Would you like some PRs?

For this running season I decided to compete in the Harry Williams All-Comers Track Meet that takes place annually at the Bob jones High School track in Madison, AL. The 2010 meet took place on Saturday, May 15. My thinking was that this would be a good place to get my times for different distances to see what weaknesses I had and what I need to work on to run faster. It would also be a chance to PR (Personal Record) in some different distances for myself. With my recent transition to training with the CrossFit model I run more 400m and similar distances (200m & 800m) as intervals or part of a workout. On hindsight I signed myself up for too many events as I signed up for the 100, 200, 400, 800, and mile competitions. The order of events was: 100, 400, mile, 200, 800, and 5km. The original schedule had about a 30 minute gap between each event. Thinking my conditioning would hold up and allow me to recover ~90% between events I decided to register for five events. I knew this was crazy going into it, but go big or go home right?

100m

On the day of the meet I felt good going in to it and was confident that I would perform well. For the first event, 100m sprint, I got warmed up and grabbed a set of blocks to get in to position for my start. I set up the blocks to what felt comfortable and what I thought was close to the settings that I used in my college track days. I may have gotten ready a little too early as we went through many heats of children as young as three years old who went two at a time to compete in their age group. I sat with my legs stretched out to keep from wearing myself out, but something about sitting in the sun (even at 5 o’clock in the evening) and getting hot seems to drain me. I kept moving around every so often to keep my legs loose.  I got to the starting line feeling ready to see what I could do. When the gun fired I felt as if I was in slow-motion. The man in the lane next to me exploded out of the blocks very quickly, he had me beat from the start and went to place second overall only 0.02 seconds behind the leader. I pushed to accelerate to top speed and allow my body to work up to what it could do. Once I reached what I could handle top speed wise I felt very slow. I just haven’t worked enough lately at running top speed. My body was not comfortable with the strain I was placing on it. At the end of the race I could feel my left hamstring was strained a little bit, not pulled but strained. I think it was not ready to hurl my body forward with maximal force like that. I crossed the finish line with an official time of 12.55. I was disappointed as I was hoping for mid-11 seconds. I’m not an experienced 100m sprinter so my expectations were not realistic.

100m YouTube Clip:

400m

The next event was the 400m, this was one I knew very well strategically and physically from running in high school and college. It was the event I was primarily focused on as far as getting my absolute best performance. Going into this event I was worried about my conditioning and how much the end of the 400m would hurt as my body dealt with the energy drain and abuse of the race. You can see runners slow down and/or work harder to maintain speed during the second half of the 400m. This is referred to as the monkey on your back that jumps on between 200m and 300m into the race. ?

A quick check showed that blocks were not being provided close by for this event. So I decided to go with a standing start and we were placed in the heats and lane assignments according to our seed times. This placed me in the later heat in lane one. I saw this as an advantage as I would be able to watch the runners who were staggered ahead of me and be able to pace off them. With the gun start I accelerated out as hard as I could to get my body going. The goal was to accelerate to a quick clip that I could maintain through 200m. Once I hit the 100m mark I knew any acceleration was done and that I needed to maintain current pace and relax as much as possible. At 200m is where the real work and pain begins. At this point in the race I had quite a deficit to make up if I was going to position well. The current leader had what looked like about 30m on me when I hit the 200m mark and I was in 4th place. I began to doubt how well I was going to finish in this race and in a way my mind was setting itself up for lowered expectations to dampen any disappointment. This kind of thinking leads to regrets as later on when you feel better you wish you had pushed a bit harder through the pain and prevailed in beating the demons in your mind. As this thinking began to take hold I took stock of how I actually felt and how my breathing was, this helped me to realize that I was doing better than I expected. At this point I decided to drop the negative thinking and drop the hammer. I didn’t want to leave anything on the track, I’ll take all the pain in the world just not any regrets. Now, I’m at the 230m mark with 170m left in the race. With the advantage of being on the innermost lane I knew I could make up some ground and finish strong. I poured everything I had into running as fast as possible and pumping my arms hard to keep making progress on the runners ahead of me. I passed a runner just before 100m left in the race bringing me up to third place. With 100m left it felt like I was pumping my arms like a madman. 100m can seem like eternity at this point in the race because you are tired and your body wants to stop running and breathe. It’s important here to focus on keeping your effort high to maintain speed as running form breaks down. This is why I was pumping my arms hard, the thinking is that by pumping my arms hard my legs will follow suit. I could see that I was gaining on the runners ahead of me, the question was how long I could keep this effort up and how much ground I could make up. I was able to power through and finish second in the heat and overall with a time of 56.28 seconds. I got back to my spot where my wife was with my gear and fluids and tried to rejuvenate myself before the mile run. I knew after the effort I put in the 400m I would need as much rest as possible for the mile run. If you check out the YouTube clip of the 100m and 400m you may notice that the guy who won the 100m heat wins the 400m as well, he’s a strong runner.

