I’m coaching High School track right now. I have been at it for awhile, I have developed my own little routines. What I am looking for is what do other people do. Specifically I am looking for interval workouts for 800 runners and 2 milers. I figured I would pick the collective slowtwitch brain for some ideas. Whatcha got?
Waht sort of 800 runners do you have? There’s a prety big difference in training a 2:05 guy vs. a 1:52 guy. I was the latter in high school, and would do much of my intervals near the limit. 12-16 x 300 in 41-42 with 90 sec jog recovery, 8 x 400 in 59-60 with 120 sec jog revocery, 10 x 200 in 27 with 2 min rest. For the 2:05-2:10 kids, you can do the same distances, but fewer and slower. Do a couple of these workouts a week. If you have a meet on Saturday, I’d do 8 x 100 at race pace the friday prior just to get the legs springy.
I’d have my 2-miles run similar intervals to those once a week to focus on speed, but add more reps. The second interval day would be longer at race pace: 12 x 600 with 400 jog recovery is a pretty fun one. 8x1000, 8-10 x 800, 4 x 1600. I’d shoot for about 2-3 times the race distance for the total amount of interval work for the day.
800 is a lot of runners. I suggest having them practice in shifts, so the track doesn’t get too crowded.
He’s got the whole damned school on the track team - one of them HAS to be a star!
Make sure the 2milers are running a decent amount a week. Even the 800 runners. One thing you should keep in mind is if it is not an interval day(over distance or easy day or even a long run), have everyone do 4-8 100 meter strides on the football field. I do these, as well as the other milers on my team, barefoot. Don’t have them do the 100’s all out but progressively pick up the pace to about 90% the last 20 yards. I agree with the workouts above for the most part. One thing to keep in mind… If you have 4 solid 800 runners you can have a solid team. There are a few different types of 800 runners. The 800 down and 800 up. I would recommend transforming your 400 meter runners into 800 runners. If you can get a solid 4x8 you should have a solid 4x4. Get a good miler or two as well as a 3200 runner. Your new 800 runners will be stronger at the 400 and have awesome speed for the 800 and maybe the 1600. I’m not sure how much of the season you have left but I would not do a whole lot of speed right now, race pace or even a second or two slower right now will be fine. Have the 800 runners to milers do this workout as well, 6x600 but the first 400 is at race pace or 1-2 seconds slower (of their mile pace) and kick the last 200. This can be a rough workout. I did it last week but we did a fairly hard 1200 before to wear us out.
Always remember, the distance crew score the points 
that being said there are always solid throwers. There will also always be a strange respect between these two groups!