Florida Coach Mike Holloway-"much easier to double in 5 & 10K than sprints"

jjjjj wrote:

Most of those people are doubling in the 100/200, so it doesn't hurt them more than their competitors, and it just isn't very hard to do max sprint effort once for 10 or 20 seconds with 45 minutes rest, compared to running a 5000m two days after a 10000m, probably in the heat since it is in June. Conventional wisdom says you need one day of rest per mile raced. Two days is very much inadequate for a 10k.

The first half of your run-on sentence is accurate. The second half shows your ignorance of the sprints.

I also agree with your second and third sentence.

kmaclam wrote:

"But the Florida coach does detect a new format bias that he believes works against sprint doublers. "For me, I think the biggest disadvantage in my opinion is the fact that between the finals of, say, the 100m and the 200m you have about 45 minutes. But you have 2 days between the 10K and the 5K. I'm not sure that's fair. But the bottom line is that it is much easier to double in the distances than it is to double in the sprints at the nationals.""

Heaven forbid a sprint coach has to limit one or two of his sprint studs to 3-4 events at a championship...... Please. Distance runners can compete in 2 events MAX, this simply helps limit the massive advantage that the sprint powers have over all the other balanced programs out there.

It's an interesting topic of study, but ultimately will not change anything.

Coaching a team to four team national titles...totally lacking knowledge. Okay. Does MHIFOS stand for Must Have Inhaled Fumes Or Something?

How many heats would a sprinter go through before running in finals that are 45 min. apart? And all of them are probably running anchor for one or two relays. How many heats and relays do 5k and 10k guys run? And the depth of the fields? Much tougher for a sprinter.

Coaching a team to four team national titles...totally lacking knowledge. Okay. Does MHIFOS stand for Must Have Inhaled Fumes Or Something?How many heats would a sprinter go through before running in finals that are 45 min. apart? And all of them are probably running anchor for one or two relays. How many heats and relays do 5k and 10k guys run? And the depth of the fields? Much tougher for a sprinter.

MHIFOS wrote:

Mike Holloway just proved his lack of knowledge.

He's just saying that the two premier distance events are two days apart and the two premier sprint events are 45min apart. He makes a good point.

Four men placed in both the 100 and 200 at the NCAAs. Three women placed in both the 100 and 200 at the NCAAs.

Two men placed in a 5k/10k double. One woman managed it.

The numbers suggest that it is more difficult to double 5k/10k even with a day's rest in between than it is to double 100/200 with only 45 minutes between.

As coaches, we know that to be true.

I suspect most people outside of Florida don't know that Mike Holloway was one of the greatest high school distance coaches ever (besides being one of the greatest sprint coaches ever)!!

His cross country teams were always "in the hunt," with multiple state championships, and runner-up finishes. He had untold numbers of all-state milers and two milers. This was at Gainesville Buchholz High School. Check the record archives on the FHSAA (Florida High School Athletic Association) website.

"But the Florida coach does detect a new format bias that he believes works against sprint doublers. "For me, I think the biggest disadvantage in my opinion is the fact that between the finals of, say, the 100m and the 200m you have about 45 minutes. But you have 2 days between the 10K and the 5K. I'm not sure that's fair. But the bottom line is that it is much easier to double in the distances than it is to double in the sprints at the nationals.""

Editor's note. The title initially incorrectly spelled "than" as "then".

And Florida sucks at running besides one or a very few decent runners on the national scale. So therefore, his "hunting" state championship teams would be good enough to maybe be top 10 in the state in California, New York, and Washington. You guys argue about the 100 & 200 double in 45 minutes, sprinters are weak compared to that 5k/10k double, and especially the 1600/800 double, which too has 45 minutes between at the high school meets/ invites

Sprinters were too busy eating Funyuns and listening to The Fat Boys to run.

You don't get to the top of the NCAA as a sprinter without doing a lot of hard, intense training nor without taking good care of your body. There are hundreds of hours of work that go into maximizing one's ability to sprint for ten seconds. There is a tremendous amount of mental energy required for training and it takes great mental powers to be able to compete successfully against other gifted, hard working sprinters. Distance runners have no monopoly on hard work and mental discipline.

Sprinters, obviously, must train very differently than distance runners, as the demands of their events are so different. But be assured that at the top levels both groups have paid their dues.

coach d wrote:

...Force goes up exponentially with speed...

Overall this was a very good post, but the quoted section is certainly not true. Maybe you simply meant 'non-linearly' or 'as a power law'? I'd be curious to know the correct relationship (with citation) if anybody knows about this topic.

