[HN Gopher] Running Speeds
___________________________________________________________________
Running Speeds
Author : alexmolas
Score : 277 points
Date : 2023-10-29 06:22 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.allendowney.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.allendowney.com)
| croes wrote:
| 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.
| alexmolas wrote:
| I guess this can be incorporated as one of the multiplicative
| factors that determine the overall speed of a runner.
| onetimeuse92304 wrote:
| As an avid runner (10 miles every day, over 3k miles last
| year), shoes and tracks mean less than you think. Yes, the
| small fractions of a percent are meaningful but only to people
| who compare their results against each other to find out who is
| faster. To compare my result against a professional runner,
| they are running close to twice as fast as me and that less
| than 1% difference is completely meaningless.
| jmye wrote:
| Yup. People badly overestimate the shoe effect, especially.
| onetimeuse92304 wrote:
| The shoes are the worst thing. Yes, they do work. But it
| does not make any sense for anybody except people who race
| for top positions.
|
| First of all, to make use of these specialist shoes you
| already need to have perfect running mechanics. You already
| have to be good at recovering good amount of the energy
| using springiness in your tendons and muscle and then the
| shoe will _help_ with it. If you just put your foot on the
| ground and then pick it up a moment later, it will do
| nothing for you. So that probably already makes these shoes
| do nothing for something like 3 /4th of all runners.
|
| Second, these shoes are extremely expensive and the sticker
| price doesn't tell the story. Not only they are something
| like 50% more expensive than top of the line other shoes,
| they also get used up very quickly, something like 5 times
| faster. So you could say they are probably about 7 times
| more expensive than even most expensive regular shoes.
|
| Third, it just does not make any sense! When I run, I am
| racing against my own times. Yes, I want to be better at
| running and having better time gives me joy and makes me
| proud for my accomplishment. For my hard work I put into
| it. What difference does 1% of improvement make if that
| improvement was totally artificial? Rather than use these
| shoes I could just take calculator and calculate the result
| to include 1% artificial increase in performance and it
| would cost me much less.
|
| It only makes sense if you are racing against other people
| and that does not include you or me.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > As an avid runner (10 miles every day, over 3k miles last
| year), shoes and tracks mean less than you think.
|
| I'm also a fairly avid runner and I'm going to call BS on
| that.
|
| There's a ~14 second difference in world record times between
| track and road in the 5k. Track surface technology is a real
| thing, just as shoe technology is.
| morepork wrote:
| A 14 second difference is less than 2% of the total time
| though, so it doesn't entirely disagree with them. Between
| dirt in casual running shoes to a track and top tech shoes,
| there would I guess be about a 15-20% difference, and most
| of that would be the surface. I would speculate more for a
| sprint as traction/acceleration is more critical.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Right, track surface is a big differentiator, let alone
| shorter indoor 200m tracks.
|
| There's a big difference in shoe technology between road
| and track too, primarily in terms of the amount of super
| foam allowed which in terms of the shoe is generally what
| seems to provide the most benefit.
| cesnja wrote:
| 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...
| yread wrote:
| It could be that those people were just better at running
| than us. Tech that makes shoes and track more springy makes
| things measurably faster
| mkl wrote:
| Subsequent work has revised that estimate downwards quite a
| bit: https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/bsk-
| pdf-ma...
| otteromkram wrote:
| Records would never get broken, then.
|
| That's why most professional sports organizations have specific
| standards for fields, tracks, equipment, etc.
|
| On the last part the author was comparing Bolt's time to that
| of the collegiate record and The Freeze's PB, all three of
| which were probably set on higher-quality tracks.
|
| But, some records might include factors likely wind direction,
| which might add an asterisk to indicate a special condition.
| wjnc wrote:
| If your high school math would only consist of working through
| the various books of Allen Downey you would get a very rigorous,
| basic introduction to: programming, computer science, statistics,
| computational and Bayesian thinking and a lot more. You could
| write and compare simple to intermediate programs in many
| programming languages, where you'd have experience in
| implementing the same structures in different languages.
| Distributions and sampling wouldn't scare you. It would beat high
| school math (at least mine in the 90s) by a million miles.
|
| Did I mention I think Allen is totally great yet?
| tgv wrote:
| This article is bollocks, though. It's a fit of highly
| unrepresentative data, not even a good one, but worse: it
| doesn't explain anything. If you take that model seriously,
| Usain Bolt could have been anybody in the entire history of
| mankind.
| wjnc wrote:
| There's two types of people in the world: those that build
| models and those that complain about the models than have
| been built.
|
| Seriously though, Allen is an instructor. These are
| educational pieces to bring a spark of understanding and
| creativity to students. I don't think he is aspiring on
| modeling the absolute truth in these posts.
|
| This piece has a learning about the working of non-normal
| distributions in sampling and reasoning about cut-off points.
| dilawar wrote:
| "All models are wrong, some are useful." Heard it so many
| times during my Ph.D.
| codeflo wrote:
| > If you take that model seriously, Usain Bolt could have
| been anybody in the entire history of mankind.
|
| No model is perfect, but I don't have the slightest clue why
| you think that would follow.
| tgv wrote:
| Because it fits by multiplying random variables. It cannot
| explain why records are improving, i.e. why Usain Bolt
| didn't live 100 years ago.
| suavesito wrote:
| It can explain it. Better training and better equipment
| are (at least) two variables that improve people timings.
| Maybe a century ago there was an Usain Bolt, just didn't
| had neither the proper training, nor equipment, and those
| low factors avoided better timings.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| And nutrition of course.
| NavinF wrote:
| > If you take that model seriously, Usain Bolt could have
| been anybody in the entire history of mankind
|
| Wat. His model says that many factors have to be perfect for
| someone to be as fast as Usain Bolt. If anything, it implies
| the opposite of what you said
| _Microft wrote:
| Is this a reasonable comparison? I'm unfamiliar with these
| works but would someone be able to work through them without
| the basic math knowledge that they acquired in school? If not
| then they are not an alternative to math in school?
| wjnc wrote:
| I can say I've worked through four of his books from front to
| cover. You're right. The learnings are on top of (some) math.
| In my case actually quite a lot of math post-high school. But
| I think a 14 year old could finish the books as well, or at
| least 90%.
|
| My eldest is 10. He is good at math because we do math games
| all the time. I can't get algebra to sink in properly yet.
| Doesn't really click in the time we have and with the teacher
| he has (me). But in Python he is giving variables a name all
| the time. Perhaps there is something about programmatic math
| that helps, not hinders education.
| OJFord wrote:
| > can't get algebra to sink in properly yet. Doesn't really
| click in the time we have and with the teacher he has (me).
| But in Python he is giving variables a name all the time.
| Perhaps there is something about programmatic math that
| helps, not hinders education.
|
| On the hinders side though, I can understand it being
| confusing to try to grasp: y = x + 2
|
| As being sort of 'constantly updating', referring to x in
| abstract, when you've just learnt that Python will assign
| (once) the result of computing x (at that time) + 2 to y.
