400 Meter Training: The Jimson Lee Speed Endurance Method

Based on Episode 7 of the Just Fly Performance Podcast, a conversation between host Joel Smith and Jimson Lee, founder of Speed Endurance, recorded in 2016.

Effective 400 meter training starts from a fact most beginners resist: the race is one long deceleration. That is the frame Jimson Lee brings to the event. A former McGill University quarter-miler who started out as a long and triple jumper, a masters athlete and coach, and the founder of the long-running Speed Endurance blog, Lee has written more than 2,000 articles on speed and track and field and contributes to the IAAF’s New Studies in Athletics. His view of the 400 is blunt and useful: you reach top speed around 60 meters, and everything after that is holding on. Train the speed that sets the ceiling, train the endurance that slows the drop-off, and match the method to the athlete in front of you.

Key Takeaways

• The 400 is one long deceleration. Runners hit top speed near 60 meters, then slow the rest of the way, so a faster top-end speed raises the whole race.
• Two roads to the 400, not one. Long to short (high volume) and short to long (speed first) both work; Lee ran long to short and later adopted the short-to-long ideas he learned from Charlie Francis.
• Speed first, then speed endurance. Put at least one true speed or acceleration day in every week, then add the harder, longer special endurance work that handles race-day lactate.
• Pick the program from the athlete, not the dogma. Lee chooses long or short by an athlete’s injury history and how their times are trending, not by a favorite system.
• For older athletes, under-training beats over-training. Once training age is high, it takes less to hold form, and staying healthy matters more than piling on volume.

Why the 400 meters is one long deceleration

Lee’s starting point for 400 meter training is not a workout. It is the shape of the race itself. Decades of split data, he says, all tell the same story.

The first thing you need to know is that the 400 is reach a top speed at 60 meters and then it’s one long deceleration. If you took your 50 meter splits or 100 meter splits, you’ll see that you hit the top speed at 60, maybe 70, but then it’s all downhill.

Even and negative splits exist, but he calls them rare at the top level. If almost every 400 is a fight against slowing down, the single most valuable quality is a higher ceiling to slow down from.

The faster your top end speed, the faster you’re gonna run your 400. That’s rule number one.

For a coach, that reframes the event. A quarter-miler who gets two tenths faster over 100 meters carries that speed reserve into every phase of the race, which is why Lee treats raw speed as the foundation the endurance work sits on top of, not the other way around.

400 meter training: long to short versus short to long

Lee has lived both sides of the sport’s oldest 400 argument. His own training was built one way, and his thinking changed only after he stopped competing.

When I trained at McGill, my 400 training was long to short, because my coach came from an American background and he was used to training long to short, the high volume, high intensity kind of work. It wasn’t until after I retired I heard about short to long, and I believe I met Charlie Francis around 2001. No medium intensity work, always high intensity or low intensity, and to me that was unheard of.

Long to short opens with high volume and long runs and sharpens toward race pace and speed as the season goes. Short to long inverts it, building speed early and extending the distances the athlete can hold that speed for. Lee’s point is not that one wins. It is that a coach should know both well enough to choose, and that the “no medium intensity” idea, hard days truly hard and easy days truly easy, was a genuine shift for a coach raised on high-volume work.

Speed endurance and special endurance for the 400

Whichever road you take, Lee argues the 400 needs two engines: the speed to set the top end and the specific endurance to keep it. He describes the classic short-to-long speed session as a long, patient affair.

The Charlie Francis or the short to long method, where they do the classic speed and endurance workout. They do some 30s, they do 60, 80, 100, 120, 150, and that workout takes two and a half hours because it’s full recovery.

The full recoveries are the point: each rep is run near top speed, and the rest exists so the next one can be too. Lee points to Marita Koch, whose long-standing world record came off exactly this kind of speed work, as proof the athlete first earns the speeds she needs and then trusts them in the race. On top of that speed sits the endurance side.

You need speed endurance, and some level of special endurance to handle that lactate that you’re gonna get. But first, you have to do your speed. You have to have at least one day a week on speed training or acceleration development. And then you have to do your harder, longer stuff. So that’s the balance of the two.

The practical rule for a coach is a weekly non-negotiable: protect at least one true speed or acceleration day, then build the special endurance around it. Reverse the order and the athlete trains to run slow efficiently.

How to pick a 400 meter program for your athlete

Ask Lee how to choose between the two approaches and he does not start with the calendar. He starts with the athlete’s medical file.

