Why the term "Sprint" Irks Me

Apart from being inherently lazy, there are other reasons why the term "Sprint" irks me....

Agile development is supposed to be about sustainability - in fact the Principles of the Agile Manifesto states ...

Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

The term Sprint in my mind does not describe a constant pace, it conjures up that desperate dash to the finish line, giving it your all in one go.

The argument is however that "sprints are short", however they are repeated. Do we expect the Olympic 100m runners to do a 100m dash, and then do it all over again, and again, and again? All in a relatively short time frame, after all how long do you rest between week long Sprints?

The other argument is "its just a name", however software development is in a large part about naming. Writing clean code is more often than not seeking the right name, something that describes intent - so why should we strive for anything less in naming our processes and their elements?

So until I find something better I will continue to prefer iteration as to me it better describes the intent of repeated time-boxed work.