Meters to reach top speed for different athletes?

Johnny · September 24, 2004, 1:57am

The CFTS idea of controlling your special endurance intensity by accelerating out to say, 30m, and then maintaining that speed to complete the run makes good sense.

My specific question on behalf of my sprint group is: With 100% effort, after approximately how many meters do the following athletes reach top speed?

11.0 second 100m guy?
11.5 second 100m guy?
12.0 second 100m guy ?
12.5 second 100m guy?
13.0 second 100m guy?

Any good guesses would be appreciated!

Pioneer · September 24, 2004, 2:16am

I asked CF the same(relatively) question before. Look up “Limiting sprints to 95% by limiting acceleration distances.”

Johnny · September 24, 2004, 3:07am

Thanks, Pioneer. Yes, I re-read that thread, and see that you were poking around the same idea? I’m hoping that someone can go further and give me some specific numbers-simply to work with as a guideline.

My inexperienced guesses for what they’re worth:

11.0 guy-40m
11.5 guy-37m
12.0 guy-34m
12.5 guy-31m
13.0 guy-28m

Johnny · September 25, 2004, 9:52pm

bumpity bump bump

aln · September 26, 2004, 8:57am

Is that electronic or manual? They look close to reasonable for manual. An 11.24 guy accelerating 40m., but the lower ranges look too far. A 13.0 guy will surely be decelarating by 30m. into the race, not accelerating, I would think the lower end of the range you made would be around 20-22m. with a wide variance, ie a naturally explosive but unfit individual might blast 15m. and then be dead, while I’ve seen that very uncoordinated individuals might take 25 or more to reach full speed as they struggle against themselves to get up to running speed … then as the athlete gets more advance the variance between individuals decreases. What I think is tricky about this business is that although full acceleration is for example 40m for an 11 guy, 90-95% of the speed was probably obtained by 20m. and 97-98% by 30m., the point being that it’s a curve and not a line. If you say you’re going to accelerate 85% you can’t grab 40m. to derive that figure, you’ll get 33 or something like that and if you accelerate 33 you’ll reach 98 or 99%.

Johnny · September 27, 2004, 2:07am

aln:

Is that electronic or manual? They look close to reasonable for manual. An 11.24 guy accelerating 40m., but the lower ranges look too far. A 13.0 guy will surely be decelarating by 30m. into the race, not accelerating, I would think the lower end of the range you made would be around 20-22m. with a wide variance, ie a naturally explosive but unfit individual might blast 15m. and then be dead, while I’ve seen that very uncoordinated individuals might take 25 or more to reach full speed as they struggle against themselves to get up to running speed … then as the athlete gets more advance the variance between individuals decreases. What I think is tricky about this business is that although full acceleration is for example 40m for an 11 guy, 90-95% of the speed was probably obtained by 20m. and 97-98% by 30m., the point being that it’s a curve and not a line. If you say you’re going to accelerate 85% you can’t grab 40m. to derive that figure, you’ll get 33 or something like that and if you accelerate 33 you’ll reach 98 or 99%.

Good points. I think it helps you form a battle plan for a group of disparate sprinters if you have an idea when they are theoretically finished their respective accelerations. Thanks Aln.