|
| You could def y as being x() + 2, but you might just be
| delaying the confusion to when you try to introduce
| functions in math and find yoursel saying 'no no that was
| just a hack to get python to behave more like algebra'.
|
| Is there any language that allows this I wonder? Where you
| can do something like: y = &(*x + 2)
|
| That is, y is a pointer to the result of adding 2 to the
| value pointed to by x, and this is somehow kept up to date,
| by tracking references like garbage collection perhaps, or
| at compile time by inserting the code to update y whenever
| x is updated. (Names would need to be globally unique I
| suppose, or else x transformed in to some kind of struct
| that could contain y and other dependents I suppose, and
| then also a link from y to x so you can remove that if y
| definition changes.. but that's a lot of load for the
| humble assignment operator!)
| crooked-v wrote:
| As with a lot of things, the answer is Excel.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The opposite confusion is actually something that really
| surprised me, working with beginner programmers for a
| while. The mistake that y=2+x should set up some constant
| relationship where y updates along with x should be
| expected for people who've been doing math their whole
| lives and not programming, but it is pretty confusing to
| figure out their confusion the first time.
| jmmcd wrote:
| 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 percentile of the
| background distribution) they might be from.
|
| 3. There are some interesting numbers about how the high school
| girl is x% faster than Downey, the boy is y% faster than the
| girl, etc, but they don't link to the stats later in the
| article.
| Aeolun wrote:
| 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.
| jefftk wrote:
| 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.
| Aeolun wrote:
| To some extend. If there's millions of people that are
| nearly as fast you'd have encountered them on your school
| or university course, but what you see there doesn't even
| come close (aside from the odd one out like the article
| describes). Since I haven't, I can make a reasonable
| assessment of the likelihood someone is nearly as fast.
|
| Of course I might be wrong (maybe people in my general
| area are just incredibly slow)? But I'd have some
| confidence in the assertion anyway.
| leto_ii wrote:
| 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 be able to beat the Freeze simply because you're
| not a young fit male who trains to run fast. Really nothing
| surprising here.
| vjk800 wrote:
| I think the point is that all these traits are multiplicative,
| not summative. Your maximum running speed at the age of 40 is
| maybe 0.8 times what it was when you were 20, not your running
| speed at the age of 20 minus some. And when you have several
| multiplicative traits like age, gender, training history, all
| different aspects of genetics, etc., you get a lognormal
| distribution instead of a normal distribution, and with it a
| much larger variance between individuals.
| alexmolas wrote:
| 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
| distribution.
| jefftk wrote:
| 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.
| alexmolas wrote:
| Good point, I was wrong. However, it can also happen that
| the factors are not gaussian, and still the multiplication
| would follow a lognormal distribution by the CLT. So saying
| that "if you condition on enough factors the distribution
| will be normal" requires the assumption that the factors
| are normally distributed.
| salty_biscuits wrote:
| A gaussian mixture is a universal density approximator, so
| you can definitely approximate a lognormal with such a model.
| leto_ii wrote:
| I was thinking about this and how you might get a lognormal
| from normals. Peer comments I think have good suggestions.
|
| The thing is a while back I took a look at the times achieved
| by competitive athletes at the 100m dash (from
| worldathletics.org), and they looked normally distributed.
| Intuitively that made sense to me - many other human
| attributes are normally distributed, so why not this?
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Allan writes about stats in every day life. He's not trying to
| show something surprising?
|
| He's explaining why something is, using stats.
|
| You're probably overthinking it.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| I used to like watching the Special forces selection process TV
| shows. They would claim that mostly people failed due to mental
| fortitude. The problem was repeatedly in these shows you would
| see people who weren't fit enough, whose muscles were not capable
| of the physical strength and stamina necessary to push like this.
| Many had trained very hard and were in very good shape but they
| just couldn't sustain it in the cold. These peoples bodies broke
| down too fast. Mental fortitude only seemed to come into it when
| you got down to the final few, 90% of people their bodies failed
| before they got to the point where mental fortitude mattered.
|
| I can well believe there are multiple factors that goes into
| being able to make it through such a test or being very fast. We
| just don't understand these genetic factors yet.
| onetimeuse92304 wrote:
| 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 you, whether you have been
| running regularly recently, etc.
|
| I am regular runner (10 miles every morning). If I have an
| injury and are out of running for two months, I will have very
| hard time at the same speed and duration as before the injury
| and no mental fortitude will help me get the same result come
| race time. My mental fortitude counts for less than my last two
| months of running history.
|
| Even just a tiny bit of experience with running can
| dramatically improve your results. And that is not necessarily
| by improving your fitness. I remember when I started running I
| would get large increases in results _every single day_. I was
| very proud of myself until somebody told me this is normal and
| has nothing to do with my fitness -- my brain is getting
| rewired to coordinate my movements better and this helps
| running efficiency. Another important aspect of running you
| learn within first days is how it feels to be running at a
| sustainable pace. If you don 't have any experience you are
| very likely to run too fast, accumulate lactate and be unable
| to finish the distance or have to slow down considerably.
| Because you don't have any idea how hard is appropriate for the
| challenge and your ability.
|
| And one more argument against mental fortitude. I think it has
| very little value the better you are at running. The better you
| are at running the closer you run to your physical limits and
| once you understand it, the brain alone cannot make you run
| faster if your body simply is not able to produce required
| output.
|
| If you observer Eliud Kipchoge, for example, beating yet
| another marathon record, you will notice he is feeling good and
| smiling throughout the race and at the finish line. Yes, there
| is probably some pain and discomfort but really, he is just
| executing a meticulously prepared plan. The work has already
| been done and he can't run faster than his ability and he knows
| is ability to perfection. He knows if he runs even a tiny bit
| faster than he should, it will actually put him above his
| ability and produce a slower result. There is maybe last couple
| miles where he is judging his reservers and decides whether to
| run a tiny bit faster or stay at his plan and that's about it.
|
| I had to use mental fortitude to finish my first marathon (when
| my body cut the power at 20 miles), but that's just because I
| was undertrained and unprepared. Now when I run I know
| perfectly the pace I need to keep to finish the race and there
| isn't temptation to "push it" because I know if I do this it
| will produce a worse result.
|
| (yes, I know running long distance like 5k-42.2k is very
| different from sprinting. I am just an amateur who runs a lot
| who is also a nerd and want to understand a lot about
| everything I do.)
| ImPleadThe5th wrote:
| > 10 miles every morning
|
| Holy cow! That's pretty impressive, I run only like 35 miles
| a week during the peak of my marathon raining blocks.
| onetimeuse92304 wrote:
| It is less impressive than you think. I run slow all the
| time (zone 1/zone 2) and only very occasionally do
| tempo/threshold/intervals. I only add those in my marathon
| training block.
|
| The distance is only one factor, the other factor is
| intensity. If you keep intensity low you can increase the
| volume a lot.
|
| Most untrained people get their heart rate up to zone 2 by
| just walking a little faster or in more difficult terrain.
| But they can easily walk fast for an hour or two. The only
| difference is that I have to be running to get to the same
| level of exertion.
