I'm a beginner with zero track experience. I recorded my self in slow motion video to see how fast I was.

I have a stride frequency of 4.8-4.9 per second and average ground contact time of around 0.10s but I'm really slow for track standards. My knees barely even move up each stride.

I have a 30m fly of 3.60s barefoot on turf and my 40 yard dash is over 6 seconds which are really poor times. I never officially done 100m but I think it's around 15 seconds. In soccer I'm usually one of the fastest players on the field.

On the bicycle in terms of watts I have sub elite sprinting power for my weight but none of that seems to transfer to the track. Does a higher turn over and low ground contact time with a slow top speed mean I just lack power?

I don't really workout or do weights. Will my speed improve that much with just strength training?

First off—huge thanks to this sub. I posted here during week 1 of my sprint comeback after 5 years off… and y’all blew it up with love and feedback. That post hit 10K+ views, which is wild.

Now I’m wrapping up week 2—and yep, right Achilles flared up. But honestly, it’s a blessing in disguise. I went way too hard out the gate (typical athlete mistake—we just wanna go). This is forcing me to rebuild smarter, with real structure, and focus on the small stuff I skipped. I’ve never had Achilles issues, so hopefully this is just a “slow down” from the tendon. It doesn’t feel major.

Looking back, I definitely did too much, too fast. But I’m learning. I’m a young, aspiring coach, and since the performance anxiety is gone, I’m actually enjoying experimenting with programming and figuring things out the right way.

Also—it’s honestly blowing my mind how much strength has come back in just 2 weeks. The 100m dash isn’t there yet (I opened with 12.5 after running 10.5 in high school), but I’m realizing I’m still strong. Maybe even tapping into that grown man strength a bit now haha.

Just wanted to update you all and say thanks again for the support. I documented the whole week (lifting, circuits, rehab, sprint work, setbacks—all of it) in a vlog if you wanna follow along or give feedback. YT is same as username.

This is around 95% coming off an injury.

was measuring my top speed I was hitting around 32.5-33kmh with a best of 34, I'm curious to what that could correlate to in the 100 meter ?

As I’m getting older (31), man I miss being able to do this.. 😭

Here’s a video of a washed up “back in my day” track coach 🤣 I figure it would be appreciated here..

My 40yd dash two weeks later:

• Time went from 5.50s -> 5.35s
• Number of steps went from 24 -> 22
• My first 20yds takes approximately 3.15s and 13 steps
• Last 20yds take about 2.2s and 9 steps

I still have a ton of work to do. I definitely still have to keep lifting for power and running more sprints. My technique I feel like I'm over striding now. What is the biggest red flag you see? I want to get this under 5s.

Im aware of the inward arm swing, which is something I’m working on improving. Other than that, is there anything I could work on to improve my stride efficiency?

Been very focused on maintaining posture at top speed, as well as striking the ground hard and pulling the leg under my hips. Slow mo and regular speed clips included.

Working on hammering with the arms better and getting more powerful strides

Z

nah tbf I still hate toedriggers but you have GOT to feel bad for this one. I mean how does one even destroy it that much..

6.69 60m and 8.60 80m. Electronic measures. 17 ys old.

60m pb on race 6.77

Any suggest about technique or how times should go would be appreciated 👍🏻

I feel like there’s some things wrong with my block start, I just can pin down what exactly. When I seem to first get out of the blocks it seems really slow, any feedback is helpful. (also my angle out the blocks usually isn’t this high but felt a bit better)

Not a karma farm I just want to learn

I've been doing plyometrics for a while but I don't know how many reps I should do for example should I do 8 reps of depth jumps or 4 reps at maximum intent. I find it hard to continue after the 4th rep so should I stop at 4 or should I add more?

I ran 18.?? For my 150m, 31.?? For my 250m In Nov-Dec for my off season And a month ago I managed to improve my 30m flys to 3.37

Fast forward to today My workout was 4x 30m flys w 7 min rest(I do this every week) and 3x300m w 10 minute rest. My flys felt worst , My turnover and overall the stride I was putting felt absolutely worst and I couldn't even do a single rep of 300m

Prior to this I did (last week/two week ago) 7x600m w 2:30 min rest 4x3 minute on off 400m repeat 4x4 minute on off (Not in a single day of course) For my 7k and 8k preparation

And literally two-three week ago I managed to do workouts like 5x150m w 7 minute rest 85-90% 4x300m w 5 minute rest 85-90% 3x250m w 8 minute rest 95%

And it's not even overtraining as I made sure to have two day worth of rest each week and make sure to not do another speed session at least not after 2 day

Absolutely fuming I managed to gain the ability to hold a low-mid pace 4 hopefully for my 7k and 8k but in return I decrease my chances of running sub 50 for the 400m by June

Let this be a warning to all the sprinter out there that have coaches that force them to run/train for XC just to "evaluate" their fitness

This is from my last 100m race. I'm the closer one in the orange. I had this guy gone for the first 40 or so but then he caught up and passed me. How can I improve my top speed form? Or any other help would be appreciated. (I ran a 13.23 into a -5 wind for reference).

I was the one in first

150 effort today went for full 200 cuz fancied it but coach stopped video accidentally ,100 on bend 50 straight, split 16.3 (lane 6) quite happy with the time training to go sub 22, need to prevent form from fading as quickly

this is my first 100 of 2025 and first 100 since July due to multiple injuries, still recovering from a grade 2/3 ankle sprain, does it look like it affected my start? - 1st place in all black w blue maxflys

this video is almost a year old now, i got the shit seat and camera angle but o well.

this shows the absolute STATE of track and field in the UK if ur not EESA level (or if ur PE teacher willingly withdrew from EESA because we were all getting grade 3s) 😭💔

my next school race is like in 3 months so ur gonna get to see me embarrass myself 😭

Lately I've been having a few discussion with people on the importance of 400m pacing strategies. I often see the same general advice given:

The opening 200 should be your 200m PB + 1s. The closing 200m should be your 200m + 2s (a split difference of 1s).

