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

Bro, if you are serious about getting fast do yourself a favor and get a real sprinting coach instead of asking a bunch of jokers on LRC. Breaking 11 isn't that hard u just need to know how to train properly people saying all this crap like "oh u need x genetics", nah fam u just need a training plan that makes sense . Majority of people don't know crap about how to train properly. Of course u need some amount of talent but everything takes talent to some extent.

But for real find yourself a coach and by coach I mean someone like Latiff Thomas, Mike Cunliffe, etc. not some fitness expert u find selling jank at ur local Gold's GYm or on the internet.

That's ur best bet.

The issue isn't just breaking 11, it's breaking 11 with no or minimal training before age 32.

The former is certainly possible if you're a HS kid who's trying to get into sprinting. The latter ain't happening unless you have Usain Bolt's talent.

I don't think the OP realizes the immense difference between a 13.8 and a 10.9.

A 13.8 is like getting halfway up a kiddie rock wall.

A 10.9 is like free climbing El Capitan.

jdarez786 wrote:

After playing sports since I was a kid, I've always been athletic.

...

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

Dec '17 - 100m PB 14.53 (FAT)

Jan '18 - 100m PB 13.99 (FAT)

February '18 - 100m PB 13.88 (freezing cold and bit of a headwind) (FAT)

If you are running 100m in 15+ off of other sports, and are barely under 14 with a year of training, no you are not "athletic."

zero talent evident wrote:

jdarez786 wrote:

After playing sports since I was a kid, I've always been athletic.

...

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

Dec '17 - 100m PB 14.53 (FAT)

Jan '18 - 100m PB 13.99 (FAT)

February '18 - 100m PB 13.88 (freezing cold and bit of a headwind) (FAT)

If you are running 100m in 15+ off of other sports, and are barely under 14 with a year of training, no you are not "athletic."

All those times but the last are with injury. Doesn't matter though.

I would guess that you'd be running sub 13 if you were in shape and had 6 months of specific training, EASILY, if you could run sub 11, EVER.

galenruppisgod wrote:

zero talent evident wrote:

If you are running 100m in 15+ off of other sports, and are barely under 14 with a year of training, no you are not "athletic."

All those times but the last are with injury. Doesn't matter though.

I would guess that you'd be running sub 13 if you were in shape and had 6 months of specific training, EASILY, if you could run sub 11, EVER.

Correction-ankle was at 85% in January '18 and expected to be fully healed in six months.

I'm a slow ass distance runner and was sidelined for quite some time due to Achilles problems. I raced one of my buddies when my Achilles was still not fully healed, and I got mid 13s. Prior to that, I had not run for weeks.

A few years later (age 26), I took up sprinting and got down to the high 11s after 3 seasons. I don't know what my lifetime best would have been if I focused only on sprinting since age 13 or so, but no amount of training and/or drugs would have gotten me to a sub 11.

It's been said too many times in this thread before, but you have no chance.

MightyPenguin wrote:

Bro, if you are serious about getting fast do yourself a favor and get a real sprinting coach instead of asking a bunch of jokers on LRC. Breaking 11 isn't that hard u just need to know how to train properly people saying all this crap like "oh u need x genetics", nah fam u just need a training plan that makes sense . Majority of people don't know crap about how to train properly. Of course u need some amount of talent but everything takes talent to some extent.

But for real find yourself a coach and by coach I mean someone like Latiff Thomas, Mike Cunliffe, etc. not some fitness expert u find selling jank at ur local Gold's GYm or on the internet.

That's ur best bet.

Not saying those guys do not know there stuff but I'm curious why you would pick those guys over those who work with elite sprinters? But, I guess you are the expert of who knows their stuff, right?

zero talent evident wrote:

jdarez786 wrote:

After playing sports since I was a kid, I've always been athletic.

...

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

Dec '17 - 100m PB 14.53 (FAT)

Jan '18 - 100m PB 13.99 (FAT)

February '18 - 100m PB 13.88 (freezing cold and bit of a headwind) (FAT)

If you are running 100m in 15+ off of other sports, and are barely under 14 with a year of training, no you are not "athletic."