|
| My runs are all easy and enjoyable and I don't have to
| fight myself to go out and I feel perfectly fine right
| after the run. I run 10 miles because that's about 1h 15-20
| minutes which is the most I can pack into my busy morning.
| I am using that time to rethink some stuff, listen to the
| news or audiobooks so not all time is lost.
|
| An interesting feature of running is that if you do it
| correctly you can be quickly progressing to doing things
| that couple of months ago you thought impossible. For
| example, what once was a very strenuous run was an easy
| stroll couple months later, if I did things correctly
| inbetween.
|
| Another example, for years I had trouble with my Achilles
| tendon which would flare up every time I reached particular
| weekly mileage (about 20-30 miles). For many years I
| thought I am never going to be good at this, but then I got
| an advice from my physiotherapist to do some strength
| training and calisthenics targeting my Achilles and my
| problems suddenly went away. From then on I understood it
| is all about problem solving and I am a nerd.
| chewz wrote:
| >> 0 miles every morning > Holy cow! That's pretty
| impressive
|
| It might be also a reason for not making any progress..
| wjholden wrote:
| Your observation on neurological efficiency generalizes to
| all physical activities.
|
| If you practiced pull-ups every day, you would become very
| efficient at pull-ups and possibly double the number you can
| do. At the same time, it isn't impossible for seemingly
| related measurements of strength (such as the biceps curl and
| deadlift) to get worse as your body "overfits" its adaptation
| to the pull-ups.
| chewz wrote:
| 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.
| onetimeuse92304 wrote:
| 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.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| I mean, I've quit an interview process several times -
| usually because they were dragging it out, or because the
| interview process hinted to me I'd not enjoy working
| there.
|
| Interviews are bidirectional information exchanges - the
| company is also pitching itself to the candidate during
| the process.
| onetimeuse92304 wrote:
| I only had candidates leave my interview twice out of
| probably couple thousand interviews. And that was when I
| caught them cheating.
|
| What I mean by giving up is what happens when a person
| loses the will to fight.
| blobberz wrote:
| Do you have a lot of experience with competitive running
| (racing)?
| snowwrestler wrote:
| In extreme weather, the weather is what is testing your
| mental fortitude. In many such situations you can't "just
| quit" once you have entered the conditions, other than
| essentially committing suicide by ceasing to protect
| yourself. You can't turn off the weather and go home just
| because you're unhappy.
|
| In running, it is your own body that is testing your mental
| fortitude. To be more specific, it is the extreme physical
| discomfort one experiences while training and competing.
| And unlike life-or-death extreme weather, you really can
| quit at any point. It is a totally optional activity at all
| times. So yes, it requires quite a lot of mental fortitude
| to keep doing something so physically unpleasant, every
| day, in pursuit of a personal goal.
| blobberz wrote:
| I disagree, there's a lot of prolonged mental fortitude
| required during hard efforts. So 3x per week during workouts
| and in every race.
| vjk800 wrote:
| It's much easier to maintain mental fortitude if your body is
| only 90% worn down instead of 99%.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Except a 200m sprint is over before you even tap into your
| stamina. It certainly takes serious mental fortitude to stay
| several hours on the racetrack, doing your 200m sprint again
| and again, trying to perfect every aspect, but if you _can 't_
| perfect one of them due to your natural limitations, you aren't
| becoming a champion runner.
| Beijinger wrote:
| Reminds me of the movie Gattaca
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/
|
| Anton Freeman : Vincent! How are you doing this Vincent? How
| have you done any of this? We have to go back.
|
| Vincent : It's too late for that. We're closer to the other
| side.
|
| Anton Freeman : What other side? You wanna drown us both?
|
| Vincent : You wanna know how I did it? This is how I did it
| Anton. I never saved anything for the swim back.
|
| Vincent : There's no gene for fate.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| "There's no gene for selection bias" What a goofy moral. John
| Henry beat a machine once, died, and then was immediately
| replaced with 1,000 faster machines. Maybe we should have
| asked why nobody fought for John Henry to retire with a
| pension.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| See also: unicorn startups
|
| You are going to need a multiple of factors and some of those are
| luck but many are innate skill and hard work etc. Maybe
| connections.
|
| However making a million (being slow) should be achievable to
| most!
| eternauta3k wrote:
| IIRC Nassim Taleb would say that that's exactly the kind of
| outlier which is _not_ modeled correctly by the standard
| Gaussian models.
| underdeserver wrote:
| 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 perspective, a marathon at 18 km/h is about two
| hours and twenty minutes. The world marathon record has been
| below that since the 1930s. There are lots of people who can run
| for two and a half hours faster than I could sprint.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| 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 preparation
| every day of their life.
|
| Why would anyone be surprised they do so much better?
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| 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.
| Phenomenit wrote:
| 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.
| underdeserver wrote:
| I don't know. This was years ago. I saw doctor after doctor
| and last I checked - about six months ago - it was still
| happening (pain and swelling in my left shin after about 4
| minutes of running). I moved to bicycling instead.
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| Imagine being a little gazelle and seeing one of the standing
| creatures start running at you. They just don't stop. It's like
| it's not even running to them.
| gadders wrote:
| I think people don't realise how large differences in ability can
| be.
|
| We recently had a friend of my daughter's at my house who was (at
| the time) 14, barmy 6ft tall and threw javelin for the UK
| county..
|
| We took it in turns throwing a ball for my dog and it was like
| she had a ball launcher built into her arm.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| Why not just take the "metal gear solid" approach to shoplifting
| instead of trying to outrun the professional athlete?
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| I don't fit in a shoebox like I used to.
| eloisant wrote:
| Because in the first case you're breaking the law, and in the
| second you're just participating in the shop's event?
| snickerbockers wrote:
| but according to TFA the shop gives permission to steal?
| snowwrestler wrote:
| > Recently a shoe store in France _ran a promotion_ called
| "Rob It to Get It"
|
| It was a promotion with a funny name, essentially a race.
| Not permission to actually steal by any means.
| lordnacho wrote:
| 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
| maintain it. If I could just sprint that speed, I would be going
| pretty fast.
| oweiler wrote:
| There are tons of tutorials on YT about proper running form.
| Phenomenit wrote:
| Can you recommend any particular video that you enjoy or is
| helpful?
| jbochi wrote:
| I like this one:
| https://youtu.be/OIXVDdH3o6g?si=5zmNifE_Zzm4Rasb
| kyleyeats wrote:
| Do squats and deadlifts. You can't hope to get anywhere near an
| ideal form without a whole lot of leg strength.
| darkerside wrote:
| This will definitely make you faster
| koblas wrote:
| 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.
| glenngillen wrote:
| 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.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > practice barefoot occasionally
|
| And make sure to ease yourself into it gradually. Easy to go
| into it full-pelt and do lasting damage to things like your
| Achilles and knees.
| voisin wrote:
| > practice barefoot occasionally
|
| I would add that "barefoot" means, literally "barefoot". I
| had convinced myself that "barefoot shoes" would be
| sufficiently the same because I was running outdoors and
| didn't have the guts to do actual barefoot. I recently bought
| a new Assault AirRunner (curved motorless / manual treadmill)
| and run on it actually barefoot. The difference in my running
| form and sudden introduction of new muscle soreness makes
| clear how even barefoot shoes affect form.
