10K Runner Galen Rupp Joins Sprint Coach Brooks Johnson

I love it when distance runners wake up and smell the coffee.

It All Comes Down to Pure Speed

Galen Rupp, on leave from the Oregon track team while preparing his bid for the U.S. Olympic team in the 10,000 meters, plans to go to Orlando, Fla., to spend quality time with sprint guru Brooks Johnson.

Johnson, a former head coach at Stanford, is a year-round U.S. Olympic coach who primarily works with the relay teams. His expertise in the science of biomechanics is a resource that Rupp, Adam and Kara Goucher, Josh Rohatinsky and Amy Begley — who train with Nike Oregon Project coach Alberto Salazar — hope to tap.

Salazar said Johnson wants to introduce drills and strengthening techniques to focus on the hamstrings and gluteal muscles. Combined with speed work Rupp put in this winter, it could translate into more power and acceleration at the end of the 25-lap 10,000 meters.

“We’re leaving no stone unturned,” Rupp said.

It comes down to how fast you run your 100 meter time. Here are some famous Track and Field theoretical conversions:

800m = double your 400 meter time and add 10 seconds
400m = double your 200 meter time and add 3.5 seconds
200m = double your 100 meter time and add or substract +/- 0.2 seconds
100m = enter your 60 meter extrapolation here

Do you prefer the other way around? Okay, do a One Mile time trial, then use these conversions:

5Km = (Mile time + 33 sec) x 3.1 miles
10Km = (Mile time x 1.15 ) x 6.21 miles
Half Marathon = (Mile time x 1.2 ) x 13.1 miles
Marathon = (Mile time x 1.3 ) x 26.2 miles

The faster your Mile time, the faster your Marathon, assuming you do the mileage! The faster your 800 meters, the faster your mile. Get the picture?

My good friends Jonathan Dugas and Ross Tucker wrote a recent article on close Marathon finishes:

However an examination of just Berlin, Boston, NYC, and Chicago shows that close finishes occur quite frequently. As the archives are limited, we have examined only these races and only back 10 or so years for Chicago and London. Yet out of the approximately 100 races we have analyzed, 25% have been decided by 10 seconds or less, fully one quarter of the finishes!

You see, it all comes down to a sprint! Some races come down to the last 100 meters! Imagine running for 2 hours (at a sub 5 minute per mile pace) and it comes down to a sprint! Those quads must hurt like hell the next day or two days later when the soreness really sets in… and it’s not lactic acid!

I won’t even stress the importance of a 40 yard dash for football scouts or even 60 yard dash (180 feet) to test baseball players!

The moral of the story is to find a good speed coach, and hone those speed skills. You don’t have to beat your competitors by 10 meters, you just have to beat them by a nose.