Your weight doesn't sound like such a limiting factor here.

What are some of your times for other distances? Your training history? Was the 1:50 time at 100% effort on a track?

I also think before you answer my questions that simply running more should offer more benefits than strength training unless you have a major strength deficiency. Running speed is a product of stride length and stride frequency.

I would be curious how fast you can run 50 m and 100m. Can you do 50m sub 10 seconds or 100m sub 20 seconds. Most of 400m running has nothing to do with your aerobic system and is purely a fast twitch exercise. My initial feel is that you have almost no fast twitch muscle fiber and AND your lower legs have limited "spring". Perhaps skipping rope, doing plyometrics and doing 25 m accelerations are what you need. Running more will help but only if you can increase your stride length. The reality is that stride rate (cadence) most of us will hit a brick wall on at some magic number and the only way to sprint faster is longer stride length. Fast sprinting is about connecting bounds really quickly but at some point at every distance, you reach your max cadence.

Top 400m runners reach a rate of 4 strides per second, which is 240 strides per minute or 120 RPM (in cycling terms). Most of us won't quite hit that stride rate, but 110 RPM should be in reach. Stride length can be as high as 2.4m + (I don't have the stats on Michael Johnson's 400m record from the Atlanta Games, but he may have been higher on cadence and lower on length, but he was a bit of an outlier). 2.5 m is around 8 feet. Keep in mind that the deck of many treadmills is barely 5 feet long so that gives you perspective on how long an 8 foot stride length actually is.

Run more, yeah if you are way overweight that will hinder things. I ran my fastest 400 when I was around 210 since the 400 is about speed and power.

Run more and work on foot speed, end all runs with some striders.

run more!

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Do you really want to run a faster 400 or do you want to run a faster marathon?

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speedySTATES

run faster at the 200 m distance.

What are your real goals? 400m or a marathon? I suspect if you are thinking of trying to get under 3 hours in a marathon, you have much more to worry about than your 400m time. I can run 400m in 57 seconds and my fastest marathon is only 3:13. The two are not very related.

The issue is 18 miles a week.

You should build up to doing much, much more. Speed isn't your problem. Endurance (and associated strength) are.

good stuff! You are talking in terms I can understand and put into practice.

According to a running app on my phone (iSmoothRun), during my typical 3-mile run:
(rpm) = 75
(stride length) = 1.2-m

I can jump rope, and shorten my "sprints" to 100-m. I'll have to google "plyometrics" though. I mean, I knew I had to strengthen my legs, I just didn't know the right exercises. thanks!

You are barking up the wrong tree if you want to get faster at races that are a mile or longer. If you slowly build up to double (even triple) your weekly miles you will see a ton of improvement. If you just add plyos and jump rope to your 18 miles a week, not so much. World class milers run as much as 90-100 miles a week.

While I agree with others that 400m time and marathon time are largely uncorrelated, the main correlation stems from improving stride rate, and stride length and biomechanics when running fast at 400m pace. All of this will carry over to every distance, provided that you also develop the slow twitch fiber's oxygen carrying capability in parallel. In my youth I had gotten my 200m time to just below 23 seconds, however, I had zero slowtwitch capacity...at 400m which arguably is still largely fast twitch, I'd totally unravel and end up at 56 seconds. 8 years later, (then in my mid twenties) I developed enough slow twitch capacity to run 2:48 over the marathon (OK, front door brag from the past...gotta take our glory when we can, because I am slow as molasses right now at all run distances).

Having top end speed and excellent running biomechanics will help in the long distance...don't believe it? Mo Farah won the Olympic 5000m and 10000m at London. His CLOSING Mile in the 5000m was sub 4 minutes. But get this....his closing 400m was 53 SECONDS. That guy has some of the best biomechanics on the track and he can span from 400m all the way up to the marathon, although arguably his crack at the marathon at 2:08 was "slow" relative to his short distance speed. I would not be surprised if Mo can run 400m sub 50 seconds from the blocks.

I would be curious to know the closing 200m sprint between Frodeno-Whitfield-Docherty-Gomez at Beijing Olympics 2008. Those guys had pretty unreal closing speed at the end of a 1:45 triathlon. Top end speed for more of us triathletes will trickle down over the longer distances just because we do so much aerobic stuff.

Having said all that, I would focus on improving top end 1000m and 1600m time as those use more slowtwitch fiber, but being fast at this distances means you have to have excellent biomechanics+stride length+ stride rate.

To the OP 75 RPM is your first low hanging fruit. Get that up to 100 RPM for you 400m and 85-90 RPM for your longer runs. This will be your biggest gain. Once that is tapped out, then stride length becomes more important but based on what you are saying stride length/push off force is your secondary problem.

Yeah ... not really. The OP is 42 year old beginner runner and currently doing 18 miles per week. He just needs to run more.

Id say the issue is fitness and run economy. Run more and you should see results.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

You need a coach or an experienced runner to help you in person.

If your 400 time is slow because you are not strong enough to maintain top speed, then one approach needs to be taken. If your 400 is slow because you are just slow overall, then another approach needs to be taken to likely improve your form, arm drive, turnover, etc.

Said another way: if you can run a 13 second 100m, a 27 second 200m, but your 400m time is 90 seconds, it's clear you have a good enough top end speed, you just need to get stronger. However if your all-out 100m time is 20 seconds and your 400m time is still 90 seconds, you need to work on your top end speed which requires a very different approach.

Basic tenet: if you want to run faster, you have to run faster (correctly and with good form).

You can put in all the long slow distance you want and that will only get you better at running long slow distance. I had many D1 cross country running friends who could run me into the ground over 5 miles but they couldn't beat me in one open 400. Of course, they could also run 12-16 quarter repeats near top speed with half recovery where I couldn't.

Anyone who has been on even a middle school track team knows the sprinters don't train with distance runners. They have different needs.

Sprinters run fast. Distance runners run far. The 400 is right at the end of the sprint distance.

Base does not equal top speed and top speed does not mean you have a good base.

Find a runner to see you run and you'll learn what you need.

I was around 66 seconds for a 400 at your age and almost the same height and weight. I did no strength training and very little "speed training." Just running. I think you just need to run more of those 9 minute miles, for now.

You don't need speed to run a 3 hour marathon so much as you need endurance. Another poster once had a signature line saying something like "Speed-work is icing on the cake and you don't have a cake yet."