About to find out if a slow 30yr old can run a sub 11 100m.

Just going to throw my personal story in as a very mediocre high school sprinter.

I started at 16 as a high school soph who'd played middle school baseball and basketball but wasn't great shakes at either of them. First dual meet I ran 12.9 and 26.x hand timed in basketball shoes (no idea why I ran in those instead of trainers). Anyways fast forward later that year and I run 12 flat hand timed and win the slow heat at county meet in the 200 at 24.4. Moved to the 400 for junior and senior year of high school but didn't really do anything good beyond a few nice relay carries due to my own choices as far as offseason training and injuries.

So for context I started way closer to your goal time of sub 11 and got nowhere near. If I'd devoted the last decade or so of my life to running a good 100 time I think I'd of gotten down to ~11.2-5 with a good tailwind. You've already physically peaked as far as reflexes and strength which occur at 22 and 28 respectively so tbh if you break 12 I'll be shocked and you should be happy.

I can talk training if you'd like but as said by everyone your goal is unrealistic.

AJ2000 wrote:

JD

The videos are hard to review in real time so I suspect you're sending slowmo to your coach

From the initial visual, your start is incorrect and you're not driving out.

For your upright technique you need to work on drills for front side mechanics a lot!

I'd say you can get 1.5 sec faster than you currently are with correct drilling and sessions

You're right! My start sucks.

I did send slowmo to my coach, apologies.

I've started focusing on my start, as of this month, by alternating between pure track work for week 1 and mainly lifting and sled sprints for week 2. It seems I'm lacking the strength to lean forward and drive properly, I haven't really focused on drills, but that's something I'll certainly be looking at from now.

As far as my FSM, I feel as though the main issue is that I'm simply landing my front foot instead of driving it down. Would you agree?

I was thinking of focusing on these two drills

Wall sprints (emphasizing dorsiflexion)

Fast leg drill (emphasizing dorsiflexion and planting the foot down hard)

Thanks for your story, I appreciate the input, I don't have much experience with track so any information is useful.

I too think it's unlikely... but not impossible. If I don't make it, I'll still be happy as I thoroughly enjoy every training session I do, despite the hard work. Ultimately, I've got nothing to lose.

Here's why I think it just might happen:

- My left ankle is still recovering after a long injury, it should be fully recovered in 6 months. I feel it's

getting stronger every day.

- There's plenty of room for improvement in my technique, strength and biomechanics.

- I have a wiser head than I did when I was younger. I'll be able to train smarter and with more patience.

- I see nothing conclusive telling me it's not possible, particularly as there are so many variables and

every situation is different.

- I train 3 heavy days and 3 light days week, and my body is able to sustain it.

- Finally, I actually MIGHT have run 12 something in my early 20s. My buddy and I were goofing around at my university track, after lectures and we timed one another over 100m. I can't remember for certain

what the time was but I keep seeing a "12" whenever I try to recall.

You should set an intermediate goal. Sub-11 is fast, and a mile away from where you are now. Aim for sub-12, which is still plenty fast as you are now realizing.

Don’t forget to add some time for gun response.

The most important thing will be to develop in small increments so that you stay healthy. If you cycle injuries, you will not be able to do the work required to improve. This is why I suggest intermediate goals, or milestones.

Good luck!

My opinions, curious to see if AJ2000 agrees:

Regarding your FSM, to me it stems from sitting a bit at full speed combined with being a bit "toey." Relax the shoulders a bit too.

Regarding the start: The issue here starts in the blocks. You arent over your hands and have the blocks too close. Move the blocks back a half shoe, get your shoulders over your hands.

Next, get three pieces of tape and mark out where your first three steps should be. Until you can get these first three steps explosive, drill them. Right now you will find you are landing well short.

For you, a good starting point for your first three steps might be 2 feet past the line, 5 feet past that, 6 feet past that. This will force you to drive out. If you fail to drive out, you'll either make the tape but pop straight up, or you will stay down but be well short if your marks. Since you are training alone, this is a good way to have useable feedback.

You look like you have so far mostly been focusing on your arms. As a result, they look pretty good, but you've developed bad habits everyelse in your start.

Strangely, your start and top end are kind of mismatched problems in a way I dont normally see. You have fast turnover with tiny steps in your start, but you have really slow turnover with reasonable stride length in your full spees video. It almost makes me wonder if this has to do with what you have been focusing on reinforcing some bad habits and holding you back.