As I've said numerous times my 15+ was at the peak of my injury, I literally limped off the track. After April I completely stopped training, no sprinting, lifting... I was pretty much a couch potato until the end of December. A few days before Christmas, I got the green light to start training, but my ankle would take 6-8months to get back to full strength.

I welcome any kind of constructive opinion, but I hope it's not too much to ask that you READ properly before forming said opinion.

If anyone is curious, you can roughly compare the caliber of a time to different events by looking at tfrrs for NCAA D3 (best fit for these times, and there are so many runners that the rankings will stay around the same every year in terms of time). Here are the comparisons from 2017:

Running 10.99 in the 100 was ranked 165th in D3. Being ranked 165th in other events meant these times:

49.60 in the 400

1:55.9 in the 800

3:59.5 in the 1500

15:07 in the 5000

All pretty legit marks, and add in that the shorter the race, the more it is affected by age.

Maybe the Mods can change this thread title to something less clickbait, so people will stop seeing it, read half the OPs post, and feel compelled to tell the Op for the 20th time that sub 11 isnt possible for him. I suggest: "slow 30 year old attempting to see how much he can improve in the 100m."

Dont get me wrong, I dont think sub 11 is possible for the OP either, but that isnt the point. I spent hs and college training hard despite knowing I would never run sub 4.

Then after college, I did basically what the OP is doing, training hard for the dec, knowing I would never run sub 11, never score 8000 points. I did it anyway because it was a fun puzzle to fit together all the components of training and expand my track knowledge from "just" distance running to include other events. I'm glad I did, since I enjoy following other events in TnF in a way I didnt before and also met a bunch of other post collegiate track competitors and a few masters runners in the area that are now my friends.

He ran 13.88 when he was at less than 80%. Get back to 100% and that puts you at 11.10. Guess when the gun is going to go off, and you'll be under 11. So just get healthy and you're there.

I am reaching somewhat to compensate for the lack of drive off the back foot, the way it feels, it's an issue of technique rather than strength. I say this for two reasons:

1 - I think the 2nd and 3rd tape markings might be a little too far, When I do manage to land at the tape for the first three strides, I usually cover the first 10m in about 6 strides or slightly under, when I'm aiming closer to around 6.5-7. I'm not that tall (1.86m, and I do have relatively long legs, but I don't think I should be taking so few strides). Taking into account that my stride regresses back to the small choppy steps after the first 3 strides, it's probably too far. I'll adjust it a few cm until I find out what works best.

2 - While I believe strength is only relevant to sprinting if it can be teamed with sprinting (not powerlifting) explosiveness/impulse, squat numbers can (to some degree) give an indication of a sprinter's strength or lack thereof. I haven't squatted heavily in a while, but I feel I can manage about 1.5X my bodyweight for a single rep. I think I need to focus on my FSM, particularly the final cue of the 'fast leg' drill of driving the foot into the ground, I feel like I'm simply landing my front foot instead of driving it down.

I think the best thing is to take it step by step... literally; Drill by coming out the blocks and landing at the first tape. Once I've got that down consistently, I can go for the 2nd step while focusing on driving hard off my right foot. Once that's down, I plan on repeating the drill to for the 2nd step, while keeping the left toe dragging.

I set my blocks about 2 feet and 4 fingers from the start line, the back block is a few cm more than a foot length. I'll probably set the back block back a bit further.

The second and third tape might be a little far, for me.

When I do manage to land at the tape for the first three strides

Hurdle Guy wrote:

If anyone is curious, you can roughly compare the caliber of a time to different events by looking at tfrrs for NCAA D3 (best fit for these times, and there are so many runners that the rankings will stay around the same every year in terms of time). Here are the comparisons from 2017:

Running 10.99 in the 100 was ranked 165th in D3. Being ranked 165th in other events meant these times:

49.60 in the 400

1:55.9 in the 800

3:59.5 in the 1500

15:07 in the 5000

All pretty legit marks, and add in that the shorter the race, the more it is affected by age.

While I'm no coach and have very limited track experience, the age argument just doesn't make sense to me. What I'm going to say is part of the reason why I believe I can do what I'm out to achieve, despite my age... Again, it's just my opinion.

