Hey there,
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!