First thing I do is look at their health history. If he’s always injured, pulling hamstrings as a sprinter, then forget it. Don’t do a lot of stuff that will hurt his hamstring. You can do short stuff, 30 meters, because that doesn’t really hurt your hamstring too much.

A hamstring-prone sprinter gets short, front-end acceleration work rather than long, fast 150s that punish the hamstring. A history of shin splints steers him away from heavy mileage. Only after the injury picture does he look at the trend in an athlete’s results.

And second, you have to look at the history of their times. If they’re slowly progressing faster and faster, then look at considering a short to long.

The takeaway is that the program is a prescription, not a philosophy. Read the injury history to rule out what will break the athlete, read the results to see what is working, then commit to the method that fits both.

Training masters and older sprinters

Lee is a masters athlete himself, and some of his sharpest advice is about the aging sprinter. His explanation for why runners like Justin Gatlin and Kim Collins stayed fast deep into their careers comes down to training age, not a secret program.

Once you have eight years of training age, as opposed to chronological age, you don’t need much to maintain it.

A deeply trained athlete holds fitness on less work, so the older sprinter’s job is to keep the intensity and cut the junk volume. Lee is candid that he skipped easy tempo days as a competitor because he could not absorb them, and he points to athletes who trimmed to three quality days a week and stopped getting hurt. His hard rule for the aging body is simple: do not get injured, because the recovery clock only gets longer with age. He credits a line from Donovan Bailey for the mindset.

Donovan Bailey had the best line I ever heard. I said, “What do you do when you set a personal best or world record?” And he says, “I book a flight home for 10 days.” The minute you hit a personal best, just take 10 days off.

For a masters or late-career athlete, under-training beats over-training. The wins come from staying healthy across a full season, backing off at the first sign of fatigue, and treating a big performance as a reason to recover rather than a reason to chase another one.

Electronic timing and data in sprint training

Lee is an early believer in putting numbers in front of athletes right after a run. The value, he says, is not the gadget. It is the instant feedback loop it creates.

Data is so important nowadays. It helps the athlete build confidence, and it helps the coach to see, okay, the minute he goes a certain time, you cut the workout, because obviously he’s looking bad.

An athlete who knows a split the second they cross the line trains with a target, and a coach who sees the split fall off knows when to end the session before fatigue turns into injury. Lee extends the same thinking to relays, where he argues the object worth timing is the baton, not the runner: measure the 50-meter split through the exchange zone and you can tell whether a handoff is actually fast or just looks smooth. It is a small idea with a big payoff, and it does not take an expensive setup to start collecting the numbers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best way to train for the 400 meters?
There is no single best way. Lee argues the 400 needs both raw speed and specific endurance, so a good program protects at least one true speed or acceleration day each week and then builds the longer special endurance work around it. Whether you get there through a long-to-short or a short-to-long plan depends on the athlete.

Long to short or short to long for the 400: which is better?
Both work. Long to short opens with high volume and sharpens toward speed; short to long builds speed first and extends it. Lee ran long to short as an athlete and later adopted short-to-long ideas from Charlie Francis. He picks between them using an athlete’s injury history and how their times are trending, not a fixed preference.

Why do runners slow down so much in the 400 meters?
Because the 400 is essentially one long deceleration. Lee says runners reach top speed around 60 to 70 meters and slow the rest of the way, so the race is won by decelerating the least. That is why a faster top-end speed, a bigger speed reserve, translates directly into a faster 400.

How should masters and older sprinters train?
Keep the intensity, cut the volume. Lee says once an athlete has a high training age it takes little to maintain fitness, so older sprinters do well on fewer, higher-quality days. Above all, avoid injury, because recovery takes longer with age, and treat a personal best as a cue to take recovery days rather than to push again.

What is speed reserve and why does it matter for the 400?
Speed reserve is the gap between an athlete’s top-end sprint speed and the pace they hold in a longer race. The faster the top end, the more comfortable race pace feels. Lee’s rule of thumb is that getting a quarter-miler even two tenths faster over 100 meters pays off across the whole 400.

About the authors

Jimson Lee is the founder of Speed Endurance (speedendurance.com), a track and field site he launched in 2007 that has published thousands of articles on speed, power, and track and field. A former 400 meter runner at McGill University who began as a long and triple jumper, he is a masters athlete and coach and an associate writer for the IAAF’s New Studies in Athletics.

Joel Smith is the host of the Just Fly Performance Podcast and the founder of Just Fly Sports, a former collegiate strength and track and field coach who focuses on speed, power, and athletic development. Listen to the full episode with Jimson Lee on Just Fly Sports.