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Running Speeds

allendowney.com

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Re: Running Speeds

#51

Post by Phenomenit »

underdeserver wrote: post #27

Before I was injured, I used to run 8 km (about 5 miles), three times a week. I maintained about 5:30 minutes/km, and I would sprint the last 200 or so meters at the end. I measured the speed - the run was mostly around 10-12 km/h, the sprint around 18 km/h. I'm not a fast sprinter at all, but I was in my late twenties and maintained this schedule for a while and figured I might be average or better. To put this in p…

Did you get injured because you sprinted in the end when your legs were worn down? I’m just asking because that happened to me a few times before I put two and two together.

Re: Running Speeds

#52

Post by mkl »

cesnja wrote: post #14
croes wrote: post #2

Nitpicking: to truly compare the running times they should use the same shoes and tracks. There is a lot of effort put in to make athletes faster. I doubt Usain Bolt would be under 20s on a dirt track.

There were 20000-year old footprints discovered in Australia [1], the estimated speed of these barefoot runners was comparable to olympic sprinters. [1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/20-000-ye...

Subsequent work has revised that estimate downwards quite a bit: https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/bsk-pdf-ma...

Re: Running Speeds

#53

Post by KeplerBoy »

ramraj07 wrote: post #28
underdeserver wrote: post #27

Before I was injured, I used to run 8 km (about 5 miles), three times a week. I maintained about 5:30 minutes/km, and I would sprint the last 200 or so meters at the end. I measured the speed - the run was mostly around 10-12 km/h, the sprint around 18 km/h. I'm not a fast sprinter at all, but I was in my late twenties and maintained this schedule for a while and figured I might be average or better. To put this in p…

I was once biking at what I considered acceptable pace on a long empty road in Texas one fine Sunday. Slowly I approached a kid like maybe 15-16, running. While biking without exerting myself, I was only able to approach him slowly. He was shirtless so you could se he was toned and perfectly executing every step as if it’s a prerecorded NPC. A body perfectly tuned to do that one operation, with hours going to that pr…

You probably weren't cycling that fast tbh. No human is capable of running much faster than 20 km/h for extended periods of time. The average speed of the WR for a 10k is at 23 km/h.

Bicycles make humans incredibly more efficient at travelling over paved surfaces. Pretty much every sort-of healthy person with a bike would beat the fastest runner over 10k. That's crazy in my opinion.

Re: Running Speeds

#54

Post by onetimeuse92304 »

chewz wrote: post #42
onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the mental fortitude is much overblown aspect. Yes, there is this thing as mental fortitude and you can even train it to persist to run hard, especially when you "kick" at the end of a race. But this only helps to a very small degree, the most of the result is due to more mundane aspects like your experience with running, your running efficiency, your aerobic capacity, your additional fat you are carrying with y…

Running isn’t an activity where you need much mental fortitude. But in sailing in 10 Beaufort or climbing in extreme weather it is all about mental fortitude not physical strength or training. Some people just quit, give up and others stand at the steering wheel for 6 hours despite soaked clothes and blowing gale.

Heck, I am observing candidates giving up during interviews or experienced software engineers giving up during outages. I would say both also require mental fortitude.

Re: Running Speeds

#55

Post by md_ »

The really obvious thing, if you watch the Freeze "best of" clip, is that most people have terrible running form. In most cases, I suspect I could tell who has a chance and who doesn't simply by looking at one stride from each competitor.

There are so many factors that go into biomechanics--I struggle to improve my own running form--but it's interesting to me that it comes together in such an obvious-at-a-glance factor as "looks fast."