Thank you! To preface, I am a distance runner, always have and always will be

...I am assuming most of the commentors are distance runners. We understand all of the time and energy it takes to train, race, recover, etc. for a distance athlete. It is hard to understand what a top-shelf sprint program is like, because all we see is them running short distaces...you know, what they are good at. We see their training, but don't give it as much credit. It is easy for distance runners to feel like we do more work and suffer more and blah blah blah, because we can run longer than most people.

Respect the sport -all aspects of the sport- except for dopers and Rossi.

This is from one of several analyses of Bolt's power level after the 9.58 WR:

They calculated he had a maximum power of 2619.5 watts after only 0.89 seconds of the race, when he was at half of his maximum speed, demonstrating the almost instant effect of the drag he has to fight against.

According to the calculations, Bolt exerted 81.58kJ of energy during the 9.58 seconds, but only 7.79 per cent of this was used to achieve motion; the remaining 92.21 per cent (75.22 kJ) was absorbed by the drag.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/revealed-the-science-behind-usain-bolt-power-burst-used-to-the-100m-world-record-8732545.html

He is putting out 815 newtons (183 pounds) of force in under 0.1 second in each of his 41 steps at a rate of 4.27 steps per second....and you guys could not do that even once, even if your life depended on it.

And that's why He (Bolt) sells 60,000 tickets in London in 4 hours, and distance runners aren't even athletes. It's fine if you want to a reasonable amount of mileage for fitness and health. But if you were capable of doing what sprinters can do, you would--Bolt makes about $40 million a year. You can't.

We don't run 100 yards. Get educated.

Grade school mathematics wrote:

Plausible Denial wrote:

His point was the double is easier AS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED. 45 minutes v. two days recovery. Reading comprehension, dullards!

A 10,000 meter race is more than 100 times as long as a 100 yard sprint, and with NO recovery in between them. Two days is only 64 times as long as 45 minutes.

Thus the sprinter is getting much more rest between races.

coach d wrote:

He is putting out 815 newtons (183 pounds) of force in under 0.1 second in each of his 41 steps at a rate of 4.27 steps per second....and you guys could not do that even once, even if your life depended on it.

And that's why He (Bolt) sells 60,000 tickets in London in 4 hours, and distance runners aren't even athletes. It's fine if you want to a reasonable amount of mileage for fitness and health. But if you were capable of doing what sprinters can do, you would--Bolt makes about $40 million a year. You can't.

Hey, your first reply on this thread was actually fairly informative. Of course that couldn't last.

So what, Bolt couldn't beat a decent middle school girl in the mile if his life depended on it. He makes $40 million a year and we can't, but neither can anyone going against him in the 100m, or any jumper, thrower, etc. He's a phenomenon that transcends the rest of the sport. People compete in what they're good at, and no discipline of track and field is inherently superior to another, end of story.

The ability to run long and hard is a type of athletic ability that you don't understand, and apparently do not have.

Back to Florida High School distance runners.

True, cannot compete overall with northern schools for quality/ quantity, most of the time. Kind of like northern sprinters competing with Florida sprinters most of the time. Perhaps summer heat (95 plus) and humidity (90 plus) most of the time has a positive effect on sprinting, and a negative effect on distance running.

I remember Pat Tyson coming in from a run on a July evening in Orlando, and saying "this humidity costs about 7 seconds a mile!" I asked "training, or racing?" He said "both!"

I don't think Pat did any scientific experimentation, but he does know a bit about distance running at ALL levels.

What time of year do Florida kids get most of their mileage in?

Coach Holloway is very upset about the set up of the national championship schedule. In a conversation on social media he was very upset about last years outdoor schedule because he felt it hurt performances/put athlete's at risk. He did not say this but I would assume he was disappointed the schedule might have hurt his point production.

I would agree with another poster on this thread who stated the longer races are usually a jog until the last two laps. However, we all know that you have to be in contact to make the last two laps interesting.

It was argued in the conversation that once coaches understand the schedule and have some experience on how it will shape their athlete's performances those coaches may need to adjust their training to prepare the sprinter for multiple rounds.

The other aspect argued was what made for good TV vs. what was best for the athletes.

Ultimately, the biggest problem with this site is our niche keeps us from having a deep understanding of the other aspects of the sport. Distance runners don't understand sprinters and sprinters don't understand distance runners. If you have not done the different events at a high level it very difficult to understand how they fatigue a person equally even though the distances are on opposite ends of the spectrum.