|
| Off-topic side note/rant: it is incredibly annoying how the
| Apple Watch becomes wildly inaccurate when on treadmills.
| GymKit has been out for years and has no - zero! - uptake
| among home treadmills and even shockingly low among
| commercial treadmills. And shame on Assault Fitness for
| creating an expensive, commercial level manual treadmills
| _with_ an app that can see the data via Bluetooth from the
| treadmill, and failed to integrate HealthKit to sync the
| data. Wild decisions.
| WkndTriathlete wrote:
| Apple Watch is probably < 1% of a market dominated by
| Garmin, Polar, and Suunto, so it doesn't make much
| financial sense to integrate with GymKit.
|
| Apple falls to Garmin in two areas: battery life and
| software. Sleep affects recovery, so planting a watch on a
| charger every night is a non-starter. Garmin's performance
| analysis software is also years ahead of Apple's. Apple
| could fix both of those things but that would require
| investment which I'm not sure they are willing to make.
| voisin wrote:
| > Apple Watch is probably < 1% of a market dominated by
| Garmin, Polar, and Suunto, so it doesn't make much
| financial sense to integrate with GymKit.
|
| Well, maybe (though I highly doubt it is 1% of the runner
| market) but it is by far the biggest player in smart
| watches generally now, and they are quickly eroding the
| feature advantage gap with those other brands. And most
| of the users of the brands you mentioned are serious
| runners whereas the average person walking into a gym
| bought their smart watch for a broader set of reasons
| than a serious runner buying a Garmin. It would make
| sense for a manufacturer of equipment to appeal to the
| average person walking into a gym.
|
| > Apple falls to Garmin in two areas: battery life and
| software. Sleep affects recovery, so planting a watch on
| a charger every night is a non-starter. Garmin's
| performance analysis software is also years ahead of
| Apple's. Apple could fix both of those things but that
| would require investment which I'm not sure they are
| willing to make.
|
| I wear mine all night and get the sleep info. I plop it
| on the charger while I shower and eat breakfast and it is
| full by the time I am ready to start my day.
| dhimes wrote:
| Do you happen to know how Garmin compares to Fitbit in
| terms of performance analysis? Fitbit made some changes
| that I'm unhappy with and they refuse to offer us a way
| out. I'm thinking of talking to Santa Clause about this.
| senkora wrote:
| My solution to the Apple Watch charging problem is to
| start charging it as the first step of my bedtime
| routine, and put it back on my wrist as the last step.
| This works because it takes about 45 minutes to charge.
| Lukas_Skywalker wrote:
| I was a coach once. There are two mistakes where most people
| can benefit a lot if they fix them. They are somewhat
| connected.
|
| 1) Foot strike to far in the front as in [1] and [2]. This
| mostly happens because people want to run fast, and therefore
| take longer steps. It is very counterproductive though. A
| longer steps lowers your center of gravity, and because the
| foot strikes the ground very far in front of the COG, you need
| to lift your COG before you can do the next step. This is
| visible in the video of the article as well. The amateurs have
| a much larger vertical movement of their heads and torsos than
| the Freeze.
|
| 2) Insufficient leg extension at the end of the ground contact
| as in [3] and [4]. There are two reasons for that. The first
| one is connected to the point above. If you keep the COG very
| low, you are forced to bend the hip and the knee while you move
| your torso over your foot. It's very hard to extend hip and
| knee after that, so many people just lift the leg instead of
| pushing all the way through. The second reason is mobility.
| Sitting all day shortens the hip flexor muscles (M. iliopsoas).
| Stretching them helps a lot.
|
| Many of the people in the video are also starting quite fast
| and get considerably slower over the course of those 160m.
| Tiredness might be an important factor there.
|
| [1] Bolt, foot strike: https://imgur.com/a/QOQaEX2
|
| [2] Amateur, foot strike: https://imgur.com/a/Pmiijgx
|
| [3] Bolt, leg extension: https://imgur.com/a/mRCq7uc
|
| [4] Amateur, leg extension: https://imgur.com/a/cxzMkEi
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| kudos using that guy who lost to The Freeze as an example
|
| it seems link [3] with Bolt's extension is broken
| js2 wrote:
| Mo Farah for leg extension:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/skGEN
|
| Ed Whitlock in his 80s:
|
| https://mindmotionmatter.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ed-
| runn...
| Lukas_Skywalker wrote:
| Those are really nice pictures. Even more so because
| those were probably taken during much longer and slower
| runs. But even there, they show incredible form.
| jmye wrote:
| 1 rings super true to me - the most counter-intuitive thing
| to me in distance running was to take more steps to go
| faster. 180-190rpm is usually where I'm at for 2:55ish
| marathon times, whereas when I started, I thought I needed to
| be at like, 160, but with a longer stride distance.
|
| It's more interesting because I sprint "properly", but my
| brain just flipped when I started going further.
| vrc wrote:
| You need a sprint specific coach. Most coaches and clubs you'll
| find start at middle distance and go up in distances they
| train. While you'll learn basic drills that sprinters also do,
| the details, cues, form etc will be different, and the training
| program will be very different. It will involve a lot more
| plyometrics, more drills, and shorter distances. So you'll see
| improvements if you've never run before training for mid
| distance+, but to eke out maximal sprint performance from form,
| you'll plateau and also have poor sprinting mechanics. Also, I
| see some advice about lifting weights. Great adjunct to
| sprinting, but you need to learn proper sprint mechanics and
| training to see carryover (see: the number of big number
| lifters who can't sprint worth crap v. 14 y/os who can dust
| them and have never seen a weight but have trained formally).
| darkerside wrote:
| Some good advice here. The marathon runner question is a
| potential enlightening one. Distance running, done well, is not
| about continuously producing thrust like some kind of human
| rocketship. It's just as much about learning to leak as little
| energy as possible, using techniques like those Lukas_Skywalker
| outlined. So you get up to speed and then just lose as little
| of it as possible for 26.2 miles.
| setgree wrote:
| As they say on other forums, DYEL bro? [do you even lift :)]
|
| Squats, deadlifts, and cleans will help your explosive power a
| lot; for this, your probably want low reps, high weight, and
| long recoveries. If you can periodically go to a track and run
| 6-10x100m 'all out' w/ 4-5 mins rest, that would be good too.
|
| For an example lifting plan: https://www.stack.com/a/sprinter-
| workout-program/
| md_ wrote:
| 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."
| teddyh wrote:
| You can see the difference:
|
| <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ZpCjEn_lc>
| queuebert wrote:
| Makes me think of Tom Cruise running:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09MiWO8uDfc
| anthomtb wrote:
| In the Freeze video clip from TFA, the guy he's racing looks
| over his shoulder towards the end too. Its pretty hard to run
| forward with any velocity when looking backwards. That maneuver
| alone probably cost him a second, maybe more.
