A Little Dose of Reality

Well.....the last sprint workout didn't go at all the way I expected.

120m: 13.9

160m: 19.1

120m: 14.7

I ran this workout on Tuesday. The goal was to really let it rip; I wanted to further prove that I'm ready to start digging way below sub-11 from here on out, so I tried to set myself up to be perfectly fresh and ready to go for this workout. I had some big expectations, and I had even mapped out what my times and splits should look like on the track, based on my big expectations, before I went.

Then reality eventually struck.

The weather was nice and warm, and I DID feel fairly good going into it. But then even on the first run, after about 50/60 meters, I could tell I wasn't doing well. Nothing hurt, and I was pushing HARD seemingly successfully. But I was pushing super hard and not getting a lot of return back on the investment. I FELT the work I had put in between the sets, too; I was roasted already even after one run. 

One of the reasons I ran this past Tuesday,  specifically, was because it was going to be WARM but NOT have big winds. I wanted to see what it looked like when I ran without the benefit of strong tailwinds pushing me along.  Well I sure got what I wished...and I don't like it. Pretty discouraging.  

I also ran on a track I use less often, and I suppose I can wonder if that track itself hurt the results in terms of time results and perceived effort. It's a track that's in pretty poor shape, and I was surprised at how much my feet hurt running on it as opposed to what I've typically felt while running at the other track I use. There's a lot of wear and many thin spots on the track surface, down to concrete in some spots, and a few cracks even through the foundation of the track on just the straight away. 

But that's probably all just excuses. It sure would help if the truth is that track zapped out some of my timing potential AND energy output while I ran on it. I suppose if I run well next week, then I can give such a theory some validity, but for now...maybe this is just all I've got.

Expectations

Well, one of a couple reasons this is a disappointing workout result is I was looking to prove that I'm either on my way, or already there, to run in the vicinity of a 10.8 BASIC 100m Dash on June 12th. This workout does not support that kind of trajectory at ALL. This workout equates more to an 11.05ish result rather than a 10.8. Last week's workout I would have argued was more of a 10.8ish type result, but that wind probably tainted that result considerably. 

It's interesting that really most of this seems identical to the last time I did a 120+160+120 workout. The same scenario played out then: I went in with huge expectations and then when I ran I was nowhere near them. The next workout after that, though, was that hyper wind aided March 15th workout which seemed to go so well. So I guess I want the similarities/trend to continue. I'll probably even wind chase again for my next workout.

Anyway, so maybe come competition time I'm going to have to truly conceptualize settling/coming to terms with running in the 11s over 100 meteres. And I need to learn to see a 10.9x type result as something of a wild success. I have to prepare for that mentally, otherwise I'd probably have a really bad attitude if thats what I run when I think I should be going 10.7/10.8

I've still got another week and a half of training opportunity, so maybe I can still make some big dents...but we're kinda coming up on it now.  I'm gonna be what I'm gonna be at this point. Maybe that's 10.95/11.05...maybe it's even 11.25/11.30. I really can't be sure. The primary goal is still to FIND OUT by showing up and running at that meet.

Can't totally kill that 10.8 hope, though...

Man I'm Banal and Tone Deaf. No One Needs This Post Outside of my Ego

Sunny, 85°. 10/15 winds from the south west on a north/south orientated track. Ran on the back stretch, so all with fairly strong tail winds. Around 8/10 minutes rest between runs.

070m: 08.1

120m: 13.6

060m: 07.2

Here We Go Again

A little history here. On May 16th, 2025, I attempted this 70+120+60 combo sprint workout. It was the first time I was doing a concentrated and fully fleshed out sprint workout since I tore my achilles in March of 2023, and even prior to that I hadn't done this level of true sprint "workout" really since 2019. So one year prior to today's workout results listed above, I ran this same workout with results as follows:

070m: 08.6

120m: 14.5

060m: 07.4

Sure enough, on the final 60m run in the 2025 version, I pulled my right calf. Somewhere around a grade 1 strain, I imagine. When you contrast what I'm doing a year later with what happened one year ago...I guess you could say I've improved. I'm exponentially faster, and I'm not (currently) hurt (technically) as a result of the workout.

I was doing this workout a year ago in an attempt to get prepared to run at a mid-June open track meet that was going to be held very near where I live. The same one I'm intending to do this year. So, with that calf strain so near to the meet last year, and the fact an injury resulted from ONE simple sprint workout attempt....the meet seemed unlikely to happen in 2025 after the workout. 

I actually tried to sign up for it anyway, after it seemed like the calf healed up enough after a couple weeks. But when I went to enter the meet near the deadline (but before the posted online deadline date), I learned they had shut down entries into the 100m Dash because too many people had already signed up. So that's what officially ended it. With my poor fitness and questionable health, it was probably all for the better that it worked it that way; that workout I did in '25, based on my math, would have only made for an 11.5ish. Maybe even slower. I woulda regretted running that.

More Boring Back Story

I was being so persistent to get into the meet, despite not being in legit shape for it, for something of sentimental reasons. I had learned of the existence of this annual meet only a few months into my achilles surgery recovery in 2023. When I saw what the meet was (like a kind of masters meet, but a little bit more open and "fun"), I made it a goal in the back of mind to run in it after my achilles had recovered. 

The next year in 2024, my daughter Evelyn was born in May...and as a result, there was no way I could make the meet at ALL, let alone be properly prepared/trained for it. So I did target 2025 as my chance to finally achieve the goal. But then, between my OTHER achilles issues, and a still pretty rough time getting proper training in with all the childcare that goes on around here, the plan basically got chewed up and lost even in 2025.

