What 200m time can an average dude attain with 5 years of consistent training?

I dont know what kind of shape you had before you began training but 26,5 after two years of solid training is honestly pretty bad. Almost any fit middle scholer can reach that time within a year of training at most. Sprints are heavily talent based, and it seems it is not your thing

You are already fast enough to be having fun doing it. 200m is a great distance. It is hard to guess your ceiling without knowing your strengths and weaknesses. You need absolute speed as in a flying 30. You also need acceleration, so knowing your 60m time would help. You need speed endurance. You don't need to go beyond 300m to train for 200m, but your 200 time roughly equates to a 60 second 400. Can you do it? If not, then speed endurance work can be fruitful. You are a reasonable weight for the event, but are you powerful? Plyos, med ball work, and weight can help. You should do hip mobility drills also.

Without knowing answers to any of these questions, I will still say that you should address all these areas and target running into the 25s, hopefully 24.99! Good luck.

I figured it wasn’t great lol. If I remember right my first 200 was around 31.5. Before then I skateboarded a little but didn’t do much else. I always knew I wasn’t the most talented, maybe a try at the 800 would be something to look at. Thanks for your input man

Thanks DMF (great name by the way lol). I agree, 200m has a perfect mix of different sprinting demands, I love it. Honestly, I haven’t touched weights and outside of some sprint drills I haven’t really dabbled with plyometrics either.

Those are some really good points you’ve made there. I wish I could time my flying 30 but I don’t have FAT timing to find that out (or someone to hand time it, even that would be helpful despite its inaccuracy). The 400m would be doable though, I think I’ll try that out and see where I am speed endurance wise, thought I don’t think it will be good since I’ve felt like I’m tying up at the end of some of the 200m time trials I’ve done (maybe my pacing needs work).
I’ll definitely look into these and weights and plyos to get a more complete picture of what I should improve. Thanks for your advice and encouragement dude

Seems pretty average to me. I'm in my 50's and advanced osteoarthritis in my right hip (zero rotation) and broke 30 seconds for 200 with a gentle rolling start ater two years mainly 5K training off the couch.

Damn that’s impressive. Curious what you could have done with dedicated sprint training without the hip issue! I gotta work harder and more diligently that’s for sure

I’m op by the way, not sure how I switched back and forth between my username/handle.
Anyone know of any good sprint training plans to follow for a plodder like me? Preferably one that gives some guidance on weight training and plyos too? Would be very grateful. I’m curious to see how they would compare with the one I’m following now

Most sprinting programs are based around the annual competitive cycle and start with general physical preparation (GPP), moving to special prep (SPP), and competition phases. If you are just starting and not competing, you can extend GPP longer, although adhering to some phases is still a good idea.

For 200m in SPP, most would follow what is called short to long, which means that you build acceleration and speed, and then work to extend that from 60, to 100, 150, and 200m. Beginners can improve a lot from general fitness also. A program with 4 days per week of running might have 2 of those as so called tempo. A pattern of 100 and 200 reps on grass at 70 percent, with short walking recovery, totalling around 2500m. You can search Charlie Francis tempo for example. You can do different starts out to 10m, falling, 3-point, push up etc. Flying 20s are good to start as you won't hold 30 well at first. Put cones or shoes as markers and take a gentle approach to hit absolute top speed as relaxed as possible. 3-5 minutes recovery. Don't do more than 6 at first and stop if quality drops. Only 2 speed workouts per week.

GPP is a lot of tempo, hills, medball and plyos, hurdle walk over-under etc, and weights.

Get a muscle biopsy and then get back to us with the results.