| nlh wrote:
| I have what may be a silly (or even ridiculous) question:
|
| Why do recreational distance runners care about speed so much?
|
| Background: I went through a phase of long-distance recreational
| running - I ran lots of half-marathons, marathons, and even the
| Disney Goofy Challenge for a few years (half marathon on
| Saturday, full marathon on Sunday).
|
| It was all fun! Training was satisfying, the running itself was
| tough but rewarding, I lost a ton of weight, got into great
| cardio shape, and overall, arguably, it changed my life for the
| better.
|
| But I never once cared about doing any of it quickly, and I still
| don't. It was always about the distance and the experience for me
| -- could I successfully run 26 miles? (and then enjoy the rewards
| of being able to eat a huge high-calorie meal guiltlessly
| afterwards ;)
|
| It's still about the distance -- I love cycling these days and do
| it regularly with a lovely group of friends who also care about
| moving our legs and riding, say, 100 miles in a morning, which is
| a challenge. But so so many other cyclists on the road as so
| focused on both doing it and doing it FASTER.
|
| I just don't really fully comprehend why so many people care so
| much about the clock, beating other people, etc. I know I'm not
| alone here, but I also know I'm in the minority, so I'd love to
| hear some perspective.
| darkerside wrote:
| Why did you care about your distance? What's so special about
| going farther and farther every time until you hit some
| arbitrary goal like 26.2 miles? Beating your last time is fine
| and rewarding, and you can choose your next goal to be whatever
| you want.
| brailsafe wrote:
| This was my thought too. It's just a matter of picking an
| arbitrary metric and shooting for it, given constraints that
| probably don't matter.
|
| I like hiking, and enjoy challenging myself. Sometimes I
| shoot for my longest distance ever, sometimes I shoot for
| more technicality, sometimes it's just raw elevation gain
| over a shorter distance, sometimes it's all of them. I rarely
| shoot for time, my constraint at that level is typically
| getting the thing done without having to camp out for the
| night, but I could just as well do that. I often shoot for
| time over elevation and distance with road cycling though.
| Zardoz89 wrote:
| It's not just a number. It is also a park, a metro stop,
| another town over. You learn to know where you live with your
| feet.
| darkerside wrote:
| I don't disagree distance is a cool metric and carries many
| other benefits. I'm just drawing a parallel for parent
| poster.
|
| One of the other side benefits of training for speed is
| that there is just no feeling like finding yourself getting
| faster with less and less effort. My favorite runners highs
| have come from taking on a hill that used to be hard, and
| running it both faster and with less perceived effort than
| previously.
| chatmasta wrote:
| You would care if you ran faster to begin with. But if you're
| running mostly recreationally, especially if you took it up
| without a competitive racing background, then I can appreciate
| why you wouldn't care about pace.
|
| I was a competitive runner in college and it's actually the
| reason I won't run a marathon now. I got so burned out from
| that career that now I just run without a watch for fun, to de-
| stress. If I were to run a marathon I'd want to "do it
| properly" and not just finish it, and that would be way too
| stressful for me. Even now, when I run an annual turkey trot
| 5k, I can't help but race the people around me and go as fast
| as I can despite being terribly out of shape...
| nick222226 wrote:
| I was competitive in a different sport in college and burned
| out. I couldn't bear to watch it on TV, Olympics etc. It took
| me nearly 10 years to start enjoying it again but now I love
| to practice with the muscle memory I still have when I get
| the chance.
| e4325f wrote:
| I'm similar and have been struggling with this for a while. I
| ran a lot when I was younger and competed, recently got back
| into it and ran a marathon "properly", it went well but I got
| a bit fixated on the time and the whole experience was kinda
| stressful tbh.
|
| I can't seem to just enjoy activities for what they are in
| the moment. I quickly start setting goals and being
| competitive. I'm also into bouldering, been doing that years
| but when I go to the gym I often find myself competing with
| others in my head (perhaps sub-consciously seeing them as a
| threat), I do my best not to show it but it's quite
| frustrating.
| notacoward wrote:
| FWIW, this kind of comparison can become even more
| discouraging as you age. At 58, I'm pretty sure most of my
| PRs are behind me. The amount of training I'd have to do to
| get back down to my peak numbers is _way_ more than I 'm
| actually willing to do, and there's a high likelihood that
| such a high work rate would end in injury instead of success.
| Instead, I track how each run stacks up against others
| _within some time period_ - a year, two years, five. A "two-
| year PR" feels pretty good. A "five-year PR" would be
| awesome, even if it's short of my all-time PR. I wish Garmin
| or Strava or whatever would support this kind of thing
| better.
| LRVNHQ wrote:
| Running fast and with high intensity is fun. But getting faster
| over a same distance is a lot harder than just improving
| endurance to run longer distances, hence why most amateurs
| progress toward longer distances rather than better 5 or 10k
| PRs.
|
| edit: missing word
| ssgodderidge wrote:
| For me, time (and therefore speed) is a measure of fitness. I
| don't care about beating others. I like to see that I am
| getting more fit than I previously was.
|
| The notion of "could I run 26 miles?" is the same to me as
| "could I run 26 miles in 4 hours?"
| nlh wrote:
| That makes a ton of sense. My measure of improvement has
| always been "how much pain am I feeling" ;) but that does
| correlate to speed I suppose.
| ip26 wrote:
| That's exactly the thing to me, the fastest runners always
| seem to be feeling the best. I see plenty of people who
| sign up for ultras and basically struggle through it by
| willingness to suffer instead of fitness; I see no value in
| that. I'd rather run a 10k or half really fast and feel
| amazing than drag myself through an ultra and be miserable,
| so that's my training goal.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Theoretically, if you know how to race, you'll always be
| hitting the same relative level of pain, just for different
| amounts of time.
|
| Easy runs should be easy though, and hard training runs
| should very, very rarely cause pain.
| JCharante wrote:
| A lot of cyclists enjoy cycling above Zone 3. One time I went
| on a ride with just one person and he was max zone 3 while I
| was flipping between zone 4 & 5. I've gone cycling with people
| slower than me and it's literally so boring. You either go at
| your natural pace and wait at a lot of stoplights for them to
| catch up or you pedal way less.
|
| Speed also changes where you can go. Where I'm at, Cyclists
| will often meet up at 5am or 5:30 am and go on a 60km ride
| together before going home and getting ready for work. 25km/h
| and 30km/hr results in a difference of almost half an hour,
| which many people can't afford to wait.
|
| I've gone on century rides with a friend where we did 60km ride
| to the base of the mountain, then 1km elevation over 10km, then
| back down, and then back home totaling around 150km.
|
| In summary, speed literally changes how long the ride takes by
| hours and what routes are available. You love the feeling of
| the wind and the beautiful views, and the longer you go the
| more interesting routes you can go on. Most probably have a
| time constraint, so higher speed = more interesting routes and
| more fun.
|
| There's also groups of people (mostly 50 and above) who are
| past their prime but still in the community. It's nice to join
| them on bike rides during your rest days where you're doing
| active recovery.
