40 yard dash slower than 100 meter pace?

Question

I ran a 40 yard dash at the beggining of football today in 4.69, without reaction time. That's good and all, but my fastest time in the 100 meter this year was 11.2. So I should be running the 40 in about 4.48. Whats the deal?

Answer 1

The 100 Meter dash is long enough of a race that a runner is experience different speeds along the way.  The first part the runner is accelerating.  Then they will reach peak speed for awhile and then will actually start de-accelerating towards the end.  You may be someone who takes longer to reach their peak speed but de-accelerates slower than others to produce a great 100M time but a slower 40yd dash time.  It may be a better comparison of your indoor track 55M time to your 40 yd football dash to see if your slow on the 40.

Answer 2

it could be that ur top speed is faster than u accelerate

Answer 3

That probably wasn't your fastest 40 time,

when did you run that 100 meter? You may have had a good day that day, and not as good a day today

Answer 4

Its all about your starting out of the gate.  Carl Lewis never was a good starter, but almost always won.  Some people, even with world class speed aren't good starters.  They always catch up. Also your strides tend to be long the longer you run.

Answer 5

Well you can't really just double the 40 meters and expect it to be a conversion since the start takes some time. So you're basically doubling the start time which will make your time seem slower than it should be.

Answer 6

You have to account for acceleration. You are running your top speed in a 100 meter dash for much longer than you are in a 40 meter dash. Get it? For example, if you look at 100 meter times for the Olympics or any race, the people who run the 100 meter relay get faster times than the people who run just the 100 meter dash because they get a running start. Hope that helps.