Just going be logic, I believe there's a distinction between decreased performance as a result of the

natural ageing process and decreased performance as a result of an artificial ageing process.

The natural ageing process, which affects 100m performance, is something nobody can really stop. While I don't know the cutoff point, I don't think it occurs during the 30s or even early 40s. In a perfect world, anyone should be able to sprint and even peak their performance at these ages.

The artificial ageing process reduces or destroys athletic ability at an accelerated rate.

The two things which artificially age athletic performance are bio-mechanics and injury

I'm guessing everyone here knows what bio-mechanics are, so I'll skip that. The 7 primal movement patterns are a harmony of muscle balance and movement coordination, built on a pyramid, with sprinting, or gait, being at the top. A problem in a movement pattern, is going to affect everything above it. So, sprinting, is going to require perfect bio-mechanical balance, of all 6 lower movement patterns, all the time, to make sure performance is at peak and injury is avoided.

Most professional sprinters seem to decline in performance between their late 20s and early 30s. They retire and people make the correlation between that age and reduced performance. It seems like a false correlation to me.

Professional sprinters are constantly, lifting weights, doing track work and everything else involved with improving their time. Even with the very best coaches, slight bio-mechanical imbalances will occur.

On top of that, professional athletes are obligated by their sponsors to run at meets, year round and constantly push themselves, on top of their training. Even with slight bio-mechanical imbalances, with such a crazy schedule, workload and mental pressure, they're rolling the dice every time they hit the track.

It seems most athletes get away with pleasing this training/competing schedule for a few years, into their 20s, and longer. The injuries they get never truly go away and they increase the bio-mechanical imbalances and ultimately decrease the athletes performance to the point that they can't perform at their peak any longer or greatly increase the risk of sustaining a serious career ending injury.

This, to me, is a my understanding of the myth of the age argument. Injury and bio-mechanics are bigger limiting factors to performance than age... to an extent.

JD do not give up, I love the fact you want to aim for this.

Just take your time to learn the running patterns its so important to learn the drills at slow pace make sure they are right and slowly speed them up.

For your acceleration you are correct the Markings are perhaps too great but SD is merely giving you what 'drive' feels like rather than trying to spin your wheels and be 'fast'

Take a look at this, its a defunct conversation I was involved in back in 2003. sadly the forum has since died :(

http://elitetrack.com/forums/topic/stick-drills-configuration/

It covers the spacing you can play around with for acceleration etc

Please also look up A switch and B switch drills, these will aid in that feeling of timing and getting into position

Lastly, invest in some mini hurdles, place them at 5 'foot lengths' to start and just run over them concentrating on stepping over, do this as part of your warm up before you go into full speed.

You will improve, do tis for 4 weeks and then re-test... don't test until!!! let your body adapt

any update??

Sure

They're laying down a new track at the local stadium so I won't be running till early June.

I'm doing some strengthening work at the gym right now (back squats, step ups, a few other exercises) and practicing drills on my light days.

I ran a bit of a disappointing 13.87 100m at the end of March (I only run 100m once a month, my previous month's time was 13.89).

Still, after timing my splits (FAT), I think I've picked up the main problem.

My best 0-30m (including RT, from the blocks) came in at 4.09sec.

However, my 60m time came in at 8.2sec.

According to every time predictor I found, a 4sec 30m time ranges from mid 11s to high 10s 100m,

while an 8.2 is closer to my current 100m time.

Perhaps there's no correlation between a fast 30m and a fast 100m time. I don't know, but I do know that I spent the vast majority of my sprinting practicing 30m from the blocks and 60m from the blocks. I only ran beyond 60m once a month.

Ok, well yes you have found your problem.

the first 30 has a high correlation to strength, the latter parts however come down to how elastic and technical you are! along with actually just conditioning.

If your losing so much time between 30-60-100 there are some bits you really need to work on!

Honestly buy this book! - the rest of the series too if you want but this one will explain enough to you of where you can gain some quick benefits

https://amzn.to/2H6BoDw

Your 30m is where it needs to be! shift your focus whilst maintaining it, but you're gonna have to man up and put some gut wrenching sessions in

My guess is you have very weak/genetically inferior calf size.