I started running the 400m at 21, which in this sport is late. Most of the guys I line up against found their event as teenagers… so for years I felt like I was catching up, and that feeling pushed me straight into the kind of training that made me slower.
Today my PB is 45.03 and I have an Olympic gold medal from the mixed 4x400 in Paris, but the road there was not a straight line. I've had years where I trained four hours a day and got worse, and years where the sessions were shorter and "easier" and I improved more than ever. If you want to run a faster 400m, the second kind of year is the one you're looking for.
Why more training doesn't make you a faster 400m runner
My first year running the 400 was at McKendree. I didn't have any expectations, I just enjoyed it, and a lot of what I did was speed work instead of long tempos and long runs. I ran well.
Then I transferred and the volume went WAY up. We still did speed work and we still lifted, and that was the argument every time… "we're still doing speed, we're still doing strength." But speed and strength get dumbed down when you never have time to recover. Training only makes you better if your body gets the chance to adapt to it. Sport scientists call this supercompensation: you train, your performance dips, you recover, and then you come back slightly above where you started. If the next hard session always lands before that rebound, you live below the curve and you just go down and down.
That's exactly what happened to me. Two months into the fall we did our first testing, a 45-second test where you run as far as you can in 45 seconds, and I ran around 355 meters. A few months earlier, in May, I had run 46.7 for the 400. We retested after another cycle and I ran around 365. I was behind guys who ran 47 and 48.
The coach kept telling me I was "growing," and to be fair, you can't expect to PB all the time. I tell my own athletes the same thing. But I do believe you should be able to go out at ANY point of the year and perform decently, in a test or a race. You don't have to be at your best year round, but you shouldn't be that far off it either.
Stop trying to win every rep
I remember sessions like 2 sets of 4-3-2-1 where after two reps I was already behind the whole group, clenching my jaw and my fists just trying to get back in front. The next day would be 12x250 tempo and then flys, and I would try to win every single one because I felt like I had to prove myself. Everyone in that group was fighting for a relay spot and I fell right into it. When I opened my indoor season in 48, I had a real "dang" moment.
If I could tell my 21-year-old self one thing, it would be to start doing less. You're behind in training… just stay behind, because training is not the race. These days if I'm way behind in a session I'm completely fine with it, because I know what my body can do when it actually matters.
The year I started writing my own training
The next year looked different on paper but it was the same problem. Even more volume, this time barefoot on grass, and most days we'd arrive at 2 and leave at 6 with the weight room included. Every season my body still found some magical way to run one PB, and then everything else went back below the level I had at McKendree.
So the year after that, at 23, I started writing my own training. It began in the summer, going back to a lot of what had worked for me at McKendree and adjusting it for an older body. I fell in love with the sport again and I started training really well. That summer is honestly where EO Fitness comes from (and it's why I still write summer plans for my athletes today).
In the fall I kept writing my own plans, strength and all. My twin brother and I would go out and I'd say "okay, today is 6x250 with 3 minutes rest on the grass and hurdle drills after," and we'd just go do it. Pretty cool, not gonna lie.
What changed at Kansas State
Coach Rovelto signed both of us at Kansas State, and after one conversation with him I knew that was the place. He understood training so well, and he could explain the why behind it in a scientific way AND a human way, which is still exactly what I try to do as a coach.
His sessions felt almost weird at first. I kept thinking, wait, why am I not training for three or four hours a day? Some sessions were easier and some were maybe even harder, but they were short, sweet and really high quality, and I was recovering better than I ever had.
In December we did a 5x300 cut-down, where the first rep is slow (around 40 seconds) and every rep gets faster. On the last one I ran 33 low and was clear of everyone, in a group with guys who had already run 45 and 46 low. At that point I had run 46 low once or twice and mostly 47s. That was the moment I knew something was happening.
The mistakes I see most in 400m runners
Most of the 400m runners who message me make one of two mistakes, and a lot of the time it's both.
The first one is looking for quick gains. The 400m is a COMPOUNDING sport. A good fall builds a good winter, a good winter builds a good season, and that season builds the next fall. Nobody gets to skip that line.
The second one is a bit of a caveat, because I love an athlete who wants to work hard… but I don't want an athlete who grinds himself into the ground. Getting better is sometimes uncomfortable and there are definitely days when you're hurting, but most progress is steady, and it takes real discipline to NOT do the extra stuff, to recover properly and to sleep enough. That's where a lot of the golden nuggets are.
I'll contradict myself a little here though. There is so much information out there now that some athletes start acting like their own coach, worrying about their nervous system and every tiny detail. Sometimes you just have to work hard. If you can't get up at 6 for a lift because you went to bed at 11, some of that you just need to be able to do. Recovery matters, but it's not an excuse to stop being an athlete.
So how do you actually run a faster 400m?
This is what I build into every plan now, because it's what worked for me:
Keep the quality high and the volume honest, with fewer reps done fast and real rest between them.
Keep speed in your training all year. The 400 can be run in different ways and some people succeed with less top speed and more volume, but it's still a sprint, and grinding volume almost never works on its own.
Treat recovery as part of the program, because if you're always tired you're living below the curve.
Be able to perform at any time of year. Not your best, but close enough that a test or a race doesn't shock you.
Play the long game, since every season is built on the one before it.
It took me years of doing too much to learn that less, done right, was what I actually needed. Hopefully it takes you a lot less time than it took me.
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