• Question: if u run faster at the begining of a race am i more likly to win than if i take of slow

    Asked by hector10 to Amy, Sarah, Will on 21 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Sarah Martin

      Sarah Martin answered on 21 Jun 2012:

      Hi hector10,

      That depends on how long the race is – if it’s only 100 metres then you have no time to take it slow! But is it’s a marathon and you wear yourself out immediately that’s no good at all. So for long races taking it slow at the start will give you a better time over all, because you won’t have to slow down later.

      🙂 Sarah

    • Photo: Amy Birch

      Amy Birch answered on 21 Jun 2012:

      Hi hector10!
      Well it depends how long the race is! In a sprint, say 100 or 200m then yes you need to run as fast as possible, but anything longer and your muscles will start to get very tired and this will make you go slower at the end.
      We use different muscles based upon how fast we are running: when we sprint we use fast-twitch muscle fibres that actually get their energy from anaerobic respiration (without using oxygen), but they can’t do this for very long & this causes a big build up of lactic acid in the muscles which stops the muscles for getting as much energy so we get tired quickly.
      Running longer distances uses slow-twitch muscle fibres that get their energy from aerobic respiration (using oxygen) and this produces a lot less lactic acid so the muscles can continue to work for a lot longer.
      You can actually change the amount of these muscles in your body! Body builders and sprinters have a lot of fast-twitch fibers because these sports require a lot of energy very quickly for very short periods of time, whereas long distance runners have mostly slow-twitch fibers because they need to be able to continue running for a long time!
      Hope this answers your question 🙂

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