As I sifted through old boxes I came upon an old training diary from my Freshman year in college. I was a walk-on to the team and to make matters worse I was a little soft after spending the previous summer in Europe visiting family. I barely survived cross-country season. The entry below is from halfway through indoor track season. For some reason I thought I'd try to run with the middle distance team (for you hardcore utlra runners that's not a 50 miler - it's 800m-1500m).
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2/8/3 4:30 PM 20-30 degrees F
Ran brisk warmup (2 mile Long Occum Pond)
Stretched, ran strides, went to the bathroom twice.
4x400 at 62 sec. Coach Barry actually gave me a time to shoot for which is a first. His attention gave a lot more credence to the workout. The rest of my group was supposed to run 56 sec. The first group: Dennis Webster, Mike Hughes, Brian Barry and Jon Fidelak, ran 54 sec quarters.
I hit #1 in 64 sec. I felt like I was running faster than that. DW pointed out that in the 800m it is important to stay relaxed during the first 600 so that you're not too tight to run the next 200 all out. I was tightening up on the second 200. #2 in 63, #3 in 63, #4 in 61. I was really pushing the last 1/4.
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I wish I had kept better logs from those days. I tore myself to shreds trying to train with those guys. Every day after practice I'd spend twenty minutes waist deep in an ice bath just to be able to walk to the dining hall.
I was surprised when I read this entry today to see that I could run 4x400 that fast. In the grand scheme of things a 62 sec quarter isn't that quick, most high schools have a kid who is faster than that. But considering these days I lumber around the track running 400's at 75-80 sec pace it sure felt good to know that somewhere, buried under slow twitch fibers is a fast twitch muscle waiting for the last 200m.
2 comments:
Good Lord, no wonder you are so fast! 4x400 at 63 seconds would kill me at any age. ;-)
SD
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