[JBBury]

I'm curious to know how fast you think a professional athlete built for speed over 100-400 metres could run 10ks, half marathons and marathons. A friend of mine (non runner) thought I was talking bollocks when I said I believed I could beat an Olympic standard sprinter over 10k or a half marathon. I figured a runner built for speed and carrying a lot of muscle would struggle to run a half decent time for a distance event. What do you guys think? I mean I don't even know if sprinters do any long runs as part of their training.

 

[pedestrian]

I really don't think that the sprinters could actually run that far. Seriously.

 

[fandango]

Does anyone remember when they brought back Superstars? I remember one episode where they did something like 1k/1500m run. Darren Campbell, 400m Olympic medalist, came third and he was shattered at the end of it.

I'd agree with Pedestrian, I don't think they'd be able to manage that distance.

On the other hand I wouldn't want to do reps with a sprinter :huh:

 

[Katten]

They would have the basic aerobic fitness, so they would do much better than a totally untrained person, but they would be in a situation where the muscle they usually use to run with is just slowing them down. I imagine they would be OK upto maybe 10k or something; depends if they managed to pace themselves...

 

[pedestrian]

Sprinting is practically a different sport altogether than the one we are more familiar with.

 

[Runningfox]

Back in 1995, racing in the MV60 category, a friend of mine dragged me along to my first ever Track & Field League meeting at Cudworth in South Yorkshire. I was matched against a very good sprinter called Joe Moran who was considered unbeatable in the 100m and 200m - but it wasn't his lucky night! After beating him by a whisker in the shorter race I gave him a real trouncing in the 200m. During the course of the meeting I went on to win the 400m, 800m and 1500m races.
After I'd beaten him in the sprints, poor old Joe sidled up to a friend of mine to enquire who the hell I was. "Ah" said my friend, "you might not believe it but he's the current British Marathon Champion".
Cheers!

 

[JBBury]

Slightly off topic, but I found this hilarious debate amongst some US college athletes about the relative toughness of distance runners versus sprinters. Well worth a read.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2421136

Wondered if anybody here had got into any verbal battles with sprinters.

 

[jackmcmanus21]

sprinters are out of their world in distance running. I imagine if you put a sprinter up against someone who wasn't apt to long distance running, the sprinter would have a better time out of pure athleticism...but no way they beat someone versed in distance running