I agree with AJ that you actually do look like you can make some improvements.

*in my last sentence above, I meant improvements in time.

Even if this were true, hand times by untrained people are notoriously inaccurate. It doesn't really matter if you're timing your 400, but you need proper timing for the 100 to gauge how fast you really are.

Very, very useful information. Thanks a bunch!

I'd get a coach if I could, but I'm an expat working in Asia and still struggling with the local language. Even then, I work in a very small city and the coaches only seem to work with school kids and don't do private instruction. There's one runner's club, but it's only for marathon runners and they're a pretty cliquey bunch. For now, my camera and timing gate are my best feedback.

A few questions, if I may:

- With the bad habits I've developed (particularly in the start), should I refrain from doing block starts

and near max intensity sprints so as not to ingrain the bad habits. Or, should I keep sprinting, but focus

more on drills, like the one you mentioned, until I've gotten rid of the bad habits?

- How does one figure out when their drive phase has ended? Elite sprinters (which I'm obviously not)

are said to maintain it for around 30m or more and that it's determined by shin angle. When practicing

my drive phase, I usually set the cones out at around 25m and "attempt" to drive by staying as low as

I can... obviously this hasn't worked.

- Aside from technique, what would be my biggest weakness to work on at this point? Strength?

Explosiveness/Impulse? Bio-mechanics? Sanity?

Cheers, and thanks again for the professional advice.

I especially love that tape drill.

With the limited space it requires, I can even work on my starts on my balcony at home.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

You should set an intermediate goal. Sub-11 is fast, and a mile away from where you are now. Aim for sub-12, which is still plenty fast as you are now realizing.

Don’t forget to add some time for gun response.

The most important thing will be to develop in small increments so that you stay healthy. If you cycle injuries, you will not be able to do the work required to improve. This is why I suggest intermediate goals, or milestones.

Good luck!

Very true

While sub 11 is my ultimate goal, I'd be happy to get into the 12s by the end of this year and take it from there. I only time my 100m on the last Saturday of each month, and give myself 3 attempts at a 100m PB on that day.

Over the years, I've learned what injures my body and what it's resistant to. As long as I eat properly and get enough sleep, I'm able to recover rather quickly and sustain 3-4 days of heavy training a week, and 2 light days.

Bio-mechanical imbalances, or weak muscles around relatively strong ones are what lead to injury for me. I try to spend time making sure everything is balanced, by using weights to target the muscles I usually don't hit during sprint specific training.

Going by the Charlie Francis approach, I don't believe in training bellow 90% intensity on heavy days and above 50% intensity on light days.

honest truth wrote:

jdarez786 wrote:

After 2yrs in the gym, I look pretty ripped and impressive too.

April '17 - 100m PB 15.2sec (HT)

Jan '18 - 100m PB 13.99 (FAT)

I'm determined to break into the 10s at some point.

Those who can run in the 11s (much less the 10s) can break 14 on their first week on the track. It took you quite a while to get there. But since you're determined to run in the 10s, here's what will work:

1. Find a 100m cliff

2. Learn and get good at skydiving. Get your "A" license, which may take a few months and a few hundred jumps.

3. Learn base jumping. Practice off of tall bridges first; they're typically safer than buildings or other structures.

4. When you're confident, base jump off that 100m cliff you found in step 1. You will get under 11.

Too bad your comprehension skills aren't as good as your jokes. From May'17 till the end of December '17, I did no training after getting injured. My ankle was in agony when I ran that 15.2sec. By January, my ankle still felt weak, but had no pain, and I managed to get under 14.

@jdarez wrote:

Cue some guy claiming his untrained college roommate - who however was all conference in soccer - ran a sub 12 first time he tried.

I have nothing to contribute to the OP, but that fits me. One of my untrained college roommates went to the track one evening and came back telling me he ran a 10.9 100 m. I sure he wasn't intentionally lying, but maybe he didn't know where the lines were. I'm sure it was hand timed, but not sure if it was self timed, or by someone else, or how good the timer was with a stopwatch. I don't doubt that he was fast or much faster than me though. He might have played tennis in high school. The only sport I remember him doing in college was pick-up basketball. Chinese American dude.

