Why are masters sprinters better than masters runners?

Sprinters are lazy wrote:

It's because sprinting doesn't require hard work. Distance running does and it's harder to do the necessary work if you are broken down in any way.

That's nonsense. Sprint training is very hard. I'm in my mid-50s. Was a D3 all-american at 800 in college and then stepped up to 30:00 10K/1:07 half, etc. for a decade or so after college. Turned to 200/400 in my 40s. Sprinters do a lot of strength work, and that's the difference. I don't just mean lifting -- sets of 50s, 150s, etc. at full speed are intense. I still do my mileage and race XC and on the roads, but there is a cost to just doing that -- your overall strength and tone diminish must faster than if you continue to sprint. When I got back into speed work about a dozen years ago it took a good 18 months before I could sprint comfortably again -- truly sprint. I don't ever want to let that go again. I am stronger physically than I was in my 20s, though of course not as fast. I could split 49.0 back then; almost ten seconds slower now at same effort.

Francais wrote:

Le Drugs

fred wrote:

My guess is that the masters sprinters only get tested once or twice a year, and they are free to avail themselves of the same protocols as the world

record holders.

So distance runners don't dope?

You got lazy, it happens.

because sprinting requires less training

I have a friend who is in his 50s and will do just under a 3 hour marathon. He decided he wanted to try some sprint training to increase his speed for road races. He jumped into a masters club training session and did some repeat 200s - about 8 of them. I saw him two days later and asked how he felt. He said he was so sore he couldn't sit down on the toilet without pain. This was after a "wimpy" sprint workout with total volume of 1600m.

Sprint training is less in volume but the intensity is eye-opening.

Um, ever heard of King Ches (aka Cheese)?!?!?

This is absolutely fantasic. It´s almost impossible to start a thread without PED accusations. What about Donald Trump? Does he use steroids or EPO?

Huska Loosa wrote:

I have a friend who is in his 50s and will do just under a 3 hour marathon. He decided he wanted to try some sprint training to increase his speed for road races. He jumped into a masters club training session and did some repeat 200s - about 8 of them. I saw him two days later and asked how he felt. He said he was so sore he couldn't sit down on the toilet without pain. This was after a "wimpy" sprint workout with total volume of 1600m.

Sprint training is less in volume but the intensity is eye-opening.

How sore would a sprinter be if he went out and ran hard for 3 hours?

Training to do something for under a minute is much easier than training to do something that will take 2.5 hours. As you age it gets harder to do.

About the 1,500, how many opportunities do masters runners get to race 1,500s compared to the opportunities to race marathons or road 10ks?

Even if there was absolutely no doping, I believe these numbers would be the same.

fred wrote:

You know that the distance records set by Ed Whitlock, and the mid distance records set by Earl Fee are clean, but what about sprint records set 20 years ago?

Why would you suspect older sprinters more than older distance runners?

Testosterone (and similar) have been around for decades, and have been in the general awareness of athletes for the same.

What would be so surprising about a old guys taking doctor prescribed testosterone supplements?

(Dr. prescriptions have been available for decades as well.)

random masters racer wrote:

Lagat's sample was cooked in the sun for hours and totally degraded before it was tested. If you knew anything about gel electrophoresis you would understand that the A sample was mis-read and the B sample confirmed that.

So heating urine spontaneously produces EPO? And from what I've read, his B sample was never even tested.

It's reasonable to assume that masters athletes that are running world class times are training intelligently and as hard as they can. Sprinters are not inherently tougher than distance runners, training for distance running is not harder, none of that applies.

The simple answer to the question is that as you age, the systems that are required for distance running are more affected than the systems that are required for sprinting.

