I’m a 24 year old male currently in uni and planning to take up sprinting as a sport this year (did some recreational sprinting on my own thanks to CFTS being my guide). Have a couple of questions:
I think I can run the 100 meters 15-16 seconds or maybe slower. Never timed myself when I sprinted recreationally. Will my time drop to decent ones? 12’s or 11’s?
Does it make a huge difference if one has started at an early age in sprint training? (“cant teach an old dog new tricks”)? Cant reach same potential as people that have been doing it since their pre-teen years?
Can I expect a drastic drop in times in 1 year if I train hard and correctly?
I think I can run the 100 meters 15-16 seconds or maybe slower. Never timed myself when I sprinted recreationally. Will my time drop to decent ones? 12’s or 11’s?
Somewhat unknown but at your age 12’s could/should be achievable providing their are no major physical issues.
Does it make a huge difference if one has started at an early age in sprint training? (“cant teach an old dog new tricks”)? Cant reach same potential as people that have been doing it since their pre-teen years?
To a large extent yes.
Can I expect a drastic drop in times in 1 year if I train hard and correctly?
what do you call drastic? From 15 sec to 11? Probably not but I would expect a significant improvement in 1 year if you train properly.
What I will also say is that results aren’t the be all and end all, if you can get to enjoy training and the whole experience of training and competing (physical benefits, friends, setting and achieving goals that aren’t just times related etc) you will have a great time.
Thanks. Yes that’s the reason why I’m joining, to enjoy myself and get the physical benefits. Aside from that I would also like to see some nice improvements in my performance.
Can you elaborate on what you commented on:
Why unknown?
you answered “yes” to larger extent, is this because older athletes have a harder time going through the motions in learning the technique?
Drastic, yes-from 15 -12 seconds. So its not possible.
until you run some times and do some training who knows what your potential is. You may well get to 11 sec or you may not get past 12.5. Its like saying I have never played golf, will I break 80 in a year?
Yes and no but add in other priorities and commitments from someone in their mid teens.
It’s nice to see a question come up that I can actually answer with some degree of expertise.
I am ten years older than you and started training last year at age 33. I have a lot of things going against me; I never ran track in high school, have a very ectomorphic body type with very little natural muscle or power, and am 6’3 which is pretty tall for the 100 metres (unless you are Bolt), and I’m in my 30’s. I also did 5k and 10k training before starting to sprint. (I hated distance running- I would rather be the slowest 100 metre man in the world than the fastest 5k man)
The first thing to think about what you are getting yourself into. Training for the 100 metres requires months of practising without any competitions in sight. Compared to other sports where gratification can be more instant (scoring a goal in hockey, soccer, etc.), training for the 100 metres is nowhere near as instantly rewarding. That being said, if you have a good coach and good training partners, it can be very rewarding and enjoyable.
I would suggest not worrying too much about your current time. It’s amazing how quickly you will become better than the average untrained person at the 100 metres. I don’t mean you’ll be fast, but you will probably knock off the first couple of seconds fairly easily (assuming you are running 16+ seconds or greater). After that, improvements will come slowly, and eventually you will probably be as excited about a 0.2 second improvement in the 100 as you initially were about a 1 second improvement early in your 100 metre training.
I started training on a short to long program with an outstanding Masters sprinter in Toronto. One thing I would strongly suggest is getting yourself a coach that you trust.
I can tell you from experience, you can run all you want on your own, you will not improve nearly as much as you will with a coach who knows what he/she is doing. Training with a group also provides a lot of social reasons to want to drag your ass to the track even though there is a huge snowstorm raging (in your case I doubt that will be an issue, but you get the idea).
I spent the summer away from my coach, and I ran all the workouts my coach provided by email, but I wasn’t really improving much (if at all), and without my group to run with, training wasn’t as enjoyable.
I know that you are probably wanting to drop into the 12’s or 11’s as soon as possible so that others will take you seriously. The one thing I have learned so far in training is that the harder you try, the slower you run, and that applies to training too. People tend to want to do too much work and not rest enough.
I’m not a very talented athlete, but I ran 12.89 in -3.2 wind in my first 100 metres, after running some pretty sluggish indoor 60 metre times (8.46, 8.52), and ended with a season best of 12.61 seconds (+0.6) in the 100 and 25.41 (+2.0) in the 200. Now I’m not saying you will do better or worse, but it should encourage you because I am a lot older, and have never been a natural athlete.
This year, things are going even better, and I’m hoping to slice some more time off my 100 metres. I would love to run an 11.9x this year, but that would take a good amount of luck I suspect. Even so, progress has been moving in the right direction. Things tend to happen slowly for me (I am pretty tall), but I enjoy the training and am in the best shape of my life by far. As long as you can just accept where you are at physically, and just keep doing what you have to do, you will continue to get better, and eventually things will start really coming together. I am only starting to get a feel for things now, and I’ve been training 3 to 4 times per week for about 16 months.
I hope you find yourself a good coach and a good group to train with, as well as reading all you can about the 100 metres. You are on the right site- Charlie’s info is worth every penny in my experience. Keep us posted with your progress!
with no. 1 yeah that question was kinda silly. Its like asking if I could bench press 500lbs without ever having done it. Guess I was anxious about starting.
Thanks man. Glad to see some older folks that took up the sport later in life.
Want to comment on your post:
I’m glad you said sprinting takes “months of practicing without competition in sight”. Don’t wanna be running against others with slow times, so I’m in no hurry to compete.
What do you mean by “the harder you try, the slower you run?” Stiffening up instead of relaxing or training too much too soon or both? Did you get those times by sprinting alone or did you do some form of resistance training?
I wish I could explain the whole “harder you try, the slower you run” idea, but you just have to feel it.
We do trap bar deadlifts as our main lifting exercise for legs, with a few other things added in occasionally. I think my coach feels its safer than squats. So far I’ve been steadily improving, so who am I to argue? I look forward to learning some Olympic lifts though.
I would respectfully suggest that you forget about your time, and run in meets within the next few months. You are not doing this for anyone else but yourself, correct? The great thing about running slow is that you have to just stay in your lane and concentrate on yourself. I learned a lot running in races and getting beat! Don’t avoid it!
If you run in open meets with seed timed heats, they will put you in heats with others near your ability, so don’t worry too much about it. The slowest time is the one that is not run. There are a million couch potatoes out there choking back nacho after nacho while you are out there working hard on the track, and you are beating all of them by default. Don’t worry about your times, just do the work. The times will run themselves.
One of the most freeing things for me has been to just go out there and do something I enjoy, regardless of whether I am any good at it or not.
Do you have a coach? Are you joining a club? If not, you MUST. Training on your own is not an option!