To answer your questions:

No, i dont think that you should abandon block starts. I do think you can improve on them. You may consider mixing in some other start techniques to help you break the routine:

- falling starts (stand and then slowly let yourself lean forward until you have to drive into your start or you will fall on your face.

- single skip into a start. The eccentric motion can help to mentally get into the start.

- three point starts

- sideways start, where you rock back and turn your arms to one side before driving your torso back around and forward into the start. Examples of this can be seen with some elite long jumpers.

To answer your question about the end of the drive phase, of course it is a bit of a misnomer to say there is an end. The start into max V phase is a continuoum. For you it will likely be around 30m though, if I were to pick a number. Elites drive farther than that. But at 15 meters, you are likely at 80% of max speed, despite being only halfway in distance to your max speed. So at 15 meters, if you are at 80% of max speed, you should then be 80% of the way through the transition from the start of the drive to upright running posture.

I wouldnt suggest focusing too much on shin angles in videos of yourself to evaluate your drive phase. Shin angle is also informed by the rest of your form, something you are also working on.

If I were to pick a weakness, it would be that you are sitting slightly in your max speed form video. If I were to pick a second, it would be turnover. Trying to artificially force faster cadence is usually a mistake. But since you are such a novice and training alone, you might be having trouble realizing you can get more turnover. Following along with AJ's suggestion of FSM, imagine your knees coming up in front of you, driving your lower leg as a piston down to the track. Increase the cadence of this without losing the knee drive. If you start losing knee drive, you are focusing too much on turnover and losing stride length

@@@Mmmmmm....... wrote:

@@Mmmmmmmm wrote:

*meaning including after training and losing that weight.

This requires 3 steps:

1. Finding a dozen or so 40 year old obese women.

2. Getting them to stick with a training program for a few months.

3. Posting videos or results of them running 14.9.

Steps 1 &3 are easy. Step 2 is hard.

Right. Which is why the initial claim is based on nothing.

You should follow your dreams or whatever, but sub 11 is a naïve dream:

I’m a high schooler who has run 12.8 at the end of a workout. I train for the mile and run xc. Furthermore, it’s a running joke among the 400/800 types on the team that I lack speed.

I will never break 11 no matter how much sprint training I do.

You’re trying to progress from being a whole second slower than a HS distance runner to being fast enough to play in the NFL.

At age 30.

A better question is:

How powerful a fan would we need for you to run sub 11?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/sport/othersport/837686/World-Athletics-Championships-Justin-Gatlin-Usain-Bolt-100m-London-Stadium/amp

It comes down a lot to your movement patterns that are probably ingrained from years of not sprinting and doing whatever you do, to what drills and focus you're putting on yourself now.

Agree with SD with the stick/tape drill will aid in trying to project your body and of course you're too bunched in that block position forcing you to get too high way too early (no matter how much you think your staying low!) in the first few steps

Then there is the issue with rigidity in your arms, which is driving a lower hip hight and no real focus on what the legs are actually doing.

When Quoting CF its also good to be very aware of his tempo sessions! those below 75%, the work wasn't just pure 95%+

Its the slower stuff where you can work on just 'flowing' with a nice high rotating heal. Looking at your vids id say you would get better just by actually running more and that's probably best in the form of tempo

I like a project so I've book marked this page.

Will post a few drill ideas from you, when I can find adequate ones on youtube etc

But in the mean time, Look up:

Mach sprint drills (A&B Drills etc)

Kochekhemny Stick drills

Wickets for top speed (Mini hurdles, with correct spacing will force you to 'step over' and utilise front side mechanics more efficiently! (yes it will feel strange and you will mess up!)

Hurdle pyometrics

Speed Bounds.

Now here is the really personal bit, sack your coach!!!! No offence, if he hasn't picked up on these already and given you the correct drills, he isn't a good coach!

Jgat wrote:

A better question is:

How powerful a fan would we need for you to run sub 11?

Gatlin's fan is clearly not powerful enough, so the question now becomes whether they even make fans that can generate hurricane force winds. Only ones I've seen are wind tunnels, which can't be moved behind a runner's back for 100m.

I ran mid 13s as a 7th grader on a cinder track. I barely trained, didn't have spikes, and had no clue how to use blocks properly.

After a few years of puberty, 10+ years of training, sprint spikes, and far better running surfaces, I ran a lifetime best of 11.26.

You have no chance. I am willing to bet a considerable amount of money that you can't run a wind-legal FAT sub 11.