You can go run 8x200 at 100% effort and then get back to us. And for your question of "how sore would a sprinter be if he went out and ran hard for 3 hours?" That's the point. The marathoner doesn't run hard for 3 hours. He runs at much less intensity than the sprinter. I'm not advocating a 1:1 comparison between sprint and marathon training, but unless you've tried sprint training as this marathoner did, you won't know the effect it can have on your body. According to this guy, the amount of muscle soreness and fatigue he felt was amazing - something he didn't think would happen to that extent, because as he said, he was a marathoner and was in shape. He was in shape for marathon training, not for sprint training.

conventional wisdom is wrong wrote:

fred wrote:

The functional overload for Ed's marathon record at 70 is 3 hours of running every day. How many 70 year olds can do that?

So a few guys can do the work to be within a certain percentage of the world marathon record which has a workload of what 120-140 miles a week at 7,000 feet.

Whereas the 65 year old sprinter doesn't go to altitude and neither does the the regular sprinter ( although I believe that Sunder Nix trained at altitude in the 80's ).

So the gap for distance records is widened by altitude training, alleged blood doping and alleged EPO use.

The 1500 records are actually worse than the 5K and marathon records for almost all age categories. Looks like the ability to handle high training volumes isn't a good explanation for the distance record gap.

Distance runners run a ton more miles than sprinters. The pounding from all of those miles wears out muscles and tendons.

Beaner wrote:

Google "The Need for Speed" by Pete Magill. Very entertaining and informative article.

That is indeed an informative piece by Pete. One of my main takeaways from it is that as distance runners age, their stride turnover dosen't change much but the stride length degrades. Whatever little muscular explosiveness they had when younger continues to diminish as they get older. You can slow this and even reverse it some by doing workouts that improve this explosiveness - e.g., short, fast hill sprints, short almost-all-out sprints with sufficient recovery, drills, etc. During my easy runs I like to do some 30-second to minute sprints where I concentrate on driving my legs, quick turnover, and clawing ground with my toes. Sort of like going from Slog mode to sprinter mode.

Charlie wrote:

Distance runners run a ton more miles than sprinters. The pounding from all of those miles wears out muscles and tendons.

You can run good 800s and 1500s off of relatively low mileage, while the same isn't true for 5K's and especially the marathon. But the 800 and 1500 records are just as bad (and in some cases worse) than that for the longer distances.

Also, you can train through some distance injuries by reducing intensity and/or mileage. The same isn't true for sprinting; sprint injuries tend to be more severe, and even if they weren't, it's nearly impossible to do any useful sprint workouts when injured since they all require high intensity.

First, you missed the point that ANYTHING you do that You are not trained for Will make muscles sore. Second, a distance runner can easily do the 8 X 200 whereas the sprinter couldn't even complete 3 hours of continuous running.

You think you can easily do 8x200? Yeah? Do them under 25 seconds with 2 minutes rest in between? We're not talking jogging, distance dude. You have to do them at balls-out top speed. You'd die. Go out and try it - at least until you blow your hamstrings out. But you won't dare try it. You distance runners can scorn sprinting all you want, but you're secretly afraid of getting injured by it. Go and shuffle around for 3 hours. Have fun.

a little common sense wrote:

First, you missed the point that ANYTHING you do that You are not trained for Will make muscles sore. Second, a distance runner can easily do the 8 X 200 whereas the sprinter couldn't even complete 3 hours of continuous running.

kevin402can wrote:

The simple answer to the question is that as you age, the systems that are required for distance running are more affected than the systems that are required for sprinting.

That's unlikely; the masters distance swim records are better than the masters sprint swim records. From:

M30-34, 50m free: 21.55

M60-64, 50m free: 25.23, 17.1 % slower

M75-79, 50m free: 30.28, 40.5 % slower

M30-34, 400m free: 4:05

M60-64, 400m free: 4:40, 14.3 % slower

M75-79, 400m free: 5:17, 29.4 % slower

M30-34, 1500m free: 16:36

M60-64, 1500m free: 18:12, 9.6 % slower

M75-79, 1500m free: 21:03, 26.8 % slower