Decent 60m time for a distance runner?

Your sprint times indicate you could run about a 15 second 100m at best, this correlates to around 70s capability for the 400m, this sort of time is fine if you’re running a 6 flat mile and want to knock say 30 seconds off it but if you want your distance times to be considerably lower than say 5:30 in the mile or 18:30 in the 5k, you’ll have to build some speed or at least a considerable amount of speed endurance.

Most relatively fast distance male runners (sub 5 mile, sub 17 5k) can break 60 for a 400m, so they can hold your top speed for 4x the distance.

Sub 9 seconds, for your fitness level

This article should help

JR

Physiologists prefer to ask all T&F athletes to do a 200m TT. The first 30m of 60m is mainly one's start and form transitioning from start to sprint. Sixty metres means nothing since distance runners usually do not have a history knowing how to start and sprinting first 30m.

Thank you all for the replies! The article looks interesting JR, but unfortunately I do not have access beyond the abstract.

I am around a 17:00 runner for the 5km, but am very slow in the 400m, I've never done better than 72s in training, although I did a 600m in 1:50 a few days ago, and might have done the first 400m of that a bit quicker than 72s. I can do 300m in about 51s repeatedly.

I definitely need to improve my speed! I am mid 30s and had not sprinted in nearly 20 years before this and one previous session, and even before that never focused on it. I hope this means that I may have room for improvement rather than being genetically limited!

It's probably irrelevant, but my 40m times were more like 7-8s rather than 6-7s at the end of the session.

JRinaldi wrote:

This article should help

JR

No, it won't.

60m FAT? If you are doing anything under 9 seconds, you are wasting your time.

60m wrote:

Thank you all for the replies! The article looks interesting JR, but unfortunately I do not have access beyond the abstract.

Go to

and paste in the DOI - in this case, 10.1123/ijspp.2018-0163

Or just go to

Sprintgeezer wrote:

JRinaldi wrote:

This article should help

JR

No, it won't.

60m FAT? If you are doing anything under 9 seconds, you are wasting your time.

Do you mean in general for distance runners (e.g. sub 15 minute 5km ones as well), or for someone at my level? If the former, could you elaborate on your reasoning a little? Can one still achieve a 100m or 200m that is good enough for a seriously good 5km time off a 9s 60m?

(My time is evidently not FAT, of course, but this kind of benchmark would still be very useful).

You are seriously slow twitch.

It is going to be bloody hard work for you to improve your speed. Explosive movements, weights, consistent all-out speed sessions and weight gain (if you are really skinny) are the things that will help you here.

I predict you could train to run 13.9/59 for your 100/400 with a fair bit of training. You are probably capable of a 65 400m. It’s all about activating those muscles that able you to get into those faster gears which unfortunately are the same muscles that are neglected when running mileage/training for endurance

Hard but doable wrote:

You are seriously slow twitch.

It is going to be bloody hard work for you to improve your speed. Explosive movements, weights, consistent all-out speed sessions and weight gain (if you are really skinny) are the things that will help you here.

what kind of explosive movements you recommend? This topic is interesting because in order to become a better many of us should improve all times from short distances to longer ones.

60 m FAT

below 6.5 s = world class

6.5-7 s = good sprinters

7-7.5 s = average sprinters, good middle distance runners

7.5-8 s = slow sprinters, mediocre middle distance runners, good distance runners

8-8.5 s = still ok if you do not want to run distances shorter than 5 k on a high level

9 s + x = very slow

Thank you, it looks like the article came from a PhD thesis which is freely available at the following link.

openrepository.aut.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10292/12094/SandfordG2.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y

Interesting stuff. So far I've not looked at it deeply enough to take more away from it than that it argues that maximal sprint speed is definitely a significant factor for 800m and 1500m, and indeed argues, if I am reading it correctly, that it is more of a factor than vVO2Max (velocity at VO2Max), and more relevant for 800m than 1500m (this last point is not really surprising I think). Though the study is I think for elite athletes, who will already have a very high vVO2Max; there might or might not be a different picture for non-elites.

To me, just thinking about it in a simple way, it is logical that sprint speed is going to be a major limiting factor. If one's max speed is X, then no matter how good one's endurance is, one is not going to be able to run for Y distance at more than some percentage of X speed, where Y is one of the ingredients in determining that percentage. But the larger Y is, the more relevant endurance will be, because there is much more room to improve the speed one can hold relative to one's max speed, and just small improvements will be multiplied to a greater extent.

As I say, this is just simple reasoning, not based on any deep analysis, but it seems to me to be pretty incontrovertible. What is more difficult is to put precise numbers on it: if one's max speed is X, then what can one hope to run in the 5km, etc. But I really think that this question is highly relevant for distance runners, slow twitch ones at least; there's no point flogging oneself to death with endurance training if one's speed is going to put a lower limit on what one can achieve; better to maintain a decent level of endurance and focus on improving the speed.

Hard but doable wrote:

You are seriously slow twitch.

