In my case, just coming back from years of no sprinting, I need to learn to be fast again. Fifteen years ago I was sort of a “hybrid” runner. I ran 200’s/400’s/long jump in track but also ran cross country and could run a mile in under 4:50 late in the XC season. I never really knew or understood what event I was best suited for in track, meaning that it didn’t know whether or not I was a 100/200 type, a 200/400 type, or, with my XC experience, maybe even an 800 type. I didn’t have the explosion of a 100m man but I could put up a 11.3, 22.7-23.0 200m and around 52 for the 400m. I regret not having ever really done any specific training for these, since our “coach” just had us running laps in practice. I’m still learning about training and how my body responds to certain methods. Right now I need both speed and speed endurance and, after I get into decent shape, I’ll decide which events to focus on whether it’s 100/200, 200/400, or, as someone on another forum suggested, even the 800.
personally i would suggest asking yourself.if you prefer training for X or running X then i would train for it.
nio point in training for something you hate running or hate the training!!!
X-man,
I would love to run the 100m in 10.5 but I don’t know how realistic that is, no matter how much I want it.
I suppose that my range would be 200m at the low end and maybe even up to 1 mile. In the past I’ve run as low as 22.7 in the 200 and under 4:40 for the mile. But, like I said before, it’s tough for me to know since I never really trained for anything. Back in HS, our “track coach” was the basketball coach serving a role basically, and he just had us run laps–and that was our “practice” for track. No specific training at all, so I never found my niche.
One thing I do know is that long distance running isn’t for me, really. I struggled ans staggered my way through XC and only broke 18:00 one time ever. During college and after college I tried in vain to go lower, but just could never do it. I could run up to one mile very well, but then, the bottom would fall out.
I suggest u do the 200m/400m or 200m/100m, but in the end, as X-Man said its really up to what u like doing best. If u dont like to train ridiclously hard then just forget about the 400m/200m, but the 200m/100m aint nothing to sneeze at either.
Heatwave, since you´re coming from some years without sprint training i would suggest you some tests/comparisons with WR times,national Records for as many distances you need, but of course, you don´t have to take the gap between times as the main decision factor. You should also feel these runnings. So, took some weeks, maybe months, do a Excel sheet painel to some analysis.
The gap must be in % and you´ll see that as longer the distance, lower will be the difference between WR results and your PBs.
A the end of the “numbers analysis” if you still not 100% decided then you should mix these results with your feeling, what do you prefer, your needs and of course the facilities around you.
Failing that, you could always try the decathlon. You’ve covered half of the events already. How’s you’re shot putt!?
Agreed. If you really have to ask yourself what you are suitted for, you might be a great decathlete (assuming you can throw of course 
).I had some friends in XC who did just that once they got into college track.
I wouldn’t train for a “range” of events, 200m-1609m is too long a range to train for, you will end up being average at all of the distances, and good at none.
As people have previously mentioned pick one distance, specialize at it, and maybe also compete at 1 distance above or below it.
I knew going into this that the 400m would be one of my events, I’m still just trying to decide whether or not to go low (100/200 as well) or long up to the 800m. I’ll try them all and see where to go from there, but the 400 is one of my goals.
X-Man answered it.
I threw Hammer because it was fun, not because I built for it.
The sport is so hard the no. 1 rule has to be enjoy it.