Can you regain basic sprint speed later in life?

depressing wrote:

My time was 15 seconds, which was unbelievably slow compared to what I ran in my teens. My question is, at my age, is there any way of getting that sub 12 speed back, or is it gone forever? If it's even possible, how long will it take if I manage to avoid major injuries?

Use it or lose it.

At age 30+, sub 12 will never be coming back , though you might have a shot at sub 13 if you hit the weight room and avoid injuries.

There have been sprinters who've set PRs and even WRs at age 30+ (Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Kim Collins, and a few others). Neither age nor distance training by itself will ruin your sub 12 hopes, but the combination can be fatal.

The closest to your example would be Gatlin. He PR'd at age 33 after a long doping ban, but the difference is that he wasn't doing distance work during that 8-year ban.

Train hard and find out. You never know.

My PB in the 100 was 11.23 when I was 15 years old and ran an indoor 200 in 22.00 after a year of intense training at 16 years old. All of my races after that 200m resulted in injuries and I ended up quitting track. I didn't do any sports for the next 13 years and then I started training 2-3 times a week this time last year.

I am now 29 and just ran my first 100m yesterday at a twilight meet and ran 12.4, it was freezing and there was a -3 head wind but still nowhere near where I was in my mid teens.

I am looking to run around 11.5 by the end of the season and my dream is to run sub 11 by the time i'm 35.

Again it's a dream but I will be picking up my training and possibly look into getting a speed coach to regain what I had.

5545563 wrote:

My PB in the 100 was 11.23 when I was 15 years old and ran an indoor 200 in 22.00 after a year of intense training at 16 years old. All of my races after that 200m resulted in injuries and I ended up quitting track. I didn't do any sports for the next 13 years and then I started training 2-3 times a week this time last year.

I am now 29 and just ran my first 100m yesterday at a twilight meet and ran 12.4, it was freezing and there was a -3 head wind but still nowhere near where I was in my mid teens.

I am looking to run around 11.5 by the end of the season and my dream is to run sub 11 by the time i'm 35.

Again it's a dream but I will be picking up my training and possibly look into getting a speed coach to regain what I had.

So you've been training for a year and only ran 12.4? That 11.5 by the end of the season isn't going to happen. You'll probably end up with an 11.9. Sub 11 by age 35 isn't going to happen either, though you might have a chance of tying your 11.23 PB.

But give it a shot anyway. You never know.

I consider my last year training as just getting in shape. I lost 30lbs, from 198lbs to 168lbs and have been slowly regaining muscle mass with 2-3 workouts a week.

Considering my 12.4 was in 5C (40F) temperature with a -3.2 wind, if I start concentrating on speed I do believe I can run 11.5 in August.

My message to the OP is give it your best, this is a long term game at our age so it will take a lot of hard work and dedication if you really want to achieve your goal.

i use to be really fast when i was younger and i ate too much junk food and became lazy and started to get really slow.How do i become fast again or is it to late to be fast now

Under 12 is not very fast for a sprinter. I guess you did not train a lot back then.

So by training more you should be able to do sub 12 now but it will take time.

Sub 13 is a good intermediate goal that should be doable within a year.

15 with no speed work for years is fine. You Will be in 13.XX in a few weeks.

If you do distance work, just focus on 100m fly times. I didn't do any sport for 10 years, and no running for 15+ years and can still run decent 100m fly times in my early 30s.

Nick Willis, Lewandowski, Rupp, Farah, all run 100m fly, from 10.5 (Lewandowski) to 11.11 (Willis PR) and ~11.2-11.3 (Rupp, Farah). None of them does 100m FAT in training, Farah raced it once in a race and got a 12.98.

In a FAT 100m, you can add ~1.5s to their time. The first 10m in a 100m FAT are significantly slower than any other 10m section, and it takes a lot of energy to run out of the blocks which makes it even harder to maintain max speed.

Many sprinters PR'ed in the 30s, and still run crazy times in the mid-late 30s. I would say your 15.0 FAT is worth a 13.0 fly, which isn't that bad and can be worked on. You might never reach 12.0 FAT anymore, but 12.0 fly should be doable. I said it many times - top speed of distance runners is not that bad, and they can hold it quite long, it's the explosive acceleration and the energy loss since they have no muscle/power that makes them bad out of the blocks.

depressing wrote: My question is, at my age, is there any way of getting that sub 12 speed back, or is it gone forever? If it's even possible, how long will it take if I manage to avoid major injuries?

Sub 12 - probably not. But you've still got the speed you had. It does not go away entirely, it just declines over time. If you were relatively fast once upon a time, you are still fast now. You are wise to be mindful of injuries though, especially with sprinting. 6 months to a year of steady and prudent increased intensity w/ training should give you a good look at what you've got for your age.

If you're only early 30's you should easily be able to get all your speed back.

From the end of high school I have not done anything athletic, only weight training.

I started sprinting after 40 and never broke 12s in the 100 when I was 18 years old.

Earlier this year I finally broke through 12s with 11.99 electronic at 44 years old.

Sub 12 is nothing special for those with talent, but I never had speed to begin with so I'm happy with being able to keep improving at this age and still improving very slowly.

So if you have had speed before you should probably be able to get close to it until you're at least 50 years old.

A big drop off only happens once you get to about 70 years old.