|
| Cycling, and other endurance sports, are great in that you can
| go on group rides with people at different skill levels by
| pairing your fast days with their slow days and vice versa
| until you finally are able to catch up to them on their fast
| days.
| AnonC wrote:
| > I've gone cycling with people slower than me and it's
| literally so boring. You either go at your natural pace and
| wait at a lot of stoplights for them to catch up or you pedal
| way less.
|
| Depending on the route (and your interest), when you're way
| ahead you could perhaps cycle back to them (i.e., ride in the
| opposite direction), go behind them some, and then turn again
| and race past them. You wouldn't have to stop or slow down
| then.
| recursive wrote:
| That's two separate rides, not two people doing the same
| ride. At least as I understand it. "Riding together"
| implies to me some kind of interaction, such as drafting or
| conversation.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| People gain a natural satisfaction out of seeing progress in
| pretty much allof their pursuits, leisure or otherwise.
| Catching a bigger fish, closing a bigger deal, growing bigger
| muscles, cooking a more elaborate meal, etc.
| joshspankit wrote:
| And to your point, many of them want some type of objective
| "score" they can use to measure that progress.
| nlh wrote:
| I think this is it. It is indeed satisfying to see and feel
| progress. For me, that progress was being in less misery with
| each subsequent run (and losing weight). I can see how time
| improvement would give others that same satisfaction. Thanks!
| lr4444lr wrote:
| For the record, I hate running - at any distance, any speed
| - but I do a 1.5 mile Cooper Test 3 or 4 times a year just
| to get an honest assessment about my cardiorespiratory
| fitness level, and adjust my other exercises accordingly.
| Much to my dismay, there is no other exercise modality that
| quite stresses me the same way as plain running.
| notacoward wrote:
| > Why do recreational distance runners care about speed so
| much?
|
| Qualifying times and cutoffs are a thing, so that's it for some
| people. For others, it's about having goals, or even just
| measuring progress. You might find the running "satisfying" and
| "rewarding" in itself, but for many that's not the case. For
| them, the satisfaction is not in _running_ but in _having run_
| , and part of that is in the numbers. Times go down, heart
| rates go down, weights go down, whatever. Without goals and
| metrics, there's nothing but the grind.
|
| And yeah, some people are just competitive. But there's nothing
| wrong with that either. People are just motivated different
| ways.
| mhb wrote:
| Why did you care about the distance so much?
| nlh wrote:
| I should probably clarify -- I don't really care about
| distance that much. I care about the experience, the joy of
| being outside, and the benefits of getting cardio exercise.
| In general, I find that decent distance at a reasonable pace
| is a great way to spend a few hours. I just don't care about
| how long it takes or doing it faster.
| cmiller1 wrote:
| Currently trying to get my 10km time down running 40 mpw and
| here's my perspective:
|
| general performance: I love the idea that if I pick up a random
| sport to play with friends or am in some emergency situation I
| know I can move faster
|
| personal achievement: it feels great to break a new personal
| best
|
| time constraints: I can hit my distance goals with less time
| spent during training if I'm moving faster, I only have about
| an hour to run on week days and getting more miles into that
| time is helpful
| nlh wrote:
| Makes a ton of sense - thanks for the thoughtful answer!
| loeg wrote:
| A lot of people enjoy competition. It's fine if you don't!
| brigadier132 wrote:
| You can only increase distance so much before something breaks.
| I think it's weird that you have such a strong opinion about
| this. Clearly you care about distance more but speed is another
| performance measure that is just as important.
|
| Also if we are purely talking about health, doing 26 mile runs
| regularly is not healthy.
| nlh wrote:
| I don't know that I have a _strong_ opinion on this. I 'm
| just curious why such a large majority of people are so
| focused on speed. I don't generally care about increasing
| distance either -- I'm just focused on general health and the
| enjoyment of the experience more than how fast I do the
| thing. A long bike ride with friends at a fast-enough-to-get-
| exercise pace is delightful. I never care about how long it
| takes us to do it.
| anthomtb wrote:
| > general health
|
| > enjoyment of the experience
|
| These are subjective measurements. You decide, maybe
| subconsciously, whether you are feeling healthy or have
| enjoyed your experience.
|
| Speed and distance are objective. An 8 minute mile is
| faster than a 9 minute mile. 30 miles is farther than 20
| (lets keep elevation constant).
|
| When it comes to sports, some of us are driven by those
| objective measurements. Sometime to beat the "other guy",
| sometimes just to beat ourselves.
|
| I don't know that I can fully explain that drive to someone
| that lacks it. Have you ever felt driven to perform your
| best by some objective measurement in a non-sporting aspect
| of your life? School, work, video games?
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| The faster you run, the less time you have to spend running
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| Unless you cross the Rubicon like one of my friends and then
| go into ultra marathons.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| For hikers and trail runners, going faster means getting to see
| more stuff, and being able to take longer breaks to enjoy the
| scenery
| ip26 wrote:
| Running uphill is also an incredibly high fitness demand. If
| you're a 10:30 pace on flat ground, you aren't running up a
| trail.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Well, some people are competitive about distance and some
| people are competitive about speed. Also there are theories
| about slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers that lead some
| people to do better with endurance sports and some to do better
| with sprinting, so there may be a natural bias involved.
|
| However, as an ex-competitive swimmer who specialized in the
| sprint events, going fast is just fun, and training so you can
| go faster increases the fun. This can be a little dangerous on
| a bicycle however, caution is advised, especially as one grows
| older and injuries take longer to heal.
| js2 wrote:
| > Why do recreational distance runners care about speed so
| much?
|
| Some of us to achieve our PB. Others to BQ:
|
| https://www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon/qualify
|
| Some of us also engage in longer distances to find our limits.
| If you want a mostly chill crowd of runners, start running
| ultras.
|
| Speaking of finding limits, this past weekend the backyard
| ultra record was broken again. It now stands at an amazing 108
| hours (that's 4.5 days of running) and 450 miles:
|
| https://backyardultra.com/
|
| Read Laz'[1] updates for the final 5 laps:
|
| https://backyardultra.com/hours-103-108/
|
| Everyone was sure Ihor was going to win. Watching the race it
| didn't seem possible Harvey could do it again. And then, just
| like that, Ihor broke and Harvey recovered. And he won himself
| another Backyard.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Lake
| dmbche wrote:
| Great read for the last laps, love the format. It's great
| z2h-a6n wrote:
| It could largely be sampling bias.
|
| The people who care about speed talk about going faster, while
| the people who don't care about speed don't talk about it,
| rather than talking about not caring about it.
|
| (Edit: typo)
| ip26 wrote:
| That would not be out of place in a Monty Python sketch.
| Forums full of people endlessly debating the latest gadgets
| and techniques for _not_ getting faster.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| Years and years ago I saw a TV show about the Boston Marathon.
|
| One of the people they interviewed was the last runner to
| finish. A physician, I would guess around 45 to 50. It was
| already dark out! So he was not fast, maybe not much more than
| a walking pace, but he seemed happy so nothing to complain
| about.