Re: Running Speeds

#56

Post by jefftk »

alexmolas wrote: post #35
leto_ii wrote: post #9

I'm not sure this analysis is as surprising or meaningful as it might seem at first sight. In the end I think what this tells us is that in the general population there are many distinct subpopulations with different distributions of running speed. I would expect that if you start conditioning on things (e.g. gender, age, level of fitness) things start looking a lot more normal, rather than log-normal. You might not…

If I'm not wrong you can't obtain a lognormal as a mixture of Gaussian distributions. The processes that generate these distributions are completely different. Gaussian distribution arise when the factors are additive, and lognormal when factors are multiplicative, so these are two completely different distributions. The same way I don't think you can get a normal distribution just by conditioning on an exponential d…

Say you get a lognormal by combining five gaussian-distributed factors (as in the past). Then you condition on four of those factors. The remaining factor, and hence your overall result, will be gaussian.

Now, maybe in real life there are far too many factors and we're only holding a few constant so the math doesn't apply, but I do think the math is valid.

Re: Running Speeds

#57

Post by jefftk »

Aeolun wrote: post #38
jmmcd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of Downey but this article is quite far from his best. 1. The data he fits is for distance (10k), and the conclusion ("why you can't beat the Freeze") concerns sprinting. 2. The claim that speed is a multiplicative model is fine and I agree based on the 10k data. But the people running against the Freeze aren't uniform from the population, so the argument is missing a step about what distribution (what…

To be fair, you don’t really need any of the numbers in the article. If the only thing you know about the freeze is that he’s 1.5 seconds slower than Ursain Bolt on the 200 meters you can conclude that he’ll win basically any race he runs.

I do think you need the discussion of distributions and variance: for all I know the 200m tends to be won by fractions of a second and there are millions of people just a second slower than Bolt.

Re: Running Speeds

#58

Post by kyleyeats »

lordnacho wrote: post #40

I've often wondered how exactly I might increase my sprint speed, in terms of form. I've never met a sprint trainer, so all I can do is just try to naturally sprint, but I'm clearly not very fast and never was. But somehow I don't even know what the fundamentals are. What do you need to do to be fast? The other amazing thing is that marathon runners seem to be faster than I can sprint, and I really don't get how they…

Do squats and deadlifts. You can't hope to get anywhere near an ideal form without a whole lot of leg strength.

Re: Running Speeds

#59

Post by koblas »

lordnacho wrote: post #40

I've often wondered how exactly I might increase my sprint speed, in terms of form. I've never met a sprint trainer, so all I can do is just try to naturally sprint, but I'm clearly not very fast and never was. But somehow I don't even know what the fundamentals are. What do you need to do to be fast? The other amazing thing is that marathon runners seem to be faster than I can sprint, and I really don't get how they…

Best advice -- find a local running club that does track workouts. The group dynamics will be incredibly helpful as a baseline. Sprinting is big on strength low on endurance, that's why you see muscular sprinters and lean 5k+ runners.

IMHO the biggest factor at being fast is training fast and understanding this is a multi-year effort not a quick fix. Odds are you will need to change slightly your foot strike pattern, this is a long term project, not something that's done in a month.

Good luck.

Re: Running Speeds

#60

Post by glenngillen »

lordnacho wrote: post #40

I've often wondered how exactly I might increase my sprint speed, in terms of form. I've never met a sprint trainer, so all I can do is just try to naturally sprint, but I'm clearly not very fast and never was. But somehow I don't even know what the fundamentals are. What do you need to do to be fast? The other amazing thing is that marathon runners seem to be faster than I can sprint, and I really don't get how they…

As someone else mentioned, there’s plenty on YouTube to help re form. That said, I’m helping my elementary aged kids improve their middle distance running (I’m no sprinter, so I can’t help there) and the two basic tips I’ve been using to help them:

- practice barefoot occasionally, and pay attention to how your form changes. You’re more likely to just naturally land on your forefoot when you’ve no shoes on. Now try and maintain that when you put shoes on.

- move your legs faster. Seems simple and obvious, but most people when they try to run faster don’t actually move their legs faster. They extend their stride (more likely to increase heel strike) and try to drive more acceleration off each push. You’re training for power, not speed. Focus on a higher cadence, which will probably mean you need to make a conscious effort to take what feel like _smaller_ steps.

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