Long legs should mean a faster runner ?

[IrianofWay]

I am very tall - most of that is my legs. I am also quite a slow runner. I agonised over that for ages, changed my gait and got bursitis of the hip . I can get up to a reasonable speed and keep it up for ages but it takes time to get there. If I try to run too fast too soon I tend to trip over . Joining a club helped with motivation and I am now a bit faster but I am never going to be speedy gonzalez. We did some speed training last night and I nearly fell over at one point! I watch little people with teeny legs speeding along and I despair....

Last night at the club I was talking to someone about this and she said 'I'd not expect you to be all that fast, being so tall'. Which flies in the face of what I thought.

yes, probably, all other things being equal, but there are many other factors which affect running economy, bio-mechanical and physiological

I wish that was how it worked! I'm 6ft 1 and not very fast at all! I think it takes longer for the brain's signals to get all the way down to my feet. Although, possibly all the cakes have some effect...

I'm almost 6ft tall and not very fast either....great for sprinting,but nope,long legs don't mean speed

good sprinter
crap at longer distances

is that my excuse, my freakishly short (for my height) 29" legs?

afaik for good running economy you need long legs, narrow hips and small calves.
There are many other factors to consider, muscle imbalances and all sorts of things related to stance and posture may lead to a less efficient gait.

If you don't have the inherent capacity to develop of good V02 max then your speed will be limited by the amount of oxygen that your cardio vascular system can deliver to your muscles.

However, if you took two (hypothetical) people who were identical in every respect except that one had longer legs then the longer legged person should be faster because of the longer stride length.

who cares anyway, I run to keep my cardio vascular system in good nick and keep my body fat down, if I need to get somewhere quickly I'll go by bike :o

I think it depends on the fast twitch muscles too. I am tall with stupidly muscled thighs. I can sprint, and have competed, but I cannot run any distance. At all
Even when training I moaned about running 400m, am v jealous of the 5k people!

Marathon runners tend to be short.

I mean if you watch the Olympics then sprinters are taller and muscular but long distance runners are generally shorter.

If you are tall perhaps try rowing.

I have short legs but my speed improved loads when I spent time working on increasing cadence and making my stride shorter so that my feet landed under my body rather than "reaching out" with the leading leg.

I'm tall and struggle with long distance running. I feel clumsy and as if I'm going to trip or fall

I can't seem to run for long either. I'm just better at sprinting.

OP, I recently read The Sports Gene by David Epstein. The author reckons that the reason Paula Radcliffe hasn't won an Olympic medal (despite being an amazing runner) is that she's relatively tall for a female endurance runner (she's 5'8"), which is a disadvantage in the heat, and both the Athens and Beijing Olympics took place in hot humid conditions. Apparently being tall means a lower ratio between skin surface area and volume so that heat dissipation is harder for her body. The woman who won the marathon gold medal in Athens was 4'11"!

It's an interesting book - would recommend.

I must be totally useless as a runner then! I can't sprint either!! DId my first 10k race yesterday and did it in 61.26. I was slow starting off as usual, took me about 1.5 miles to get going but once I had got going (apart from the bastard hills) I was overtaking people left right and centre. Of course the 'real' runners were back in 34 mins or so.......

I read the sports gene when it was first published, yes it was very interesting but left me wanting to know more about the factors affecting performance and the effects of exercise training.