He might be the only collegiate distance runner in the country whose university bio lists his 100-meter personal best: 11.84, which he ran in high school. When I bring this up to Murphy, he can’t help but muster a chuckle. “That sub-12 100 is kind of embarrassing because of how slow I was out of the blocks,†he wryly admits. “My dad always says that I was probably the ninth guy out of the blocks, and there were only eight guys in the race. Everyone else had a step and a half on me.â€
Sprintgeezer and I have talked about this before, and the reason distance runners cannot run fast for 100m is how slow they are for the first 10-20m. You reach 90% of your maximum velocity in 4 seconds, and when you are this slow due to lack of strength, there is nothing you can do to get faster. And the every interval and mileage training they do makes them slower yet. It takes 3 distance runners combined to do the squats that any good sprinter can do.
11.84 in high school and 11.3 now? More likely 12.3 now after the mid-d training.