Track Shoes For Sprinters

Michael Gray Idaho Senior Games 2010 See, even Great Grandpa's can still sprint!

     Welcome to Track Shoes for Sprinters. I'm Michael Gray, the host of this web site. I hope you benefit from the information you find here.

     As a kid, I had a genetic predisposition for fast sprinting. I was fortunate. Track meets meant not only taking first place, but breaking records too. I competed well in most every sport. I trained hard, but didn't really pay much attention to what I was doing.

...But it was lots of fun!
     Then, like so many of us, life happened. I took about a 20-year break from running and exercise. I got out of shape and became a little pudgy. As we get older, we get aches and pains. Injuries that once healed in a day or two, took weeks or months to heal. Those muscles, perfectly tuned as a kid, became weak and wimpy. Aches and pains were considered inevitable with aging.

...Not so much fun!

     I finally started running and exercising again. I was informed many times, anyone over the age of 30 couldn't possibly compete in any distance shorter than 3 miles. I was even told that "grownups really don't run sprints anymore."

     I ignored the negativity, and began to compete again anyway. When I tried to train like a kid (to the extreme), I quickly discovered training mistakes. My young body adjusted, but my older body just wouldn't tolerate the same abuse. Injuries made smarter training a huge priority.

     Proper speed and agility workouts help. Proper equipment (like good track shoes for sprinters) is also very important. Proper weight lifting techniques (proper form) work amazingly better. Cross training in different sports provides a certain balance. Even things like Yoga and Aerobic dance help tune things up. Of course, we need to have actual track and field workouts as well.

     What is more important, I'm rediscovering how important all those boring warm-up exercises really are. They enable you to run faster and get injured less. Really wished I had paid more attention as a boy. Learning it all over again had some advantages though. Knowledge not only came back quickly, but a lot of new knowledge is available today. In fact, some of the old knowledge was actually seriously wrong.

     As I'm getting back in shape with various speed and agility workouts, I'm eliminating many of those aches and pains. Turns out, the muscles were just out of shape and were simply prone to injury. I'm also finding that getting into shape is significantly shortening the healing time of injuries.

Running is fun again!

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