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I am looking for information on peak performance for sprinters. Since the training season is different for Masters athletes I was wondering if anyone had information on when training should begin for indoors and when they would start training for outdoors. This is using the indoor championships and the outdoor championships as the times that you would want to be at peak performance. Any ideas.

I suspect this is something that will differ from athlete to athlete. It will also depend on the timing of major events an athlete will be peaking for.

In my case (M50 sprinter in Britain), I'd normally have some low key indoor meets in early January (sometimes even in December), and be focused on something like a European or World competition in mid/late March. To a great extent, those early competitions (open meets and the like) are themselves the specific race-related training, as I'll still be in "winter mode" in the gym and on the track. I usually start to cut back the volume of strength and stamina work during, say, February, and I'll be concentrating more on speed and snap at things like National competition indoors and such like around then.

Outdoors can be very different, especially if major competition (like the recent Worlds) come very late on. If I wanted to, I could start competing at Club level outdoors as early as April. I tend to start in mid-May. I usually have a quiet time during August. That's partly intentional, as I often have good competitions to go to in September, and don't want to be stale or injured by then. However, partly it's down to vacations and the fact that around here, the volume of meets available is lower at that time of year anyway.

August then becomes a month for some quality technique work and remedial activity. I've run my best times of the year for the last few seasons during September, and been content to end the season a happy man on that basis.

But I'll bet this isn't a typical year for everyone!