for best answer

• Answer:

  That is a wide array of events, I did the same back in school. I found what our coach called ladders and rat drills worked. I'm sure they have different names as well. Ladders-pick a starting distance run all out, then go longer for instance we would run a 200, walk 200, run a 300, walk a 300, run a 400 walk a 400 and so on up to 600 or even 800, then come back down. We had two versions, 1 where where started at 100 and ended at 600 then another where we would start at 300 and go to 800. It is a workout. Rat drill- these are shorter distances. Usually 75-200. Our coach used to like picking odd distances on these like 120 or 150. Anyway lets say you run the 100 in 15 seconds. You would start the clock at 25 or 30, which means you start running on the 30 (or 25). If it takes you 15 seconds to run then you have 15 to rest, if you run it in 20 then only 10 seconds to rest. Do at least 10, although we would do 15 or 20 and get that good oxegen burn headache. You are probably too young to remember the movie Hoosiers, but in it this small school basketball team makes it to the state championships. They are nervous playing in this big arena so at a practice the coach takes them out and has them meassure how high the rim is, same as their gym, they meassure other things and its all the same. This goes for you too, don't let the name fool you. The roundness or flatness of the oval may be a little different but it is still a 400. Diet does effect eveything. Look up a good runner diet and start it now. Don't try something new the night before and hope it works start now. Good luck