Sprints

• This is an all-out sprint. It is mainly run indoors. It's an interesting measure of athetlic ability, as this is roughly the distance required for a human to reach maximum speed and can effectively be run without breathing. Most runners find this race too short to mean much. More popular for other sports (speed testing for American football).

100m

150m

200m

• A very interesting distance. It begins on the curve, and ends on the straightaway. A combination of highspeed curve and straightaway technique are needed to successfully run the race. To most trained runners, this is a pure power race.

Long Sprints

• Another informal distance. Also used as a common training distance

400m

• A glorious race. Exactly once around the track. A successful runner will need an efficient stride and superior speed,and a small amount of non-fast twitch muscles to be competitive. For career 400m runners this becomes a prolonged high speed sprint.

500m

• more popular than 300 and 150. Strict 400m and 800m runners face off at this distance and come away satisfied.