The Run-in off the Last Hurdle

If you’ve been keeping up with the men’s 400 hurdles this year, you’ve noticed that Bershawn Jackson and Johnny Dutch have been at or near the top in most races. I still often keep in contact with Dutch, whom I coached in high school, and whose career I’ve followed ever since. While he is having an outstanding year in 2015, he has lost a couple races in the final run-in off the last hurdle. And even in the races that he has won, competitors did make up ground on him in that final run-in. Watching these races has made me think about the importance of the run-in off the last hurdle in the 400 meter hurdles.

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Dutch’s case is interesting because he’s not losing ground at the tenth hurdle, but after it. Most hurdlers who lose ground off the last hurdle do so because they stutter or reach going into it, while competitors time the last hurdle perfectly and then zoom past.

To me, there are two types of 400 meter hurdlers – those who are 400 meter runners running over hurdles, and those who are hurdlers running 400 meters. In other words, some are quarter-milers, some are hurdlers. Dutch falls into the latter category, and therein lies the root of his problem with the run-in.

As I’ve said to him on several occasions, he’s the best hurdler in the 400 hurdles, bar none. No one is as efficient and precise in clearing the hurdles, minimizing wasted effort, than Dutch. As for his flat speed, I’m not sure what his best time is in the open 400, as he has run it very rarely, but I’m quite confident he could run sub-46 in the open quarter. Still, his bread and butter, his go-to strength, lies in his ability to run mistake-free, stutter-free races.

Coming off the last hurdle, the race is no longer a hurdler’s race; it’s a quarter-miler’s race. It’s a long run-in – 35 meters, so less efficient hurdlers have a chance to make up ground they may have lost throughout the race over the hurdles.

Also, someone like Jackson is a unique case altogether. Jackson is famous for starting out slowly in the first half of the race and then coming on like gangbusters in the second half. Jackson’s finishing strength is among the best the event has ever seen, in any era. So no matter how far ahead of him you are, you know he’s coming. Below is a link to the video of the 400 hurdle final at USA’s. Note how Jackson closes on Dutch.

VID OF USA Championships 400H RACE

My suggestion to Johnny, and my suggestion to any 400 hurdlers having this issue, is to do workouts that involve negative splits. When I was in college and basically coaching myself, I did some negative-split workouts to help me close more strongly in the 400 hurdles, and it helped a lot.

I got the idea from reading about how Bud Winter – Tommie Smith’s coach at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968 – had Smith do negative-split workouts leading up to that meet. Winter had him run 200’s at a certain target time, but with the goal being to run the second 100 at a raster rate than the first 100. The point is to “trick the body,” as I like to put it. To negative split in a race as short as the 200 meters, or the 400 meter hurdles, is nearly impossible, and not really advisable. But the idea is, if you do negative splits in practice, you’ll feel like you’re negative splitting in races. And it’ll look like your speeding up at the end instead of slowing down.

If you were to actually watch the race that Smith ran in Mexico City (instead of focusing on the awards ceremony afterwards), you’ll see how Smith destroys compatriot John Carlos on the final straightaway, flying by him effortlessly. That’s what negative-split training enables you to do. Youtube footage of the race is below.

One workout that can help the 400 hurdler who is looking to close better would be the following:

• 2×500 with a 10 minute rest between reps.
• Start at the 100 meter start line.
• Coach will time the 400 split, and the last 100.
• There will be a target time for the entire 500, broken down with target time for the first 400, and a target time for last 100.

Because the aim of this workout is to improve closing speed, the target times have to be very specific. For someone on Dutch’s level, the target time for the 500 rep would be somewhere around 1:04, let’s say. The key would be to run the first 400 at a challenging pace, but not so fast that he can coast the last 100 and still come in at 1:04.

For this particular workout to serve its purpose, the first 400 should be about 50.0 and the last 100 should be 14. So, 50.0 is challenging but do-able, which is what we want. If the first 400 is at 48, then he can jog the last 100 in 16 and still hit the 1:04, which is not how we want to get there. We’re still not improving our closing speed that way. But if he has to run a 14.0 final one hundred after coming through the 400 at 50.0, then that closing speed will carry over into his races.

Another good workout would be the following:

• 2×400 with a 10 minute rest between reps.
• Have a target time in mind for each rep.
• Have a specific target time for the first 200, and for the second 200.
• Goal is to negative split.

Let’s say the target time for each rep is 50.0. The aim would be to run the first 200 in 25.1, and to run the second 200 in 24.9. The splits can be played with. Maybe a .4 difference, or .6, or a whole second. The key is, the athlete shouldn’t hold back in the first 200. Especially if, like Dutch, that’s not the way he races. These workouts aren’t designed to change the way the athlete races, but to improve the closing speed.

An obvious question regarding these workouts would be, should they involve hurdles? My answer is no. For a hurdler who doesn’t have any stride pattern issues going over the hurdles or going into the last hurdle, the key is not to practice coming off the last hurdle, but to focus on sprinting through the line. Again, that’s a quarter-miler issue, not a hurdler issue.

If the hurdling is the problem, if the stride pattern between hurdles nine and ten is causing the athlete to lose ground off the last hurdle, then I would suggest the following workout:

• 2×400 with a 10 minute rest between reps.
• Athlete clears first two hurdles, continues to sprint, then clears last two hurdles.
• Target time should be within 2-3 seconds of the athlete’s personal best in the 400m hurdles.

The key is to clear hurdle nine in rhythm and to avoid stuttering or reaching going into hurdle ten.

This workout provides the necessary fatigue factor, but avoids forcing the athlete to run the entire hurdle race.

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