 On your marks

400m YouTube Clip:

Mile

For the mile run I had little time (just under 10 minutes) between my 400m run and the start of the mile. The first heat of the mile was the fast heat with people who were able to run under 6 minutes. I ran with the fast heat since my most recent best time was 5:56 on the same track by myself. I thought with the competition I would be able to push myself as fast or faster. As soon as we started the race I could tell this was not going to be the case. My legs felt dead and overall just didn’t want to move fast. Even though it was not my best performance I was able to finish in 6:21, which was dead last for the fast heat.? I tried to keep a decent clip during the run in case I felt good towards the end or if I was close to a new PR time. Crossing the half-mile mark close to 3:00 I knew that a PR was slipping away and would be nearly impossible at this point. I decided that a mile PR would simply have to wait for another day.? Trying to keep my time respectable I was able to cruise in to the finish line in 6:21.

Thoughts on the Day

Since this was a track meet I needed to work on running in spikes. I took one day the week of the meet to go to the track and run a few strides and starts in the spikes I would wear at the meet. This proved helpful and I’m glad I got at least one day at the track in my spikes, but I think just one day working on starts (without blocks for that matter) in spikes is not enough. I kept my activity level low leading up to the track meet, not blasting myself at CrossFit WODs leading up to Saturday. My last CrossFit WOD that week was on Monday, while Tuesday and Wednesday I felt a bit run down. My thinking is that a lack of sleep is holding back my recovery and physical development as I tend to get to bed a bit late (past 10:30 pm).?

For the 100m I just felt slow the whole race. I need to work on my explosion out of the start and my acceleration. Also, my body is not comfortable running at top speed. I haven’t run much in the way of short distance sprints and that is one thing I need to work on. I think getting my legs stronger through weight lifting will help my starts and overall acceleration. Also incorporating some short (~30m) sprints in some of my workouts would help with my body getting comfortable with the strain of max effort acceleration. Some longer sprints (100-200m) will help my body become comfortable running at top speed. Hopefully I can work those in over the next few months and then evaluate how my speed is in the 100m and 200m.

?My 400m performance was the one I was happiest with for the day. I thought the end of the race would hurt more than it actually did. The mental switch I was able to hit during the 400m race I have to attribute to my CrossFit training of recent at CrossFit Impulse. The trainers and the clients there are immensively supportive of each other during workouts and in general. It’s one thing to push yourself when you’re alone, but having others push you when you think you can’t only to find that you can is an immense psychological boost. I’ve experienced this on sports teams and other endeavors, but mental toughness is like a muscle, without work it will atrophy and I believe this had happened to me over the last several years in my physical training or lack thereof. I would work out on my own without much outside support to push through physical performance barriers. With CrossFit Impulse there is a constant push to break barriers and see what you can do physically.?? For a better 400m run I should have gone out harder in the start, but I wanted to conserve energy for the end where I thought I would need it. This is another example of where doubting yourself can cause you to not perform as well as you could. My doubts of my physical ability before the race affected my strategy during the race and may have negatively affected my overall performance. Overall I was pleasantly surprised with my performance in the 400m and see that I have the ability to go faster.

The mile was more of a workout run for me than an actual max effort run. The weekend before I did a CrossFit WOD “Jerry” which consists of a one mile run, 2km row, and then another one mile run. I completed the first mile in 6:12 at CrossFit Impulse with turn around points, a hill, and saving some energy for a 2km row and another mile run after that. Here is the Garmin Connect data. So a time of 6:21 was not what I was looking for in this mile run. My PR in the mile is 5:40 which I ran on a track during the summer after high school in 2001. While I was not happy with crossing the finish line in 6:21 and in last place for the heat, 10 minutes was simply not enough time to recover after a max effort 400m run. I would like to attempt a max effort mile run to see what my current capacity is, but may have to keep 5:56 as my most recent PR and re-evaluate later.

After the mile I decided to pack up and go home as I knew my 200m and 800m runs would be more of a workout for me than a race. The goal was max effort runs with the attempt at a PR to evaluate my fitness level at running different distances, not a killer workout and running myself into the ground. ?That may sound like negative thinking, but after the mile run it looked like I was going into a situation where I was fatigued and could possibly pull a muscle or injure myself during a 200m or 800m run. Calling it a day and allowing myself to recover seemed like the best idea.

Here are the Official Overall Results:

100m – 12.55s

400m – 56.28s

1 mile – 6:21.0??

What’s next?

Working on the weaknesses I identified here will be incorporated as part of my training over the next few months. I’m planning to focus more on strength, power, and flexibility to help my running and overall fitness. To run faster in the 400m, 100m, or the mile I believe that I need to develop more speed and power. At that point I can re-evaluate and see if conditioning is holding me back. My thinking is that conditioning will be easier to develop than speed and power and will be developed along with my strength and power through CrossFit WODs.