distance runners being slow is a myth brought up by teams with garbage distance culture. sprinters are certainly faster, but good distance runners are fast. often times the fastest kids on their high school teams, including sprinters.
it is nice to be acknowledged i guess. though it can be a double edged sword when the distance runner starts thinking he might be a sprinter!
They aren't "often times the fastest kids on their high school teams" unless you have a garbage sprint group.
I was going to say, wtf kind of crap sprint group is getting beaten by a distance kid
I race 800/1500 and i train alone cuz my team is all sprinters.
I did my 8/15 workout, they did their sprinting workout. We chatted and did a 1 mile cooldown run togwther.
During the run one of them showed me great respect, he said "man you run so much and the thing is you are pretty fast".
So maybe i was wrong thinking sprinters were some overconfident NFL wannabes, we actually had a very nice conversation.
So from today i will try not to say bad things about sprinters anymore.
I personally follow every event in track and field and am very familiar with assessing the caliber of a performance regardless of whether or not it is the 60m dash or Kipchoge drafting his way to sub-2 hour marathon. In my experience many distance runners don't have much respect for or familiarity for the sprints and jumps. Any true track fan will be entertained by the vast majority of running and jumping events. I am glad you are feeling more open minded but this general ignorance in the sport is frustrating. It seems like many think that the 800m and above are the only events that matters.
This is evident by the ridiculous 400m predictions people make for 1500m runners and the constant fetish people seem to have for thinking that world class 400 runners should waste their energy trying to prove they can run mediocre 800s (let Warholm hurdle and stop thinking he should try a "real event," the ridiculous expectations people placed on Jeremy Wariner to somehow just move up to the 800, the constant speculation that Sydney McLaughlin could be a great 800 runner if she just only tried, etc).
I ran cross country and distance in high school, but also regularly ran the A-team 4x4 and split 50-51. I’m a pretty pale, relatively skinny (6’1” and 140-150 most of high school) guy and one day a black sprinter from a predominantly (basically all) black school/town in our conference says what’s up to me and when one of his teammates asks who I am the one who greeted me goes
My senior year of high school I ran 16:08 XC 5k, 4:22, and 1:55 and was also the fastest 400/200 runner on our team (50.72, 23.46). Obviously that’s not a great 200 but I’m sure distance runners end up being the fastest sprinter on the team other places. Perhaps it’s rare, but it happens.
After winning a dual meet 1600 back in high school, a sprinter that I'd never talked to before came up to me and complemented me on how fast and "talented" I was. As a 4:34 miler running 55-60 mpw that was mildly hilarious to me. But also a nice ego boost lol.
Quoted because had a very similar experience. My sprint and jump teammates used to raz me a bit and vice versa. We’d also drop by the shot putters and try not to injure ourselves with practice throws. We’d also sometimes cover parts of workouts together at times. I’m from Jersey where you talk smack as part of showing love.
My senior year of high school I ran 16:08 XC 5k, 4:22, and 1:55 and was also the fastest 400/200 runner on our team (50.72, 23.46). Obviously that’s not a great 200 but I’m sure distance runners end up being the fastest sprinter on the team other places. Perhaps it’s rare, but it happens.
It sounds to me like you might just be a rare natural 600m specialist. 50.7 is fast for a high school sprinter - you could run on a championship 4x4 for any school in most states that aren't Texas
I was in a pretty weak conference where 53.x could place at the conference meet. Our team had weak 400m guys, the best guy was maybe 52-53.
During my junior year, one clown on our team thought he was good enough to place at state. He was about a 55 guy. He was sure nobody ever broke 50 for 400 (state leader was 47.x and you couldn't advance out of our district with anything over 50.0). Later in the year I was running on a 4 x 400 B team (my PR was 59.7 from the last year) and had to lead off against this guy. I smoked him and the other team's guy with a 55.x split. I later ran 55.02 in the open 400m during the summer.
The next year our best guy was 53.2. We had lots of respect from our sprinters because my teammate and I dominated every race we ran (weak conference and I was 4:20 miler and my teammate was 9:10 2 miler). I was the fastest distance runner in my conference speed wise, winning every dual meet 800m easily. I only topped out at 54.6 that year on a relay though, so I wasn't that fast. I did a workout mid-season with the sprinters, 7 x 300m with a lot of rest. I thought they would be faster, but I averaged 43 for mine and they were around 47. They only tried to keep up on the first one.