HS head coach timed every PE class for a 100m. Results were nothing like what Letsrun predicted

I'm in my late 40s and I don't know that I could even run sub 15 at my age, though I can run 200 repeats in 34-35, at marathon low 2:40s or better and ran 1:15 two years ago, and 33 mid four years ago. I lost a lot of speed and strength with knee problems from college.

I’m 40 and I can sprint 100m in 15.xx.....but it’s on pure hate.

Alan

TrackCoach wrote:

The 100 is an endurance event for some people if you are testing speed 50 would have been a better distance An untrained person can only sprint all out for about 40 to 60 meters

According to both of these studies, the average 12 year old boy's 50m is 8.7. The standard deviation is around 0.9 (0.8 for the German kids and 1.0 for the Australian kids):

High school boys will probably be a second faster, resulting in a 7.7 or so. This study backs it up and says that the median 50m time for 15 year olds was 7.7, though I'm not sure what the sample size was:

7.7 for the first 50 + 6.7 for the second 50 (due to a flying start) + 0.5 (due to fatigue for untrained kids) = 14.9.

The OP's 14.8 time was pretty typical.

google boy wrote:

This study backs it up and says that the median 50m time for 15 year olds was 7.7, though I'm not sure what the sample size was:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.838.7090&rep=rep1&type=pdf

It was most likely large enough. "Percentile data were calculated from 10 104 50 m sprint performances collected between 1985 and 1999". Divide that by 14, and you get 721 or so performances for each age and gender.

FWIW, the 95th percentile 50m time for 15 year old boys is 7.0.

TrackCoach wrote:

The 100 is an endurance event for some people if you are testing speed 50 would have been a better distance An untrained person can only sprint all out for about 40 to 60 meters

You've probably never run a marathon then.

If TrackCoach is whom I think he is, he's a FAT sub-12 high school 100m person. Can you do better?

Two-lap warm-up probably completely exhausted most kids.

This school has an abundance of untapped talent.

And in what way is running a 15 second 100m and 7:00mile considered fit? It might be okay-ish for women but I wouldn’t really consider a men optimally aerobically fit with 100/mile times like that.

average is not an appropriate statistic here as times are skewed. you want to look at the median. one fat guy can drag down the average considerably, it's just not a very meaningful stat.

PeteG wrote:

Runningart2004 wrote:

Again you overestimate the average man. And again I lean on my Army experience as I’ve taken guys to the track and we’ve run 100m sprints and I’ve run countless APFT 2 miles.

15s 100m and 7:00 mile is going to be about average for a fit 5’9-11”, 170-80lb guy.

100m is a long sprint for the common man. After about 50-60m you will notice a marked slowdown.

Most fit guys who run 3x week in the Army are running 14:00-15:00 for 2mi and I can tell you they aren’t running a much faster pace for a mile.

Alan

And in what way is running a 15 second 100m and 7:00mile considered fit? It might be okay-ish for women but I wouldn’t really consider a men optimally aerobically fit with 100/mile times like that.

Surely fully grown men should be faster than 15 year olds whom have not fully developed?

I think this sounds about right. I coach a team of high school girls, and our average 100 time this season out of 25 girls, (with training and in spikes) was 14.39. Most of them were about 1.5 seconds slower at the beginning of the season in trainers. There are some very good athletes and very bad athletes in that bunch. I think you'd expect girls that come out for track to be slightly better than average, but you'd be surprised how many top athletes don't play a spring sport because of travel soccer, hockey, basketball, etc.

This raises a very interesting question for me.

Elite 400m time in running is 44 second or so, or about 11s per 100m. Maybe from a start that's like 12s. The cycling analog would be the kilo, which usually has riders doing around 11-12 w/kg for a top level performance. I guess to be properly fair you'd need to use 500m pace, which I think is close to 1:00, or 12s/100m, giving 13s for a standing start.

In cycling however, almost every amateur can at least touch 12 w/kg, especially if they aren't fat, and the majority of them can do 12 w/kg for 15s. For a 75kg rider, roughly comparable to average "fit" male, that's about between 800-900w. Get to running however, and few people can do sub 13s, let alone sub 12s 100m from the general population. Compare this to cycling where I'd guess 50-75% of amateur cyclists in their 20s could do 850w for 15s. 90%+ could hit that for 5s.

The question is....why? Seems like it must come down to running mechanics issues, as it seems the majority of people have the natural power in their legs to hold elite 1:00 pace for 12-15s, but when it gets to running that power doesn't translate to speed.

Different culture. Most amateur cyclists train much harder than most amateur runners.

Given enough sprint training and motivation, almost all young males would be able to run sub 13, and about half would be under 12. This is with spikes, blocks, and electronic timing.

on a whim I hand timed myself to a 14.7/standing start in my hokas on a track after an easy workout. I didnt really go all out but I took it pretty hard. About as hard as I thought I could without risking an achilles/hamstring issue. Quite a bit quicker acceleration than a stride and tried to hold it, I'm sure there were a few tenths in it if I was a bit more willing to risk an injury but my achilles is iffy. I doubt I could break 14

45 years old, no fast twitch whatsoever, slow as balls [6:00 mile/20:00 5K current PRs], I'm a little bigger than a normal runner [6'2/190#, about 15% BF]

I distinctly remember back in 7th grade/pre-puberty when the entire class was timed in the 200m. I came in DFL outside the 2 fatties and most of the chicks [>50%]. I had to execute a come-from-behind pass on the faster fatty and just barely got him at the finish.

If that helps to describe what you're working with here. lol.

if any other data points are useful, my 20m FTP test is 360w and I can peg my erg meter at 1200w when doing max interval sets on the bike trainer [this is not impressive for someone of my bodyweight]

curve ball wrote:

For no apparent reason, some guys are really terrible at running. I don't know why this guy sucks, for example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/xu93j/hey_fittit_what_is_a_good_100m_time/

He's 16 years old, so age isn't an issue.

He's 5'11 and 170 lbs, so he doesn't have any height or weight issues.

He runs daily and considers himself to be in good shape, so fitness shouldn't be an issue.

Despite all that, his sprint (15.64 100) and distance times (7:00 mile) both suck. I've seen and heard of a few cringeworthy performances, but that has to be among the worst by a non-disabled, non-obese teenage male who runs on a regular basis.

And don't forget his "15.64" is hand-timed, so it could well be 16.64 or even a tad slower.

Says here that the average sprint speed for a 15 year old girl is 13.5 seconds.

That video almost made me angry