Thin and alone wrote:
Guys, here is a factual report of what happened.
There was some wind, temp was 40s, cloudy. I was kind of nervous about pulling a muscle or hurting myself. I have not done any "fast" running in many years. Any basketball with my kids would be just shooting around playing PIG etc. Randomly, one of the kids and I would "race" to the mailbox but I am not sure I would call that fast running.
Back in college I would consider myself more of an endurance runner vs. a speed runner. I ran a 53 400M as part of a rely and my 800M was 1:57. I also ran CC and the 5000M sometimes.
For those of you asking if the track was 400M, it was. I went to the line and hit my Timex (Ironman) stop watch. I was going to just run and not look at the 200M split. There was nobody at the track...so no High School kids to laugh at me!
I started out conservatively (again nervous of getting hurt). On the back stretch I started to pick it up, actually feeling pretty good.
At 200M - I DROPPED THE HAMMER!!! and started to push myself. Around the final turn I was on my toes. The feeling of being back in college the 30 years and 30 pounds ago was returning.
On the homestretch, I was driving my arms hard. I felt the old familiar feeling of my lungs and chest starting to burn as I hungered for oxygen. My legs started to become heavy, but I drove myself to the finish. I lunged for glory at the line and my face contorted with anguish.
I hit my stop watch as my lungs where searing. I rested my hands on my knees and gulped for air. Started to feel a little dizzy so I cupped my hands behind my neck and forced myself to walk as my chest heaved.
Once I regained my senses I eagerly looked at my watch and.....
85 seconds!!!
WTF?!? I thought I would be somewhere in the 70s like maybe 75. Embarrassed, I looked around to make sure nobody saw me (no - nobody still there). So I did my hobby jog back to the YMCA and got my old balding broken body back to my car and went home.
It was way harder then I thought, I will try this again some other time in the future when the weather is a little nicer and maybe I can wear some racing flats in the hopes of crushing the magical 80 sec mark.
Thanks for your detailed and entertaining account :). I was pretty close with my prediction of 82 for someone who was more of an endurance 1500 rather than speed 1500 person.
I would be willing to bet that with just once a week of 100m striders, and maybe a couple 200's, you would crush that magical 80 second mark. Keep us updated. I like these kind of threads.