|
| The original book on Aerobics, the author emphasized you can
| get all the aerobic exercise you need at an ordinary walking
| pace if you take enough time. Especially important for older
| people and the overweight.
|
| The obsession with "20 minutes of vigorous exercise" may well
| do more harm than good.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| Why run if you don't care about the speed? If I don't care
| about the speed and just want to cover a certain distance to
| enjoy myself outdoors, I'll walk.
| rconti wrote:
| We all compare ourselves upwards. Related, you might wonder why
| a strong cyclist bothers buying a $10k bike. After all, they'd
| be faster than most people on even the cheapest bike! But they
| start riding with others, and their peers are faster than them.
| Their peers have nicer bikes which they come to appreciate /
| desire. They spend lots of time USING the bicycle, so the
| "investment" makes more sense. And so on.
| mbrameld wrote:
| > I just don't really fully comprehend why so many people care
| so much about the clock, beating other people, etc.
|
| If the only reason for progression you can think of is to beat
| other people, and you have no desire to beat other people, how
| did you progress to running marathon distances while other
| people haven't? Presumably the was a time when you couldn't run
| a complete marathon, no?
| raydev wrote:
| Watching my running time get lower was probably 25% of the fun
| for me. Knowing the measurement and having a concrete goal, and
| surpassing it, is a joyous process.
|
| To be clear, it wasn't much about beating other people except
| where I knew I was within reach of beating them. The ultimate
| goal was continuously getting my personal best.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _Why do recreational distance runners care about speed so
| much?_
|
| I'm a so-so runner - I can place in AG at local races, but will
| never be an elite runner. But the challenge of placing, going
| faster than friends, or faster than previous times, is part of
| the fun.
| is_true wrote:
| I don't care about speed, I don't even use a clock. What I do
| is push when I feel I can't run anymore, I get a lot of
| satisfaction from that.
| mattlondon wrote:
| _Absolutely nothing_ beats the feeling of being in a sprint
| race and reeling someone in and then overtaking.
|
| I used to do a lot of 200m and the second leg of the 4x100
| relay as a late teenager and I still get goosebumps decades
| later thinking back to some overtakes. Being faster than
| someone when you are both going at _full clip_ is absolutely
| exhilarating. I genuinely have goose bumps now just writing
| this - your body doing what it was _supposed to do_ , no
| thinking just doing something physically _primal_ , the drama
| of the race itself, and then just blasting past someone and
| putting clear air between you and them. What a buzz. Watching
| the video in the article brought a lot of that feeling back.
|
| These days I don't do much sprinting but it is still fun to
| overtake people when out on a casual 5 or 10k, even if the
| other person doesn't know you are racing them! :)
| cratermoon wrote:
| > Why do recreational distance runners care about speed so
| much?
|
| People want to know their health and measure its improvement.
|
| Speed is a proxy measurement for fitness. If there is another
| way to measure the health improvements of exercise directly
| comparable among groups, I'm not aware of it. Once a runner
| accomplishes the feat of running a certain distance, and doing
| it repeatably, the runner can either go longer distance or
| faster over the same distance.
|
| Yes, you can go get a VO2 max test, RMR analysis, or body comp
| assessment, but those are specialty services costing money and
| requiring professional evaluation. Not something most people
| can have done every weekend.
| theLiminator wrote:
| Such a silly question. Why do people care about improving in
| anything?
| yason wrote:
| It's well debatable whether it's an improvement per se but
| merely a choice of competing on an arbitrary metric. It's
| fine if that's what you want but it's also very much fine to
| question that.
|
| There's nothing inherent in being faster than others (or your
| earlier self) that would dictate speed being the obvious
| primary metric. Sure, it's an _easy_ choice to measure and
| thus popular but on the other hand if you do want to care
| about speed it 's mostly a losing proposition: there are
| always people faster than you (so you'll keep losing to them
| over and over or you'll learn not to care) and you can only
| ever get up to a certain speed that's physiologically
| possible with your body.
|
| Speed can be a useful indicator of your fitness, though, much
| like fuel consumption is a useful indicator for whether your
| car is mechanically fit. But focusing heavily or primarily on
| speed is a choice which begs the question "why".
| nlh wrote:
| Exceedingly well-said. Thanks!
| dm03514 wrote:
| I'm currently running 25mpw, and have maxed out my free time
| available per week (3 children). The only way I can do more
| distance And experience more woods is by running faster :)
|
| If I weren't time constrained I'd def be happy continuing to
| jog, I feel like slower speeds are less injury prone for myself
| dbcbfjnk wrote:
| As a recreational runner I suppose my primary goals are to
| maximize health benefits and minimize injury and long term
| wear-and-tare. My absolute pace doesn't really matter, I just
| want to see it improve over time.
|
| I know I have terrible running form, but I kind of view it as
| not owning a fancy road bike. Sure, I'm slower on my old mtn
| bike, but I'm burning more calories. Now I'm wondering if
| that's a bad philosophy for running, after watching videos of
| good runners I'm amazed how smooth they are. All my bouncing up
| and down has got to be hard on my suspension, and new struts
| are expensive.
| PartyOperator wrote:
| I love having an honest measure of performance. Of course I'm
| slowly declining, but seeing it in hard numbers is somehow
| reassuring. In every other part of life, success is bound up in
| stories and memories and political measures of position. On the
| track, I know exactly where I stand. It's also a lot of fun.
| There's a tactical element to middle-distance running and it's
| very fulfilling to pull of a (relatively) good race. And always
| an incredibly friendly sport that brings together people from
| all walks of life. Millionaires racing high school kids,
| lawyers vs labourers - none of the usual markers of status
| matter on the track. I'm sure other sports are similar but this
| is the one I do.
|
| Other than track (where times are very important), I absolutely
| love cross country. Not sure about elsewhere, but in the UK
| it's still a big deal. The leagues are 100% amateur, no flashy
| medals or goody bags, just pure competitive running. Running is
| usually an individual sport but cross-country is very much a
| team thing. The time doesn't matter, the distance doesn't
| matter (it's usually not more than about 10k), but it's
| incredibly competitive and the camaraderie is great. The fact
| that it takes an enormous effort and is generally cold, wet and
| uncomfortable makes it all the more satisfying.
| jacobevelyn wrote:
| Semi-related: years ago I made a silly little running pace
| converter site: https://pace.ninja/
|
| I'm not a huge runner but still find myself using it all the
| time, both for my own occasional running goals and to satisfy my
| curiosity for questions like "how quickly would an elite
| sprinter's pace finish a marathon?"
| patrick0d wrote:
| >height and weight, fast- and slow-twitch muscle mass,
| cardiovascular conditioning, flexibility and elasticity, and
| probably more.
|
| When we try to figure out how to measure someones speed (say to
| compare Usain Bolt to another high quality sprinter) we will look
| at factors like height, stride length and strength. But in terms
| of all the factors that need to be measured to describe the
| function of someones running speed we also have to think of
| things like the speed of gravity, how many legs they have, the
| viscosity of air etc. Usain Bolt can't change any of these
| features of course so if he wants to run 3% faster he might need
| to be 3x as strong as another runner - since that is one of the
| few parameters in the equation he can influence.