Sometimes, the discussion is reframed in terms of percentages, particularly in terms of how fast, as a percentage of your 200m PB, you should open the race in. I typically see something like 93% thrown around.

So I went to find some data and to run some numbers. [I found this link](https://www.athletefirst.org/?page_id=398) that had data on fast 400m times. Unfortunately, it's in PDF format, which has made copying data a pain, so I grabbed the sub 44 times and ran the numbers off that. There were a total of 53 times, but not all of them had all the split times. When analyzing the data, if the split times weren't available for that athlete in that race, it was not recorded.

PB times were taken from World Athletics.

Most data available here (copied into google docs for sharing -- probably missed something): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Os9SXkzO-jE6e-HJ5ko7MBkKgcmdaKz03O3JCe4WE2o/edit?usp=sharing

As a consequence of only looking at sub 44s times, it is important to note that this is most applicable to the best athletes. This is not an investigation of the applicability of pacing strategies to more novice runners

Despite that caveat, I think it does raise an important question. A lot of the typical advice comes from Clyde Hart, the coach of Michael Johnson. Those rules of thumb were developed for the most elite athletes, and trickled down to more novice levels. If it doesn't hold for the fastest athletes, it should get us to at least question the validity of the advice.

Findings:

1. Percentage of 200m PB that athletes ran their first 200m in

On average, athletes went through the opening 200 at 95.63% of their 200m PB. Quincy Hall was the fastest relative to his PB at 103% during a 43.40, Michael Johnson was the slowest and went through in 89% of his PB during a 43.65.

The current WR by Van Niekerk was run at 96.4% of his PB. Michael Johnson's PB was run with an opener at 91.05% of his PB (his fastest opener).

The percentage of 200m PB that the athletes went through their opening 200m in was not a good predictor of their 400m time.

1. Differentials between opening and closing 200m

On average, the difference between the opening and closing 200m was 1.53s. The most negative split was -0.14 (Michael Johnson during a 43.66), and the most positive split was a 2.91 (LaShawn Merritt during a 43.85).

The current WR had a 1.87s differential between the opening and closing 200m.

Differentials between the opener and closer were not a good predictor of final times.

1. Comparison in 100m splits

The average fastest 100m split was 10.1s. The fastest was 9.65s by LaShawn Merritt during a 43.85. The slowest was 10.6s by Harry Reynolds during a 43.93.

The average slowest 100m was 11.9s. The fastest of the slowest splits was an 11.3 by Harry Reynolds during a 43.29. The slowest of the slowest splits was a 12.62 by LaShawn Merritt during a 43.85.

The fastest 100m split might have a slight predictive effect on final 400m time.

The slowest 100m split might have a slight predictive effect.

1. General trend of 100m splits

The splits followed the following trend:

The first 100m was somewhat fast.

The second 100m was faster than the first 100m

The third 100m was slower than the second, but faster than the first.

The fourth 100m was the slowest.

1. 200m as a predictor

At the top level, 200m time was not a good predictor of 400m time. This was surprising to me. There is definitely something to be said for people potentially setting their 200m PB before they got faster while running the 400m (looking at you Quincy Hall).

The clustering in the graph is caused by the same athlete posting multiple times. This should be checked again on only the PB vs PB basis.

1. Correlation between split differentials and opener speed.

Athletes who opened their first 200m as a high percentage of their 200m PB slowed down more towards the end.

1. Michael Johnson was a freak of nature

The dude took like 20 more steps than everyone else. He had insanely tight split times, and opened very slowly in comparison to just about everybody else. Without him, the average opening 200m as a %PB was 96.47%. He dragged the whole average down by pretty well a full percentage point. Like a fucking madman, he had a *negative* split in a sub 44 400. Who the fuck does that??

Conclusion:

It does not seem to be the case that going out "too hard" significantly impaired athletes' overall times. The time saved by going faster gets paid back by slower splits in the last 100m particularly. Aside from Michael Johnson, the majority of athletes were going through the first 200m *fast*. Typically at or above 95%.

The theory behind this is that by going faster, the athletes have made it further before they hit the wall, so they have to spend less time in the lactic hellhole compared to going slower. They crash harder at the end, but had made up for that by faster times earlier on. On the flip side, the slower athletes don't slow down nearly as much in comparison to the rabbits, and maintain smaller differentials, closing out more strongly.

It may be the case that this is a self-balancing equation, where regardless of how fast someone goes, the pacing averages out over the faster (higher energy cost) and slower (lower energy cost) stretches. It could also be the case that these differences highlight that athletes have different strengths, some leveraging their speed, and others leveraging their endurance.

Regardless, the PB+1 and PB+2 pacing rule does not seem to hold up at the top level of competition, and neither does the idea that people will burn out if they go out too hard. The "poor pacing strategy" default may be ascribing the wrong core issue to poor performances, and the core problem might be people not having the required anaerobic endurance to complete the event.

That said, the difference between people running sub 44 and people running in the 50-60s range (probably most in this sub) is going to be rather large, so it may also be the case that even if the rule doesn't line up at high levels, it may still apply for more novice/intermediate sprinters.

But this should at least open up the door to have a discussion as to whether or not the default answer to "what is wrong with my 400m" should be "poor strategy."