It is going to be bloody hard work for you to improve your speed. Explosive movements, weights, consistent all-out speed sessions and weight gain (if you are really skinny) are the things that will help you here.

I predict you could train to run 13.9/59 for your 100/400 with a fair bit of training. You are probably capable of a 65 400m. It’s all about activating those muscles that able you to get into those faster gears which unfortunately are the same muscles that are neglected when running mileage/training for endurance

Thank you, this is the most inspiring response that I have received on letsrun; it gives me something to aim for! It does not really matter if it is 100% correct, what you predict is in any case much better than I can do at the moment, and the knowledge that somebody thinks it might be possible for me to significantly improve gives me a spur to try to do so!

By the way, I think I am also a bit weak in 'aerobic power'. For example, in training, running 2000m intervals at 95% of 5km pace is very hard for me currently, the last time I tried it I couldn't do it and dropped down to 90% or worse towards the end. Whereas I think what I can do on a long run is decent; I can do at least 20km at about 4:05 / km pace (so about 80% pace) on a somewhat hilly route pretty comfortably. Would this be consistent with the seriously slow twitch picture?

Baltsu wrote:

what kind of explosive movements you recommend? This topic is interesting because in order to become a better many of us should improve all times from short distances to longer ones.

I 100% agree! I would not be surprised if many, especially those who are a bit older, slow-twitch, and do not have a past history of competitive running, would benefit more from improving speed than from low-end aerobic work (though of course one must maintain a decent level of endurance).

Notaco wrote:

Your sprint times indicate you could run about a 15 second 100m at best, this correlates to around 70s capability for the 400m.

You have no idea what you are talking about. A well trained slow sprinting distance runner can run 400m at the same average pace as their 100m time

Partridge wrote:

60 m FAT

below 6.5 s = world class

6.5-7 s = good sprinters

7-7.5 s = average sprinters, good middle distance runners

7.5-8 s = slow sprinters, mediocre middle distance runners, good distance runners

8-8.5 s = still ok if you do not want to run distances shorter than 5 k on a high level

9 s + x = very slow

This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, thank you! To make it even better, could you suggest some concrete figures to define what you had in mind with a 'good distance runner', 'distances shorter than 5 km on a high level', etc?

Also I guess you omitted 8.5-9s; would this be slow but not very slow?

physiologists ... wrote:

Physiologists prefer to ask all T&F athletes to do a 200m TT. The first 30m of 60m is mainly one's start and form transitioning from start to sprint. Sixty metres means nothing since distance runners usually do not have a history knowing how to start and sprinting first 30m.

This was my first thought. Although it's not completely irrelevant, the OP isn't in spikes, using blocks, or trained in starts or acceleration.

It's obvious to me that the OP could train to run faster in the 60m, but would it be a worthwhile use of training time? I think not.

Also, why would a distance runner do standing start 40m reps? The risk of injury is higher and it trains systems that aren't very useful in races longer than 400m.

fisky wrote:

physiologists ... wrote:

Physiologists prefer to ask all T&F athletes to do a 200m TT. The first 30m of 60m is mainly one's start and form transitioning from start to sprint. Sixty metres means nothing since distance runners usually do not have a history knowing how to start and sprinting first 30m.

This was my first thought. Although it's not completely irrelevant, the OP isn't in spikes, using blocks, or trained in starts or acceleration.

It's obvious to me that the OP could train to run faster in the 60m, but would it be a worthwhile use of training time? I think not.

Also, why would a distance runner do standing start 40m reps? The risk of injury is higher and it trains systems that aren't very useful in races longer than 400m.

The only reason why a 60m TT is not completely irrelevant is if a male is able to sprint sub-7.5 F.A.T. 60m. A sub-7.5 60m time indicates one should not be a Marathoner. A slow 60m TT should not discourage anyone.

fisky wrote:

It's obvious to me that the OP could train to run faster in the 60m, but would it be a worthwhile use of training time? I think not.

Also, why would a distance runner do standing start 40m reps? The risk of injury is higher and it trains systems that aren't very useful in races longer than 400m.

I can answer why I was doing 40m reps :-) . I was following the advice of V. in the following great thread.

On the first page he outlines a plan for building raw speed as the first step in building speed endurance, etc. 40m reps are the start of that. I've also read elsewhere that hill sprints of a similar 6-7s length are a great place to start. So I thought I'd give it a try.

It makes sense to me that if one wishes to improve speed, one needs to build from the bottom up, i.e. start with the rawest, alactic, most 'useless' speed in a direct sense for a distance runner, and build up from there.

I'm reasonably robustly built and not too worried about the injury side of things, although I'm trying to be careful.

I've also just started trying some sessions with 'all out' (or close) repetitions (600m, 400m, 200m, etc), with long, walking rest. I've never done that before, only ever tried shortish jog rest type intervals. I was inspired somehow by some of Antonio Cabral's reflections in the following thread

as well as the following.

Would people recommend doing different things than this to improve speed?