|
| I think this explains the distribution of the top speed runners
| performances. The olympic 100m champion won in 2021 with a time
| of 9.80 and a good teenager might run a time of 10.70. If you saw
| this on a running track as the olympic champion would cross the
| line when the amateur was about 93 meters into the race. That's
| pretty close when you consider that one runner is a professional
| that might be able to lift weights 3x as heavy as the teenager,
| they have been training for years and years with professional
| help and they execute the race with superior form.
|
| This is something that I like to remember when we try to compare
| and measure peoples skills and how they are likely distributed in
| society.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That seems, at least to me, a pretty egalitarian and optimistic
| view. I mean, the teenager is basically as good as the Olympian
| in your example, qualitatively. If the peak of skill is only
| 10% higher than a talented amateur with some training, we
| should probably have a more equal income distribution.
| thfuran wrote:
| For one, it isn't. Also, most people aren't paid to run.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> a good teenager might run a time of 10.70_
|
| Considering that 10.71 seconds is the all time Scottish
| national under-17 male record, I would say 10.70 would be a
| _very_ good time. A one-in-a-million level of sprinting
| ability.
| patrick0d wrote:
| It is a good time and I gave the example of a teenager since
| they will likely be less physically developed, weaker and
| less experienced than a pro. In a place where sprinting is
| popular like in the US 10.70 is a pretty achievable for
| someone who spends time at the sport.
|
| After a quick google, the men's Scottish 100m record was set
| in 1980 and has not been broken since so I would think that
| they do not devote a lot of attention to sprinting, and in
| 2022 only 4 runners broke 11 seconds in the 100m
| championships final.
| michaelt wrote:
| I actually took that time from [1] which was set in 2017.
|
| If you prefer, let's consider California, population 30
| million to Scotland's 5 million. According to [2] for the
| "Boys 100 Meter Dash Varsity" 10.7 would put you among the
| 20 fastest in the state, although it wouldn't quite get you
| into the finals (which needed a time of 10.63)
|
| Fastest 20 in a state of 30 million doesn't sound "pretty
| achievable for someone who spends time at the sport" to me.
|
| [1] https://www.scotstats.net/records/outdoor-
| records/under-17/ [2] https://www.cifstate.org/sports/track
| _and_field/past_results...
| patrick0d wrote:
| I said a good teenager might run 10.7 and you have found
| a list of teenagers (I don't know how old they are) that
| can do just that. Very few people sprint after they leave
| college but if they spent time becoming stronger and more
| physically mature then 10.7 would be quite achievable -
| even a good highschool runner can run that time.
|
| My original point being that people can run this fast and
| that if they do they would only be a few percent slower
| than the pinnacle of the sport. Even from the list you
| shared there most of the runners in those state finals
| ran 10.7 or better. Imagine an olympic final that had
| extra lanes for the fastest teenagers from Californian
| highschools. We would see a horde of 60kg teenagers that
| could finish the race less than a second (<10.7s) behind
| the fastest man in the world (9.80s in the previous
| olympics) over a 100m race.
| LRVNHQ wrote:
| I don't know what point this article is trying to make, but I
| guess the author doesn't know much about running since he
| conflates sprinting and long distance running. Long distance
| running is an endurance sport, sprinting is more aking to a very
| specific application of power/strength training. The stride isn't
| event the same.
|
| Before doing any kind of data analysis, it's worth considering if
| your datapoints are even refering to the same thing.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| I'm not a fit person but when I see someone running like that
| (the Freeze in the video) it just looks so beautiful to me.
| Seeing a human body functioning at such a high performance,
| thinking about how many hours and how much effort that guy went
| through to get to where he is, I just feel like tapping him on
| the back and saying "great job dude". It's a bit like when I see
| some great feat of engineering, like a big bridge or a massive
| building or a nuclear reactor or something like that. It just
| makes me wonder how awesome and amazing humanity is.
|
| Conversely, this is also why I get so annoyed when I hear people
| say things like "I like dogs more than humans." I mean come on
| just look around you at the wonder that is modern society. Sure
| there are problems sometimes but to think that we can keep this
| extremely complex system, entirely in parallel and distributed,
| from degrading into total caos is just incredible.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > I get so annoyed when I hear people say things like "I like
| dogs more than humans."
|
| Perhaps focusing on dogs awesome qualities may help you not
| getting annoyed. You seems to value a lot complex systems,
| imagination and willpower and yeah some humans are great at
| that. Most dogs beat us flat on group cohesion, kindness and
| perseverance. People value that, too.
| low_tech_love wrote:
| I love dogs; the "one or the other" attitude comes from them,
| not me. The comparison is absurd in my opinion.
|
| And by the way you could replace it with cats, or pets in
| general, the point is the same. I just think it is a very
| shallow perspective to look down on humanity like that. To me
| it signals that the person is not really looking very deep
| into things.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| I agree the comparaison is absurd in the literal reading.
| Comparaisons are also used as a language feature, like in
| "I really love chocolate more than anything else". Don't
| underestimate fellows perspective based on the view they're
| expressing at the moment.
| sieste wrote:
| > Here's why I think speed depends on a product rather than a sum
| of factors. If all of your factors are good, you are fast; if any
| of them are bad, you are slow. Mathematically, the operation that
| has this property is multiplication.
|
| Nice explanation of the difference between additive and
| multiplicative.
| bwanab wrote:
| I'm probably overthinking this, but the article makes me think
| about the infamous 10x programmer. If, as seems reasonable, the
| ability to program successfully depends on a number of factors
| (raw brain power, spacial reasoning, education, ability to
| concentrate for long periods, etc) and these factors follow a
| similar gaussian distribution, then 10x doesn't really seem that
| out of line for the best vs average programmers.
| raydev wrote:
| My take is that the author is focusing too much on "all factors",
| and the reason for the distribution is that the people who 1)
| realize they are "good" and 2) want to improve, end up putting in
| more training time to get even better, which leads to a natural
| gap in measured ability.
|
| Consistency may be the largest factor in peak performance,
| whether physical or mental. Sure, consistency alone won't get you
| to the Olympics sprints if you're 4'11" or your neurons don't
| fire as fast as the next person's or you are prone to injury, but
| you certainly won't be setting the 100m world record (in the
| modern era) if you didn't already put in years of training, day
| after day, whether you were feeling 100% or not.
|
| At the professional level, you get paired up with coaches, you
| get compensated (maybe), you are definitely obsessed enough to be
| training so hard. Of course there's a gap, and it makes me wonder
| just how linear the distribution would be if every able-bodied
| person trained maximally and effectively.
| ellyagg wrote:
| Ah, great hypothesis.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| You could just measure the running speed of every hunter in a
| bush tribe--there is a group of people who are in very good
| shape and run all the time.
| js2 wrote:
| Even elite marathon pace is a sprint for folks who can do it at
| all:
|
| https://youtu.be/SRYtn0j5ccA?si=PhWcNKTxF9I0XHjC
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