After the failed meet attempt last year, I kept trying to progress my training with the SPECIFIC plan of actually sprinting again. I took a step back from running workouts after that mid June situation, but kept building up fitness and in the early fall I started back up sprint workouts. Except by autumn I had much more intention with my plan and was already considerably better off to begin such workouts. The plan THEN was to actually run some indoor 60m sprints in the winter to have a REALLY legit build up to the outdoor season. That was the plan, anyway....

Obviously the appendectomy at the end of October ended the indoor plans and completely altered competition trajectories. However, I started my sprint workout pursuits so much earlier, and so much more as a goal, that even with a great many repeated setbacks, I'm still NOW in decent position to at minimum run in this June meet. 

Arguably now, after this most recent workout, not only am I more prepared to actually run in the June meet (I signed up as soon as the meet confirmed it's 2026 addition, so even that's already set up), but I can now expect to do it with some semblance of competency, to boot. How competent may still be open to interpretation and debate, but a general and sensible "competent" performance should be achievable. Speaking of the implications of this most recent workout...

Expectations

So, I was developing wild expectations a few months ago. Wild enough that even I had to admit the truth and reel myself back a few times. But let us be honest, I have not learned my lesson; I never learn my lesson and I always wildly project and fantasize. My progress may have gotten interrupted in April, but with my achilles perhaps evening out a bit (more on that later), I can start to be my old delusional self again. 

This recent workout result is actually very reminiscent of my March 15th sprint workout result in a LOT of ways. There's a pattern here, because I said the same thing about my workout on May 4th, as well. This is all related, on some level, to how I target windy, warm-ish days for sprint workouts. I chase the winds to stack the deck for my outcomes. Plus, I feel it's more valuable for your body to cover the distance faster, even wind aided, than to battle through something like a headwind on quality sprint efforts. 

And, while I did try to target a nice warm day for this workout, I'm actually becoming conflicted about the helpful strong tailwinds for workouts like these. In the case of this specific workout, I didn't even really know the wind would be as strong as it ended up being.  That was a bit happenstance. I can probably still use the ego/confidence boost that these winds provide for my results, but I'd actually rather start getting sprint data without so much wind help now so I can parse reality from fiction at least a TINY bit better.

As it stands, this sprint workout had less winds than the March 15th one, and so the timing predictions built off these results could THEORETICALLY be closer to legitimate. But I still had some help down the track....so when I say I think this workout implies a 10.8 flat 100m, give or take a couple hundreths, maybe that still comes with some wind conversion needs (plus whatever inaccuracies my "conversions" have). In the end, the only real way to prove or disprove any of this is to actually run a competitive 100m Dash. Hopefully that finally happens June 12th at the meet.

When I look back at that March 15th workout, that workout seemed to indicate a 10.85 ability (again give or take; in the post I wrote after the workout I claimed 10.86/10.88), but the winds were MUCH stronger that day; I think the winds were around 20/25 mph consistently that day, and were coming more directly from the south. Garbage cans were getting pushed over on the infield, and I had to put stuff on top of my workout bag so that it didn't get blown down the track.

Yesterday certainly had winds in the 10/15 mph range, but slightly more cross-wind-ish than right behind me; though they definitely still help. So, potentially, having a slightly improved result with less wind benefit compared to March 15th should be a really, really good sign. Additionally, I've taken a really close look at the data I've got for each workout. Taking that info and combining it with what I also felt and experienced yesterday, I think I can say something with a degree of confidence: I was actually more "in tune" to running fast on March 15th than I was yesterday. 

The break I took during April for my achilles, and the longer workouts I've been utilizing since starting back up running, has not really addressed the needs of reaching and trying to maintain TOP speeds. Yesterday's workout was actually the first fully unleashed, max velocity search type sprint since....that March 15th workout. After the first 30/40 meters of each run yesterday, I really felt out of sorts, and a little scared of injury. I couldn't maintain and explore my positions and effort as much as I felt like I was prior to the achilles April shutdown.  But I think the first 30/40 meters were incredibly explosive, so that's the positive flip side. 

Sooooo, I wanna believe that I still have a HIGH ceiling even from where I'm at now. If I can get back to what I was trying to do in max velocity/maintenance in March, maybe there's still a lot if progress to be had for me going into July. But that all remains to be seen, as per SOP.

The Weird Things I Do/ Achilles Status 

So, I was gonna do a deep dive into some of the things that I do that REALLY make me weird with my workouts. Some of that now bleeds into my achilles stuff a little bit, so I'm gonna quit this entry HERE, and maybe save that topic for the next post. I might have some actual useful info in that post, so I'll try to give it its own space rather than bury it under the word vomit that is this mess.

I will say this; for the time being, it appears I've got my achilles in a place where it's going to at least let me pursue my sprinting. But one never knows how quickly that kind of thing will change. It's clearly taken a turn for the better over the past few weeks, though, so I'll post more specifically about that in the next one.

One More Final Note

I had also run this 70+120+60 workout on February 27th of this year, my second workout run outside at the time:

070m: 08.2

120m: 13.9

060m: 07.4

In looking at the stats, I was having similar problems with breaking down/being uncomfortable after the initial "drive phase" period in that workout, too. After that workout I did a 120+160+120 workout the next week that went not as well as I had hoped, and then I broke through on that March 15th workout where I actually FELT kind of fast and in control. Well, relatively anyway. 

The plan next week is to do another 120+160+120 workout. That might give me another solid chance to assess where I'm at and to try to get more comfortable moving fast for longer periods again. Hopefully it then sets me up for success at the meet in June. That's the hope, anyway.

Probably Not Real

160: 19.3

200: 24.9

200: 25.0

160: 19.7

I'm not out of the game yet. Apparently. Those are my sprint workout stats from yesterday. I took huge rests, especially before that last 160m (I think it approached 18 minutes), and I had huge winds on my back...but that seemed like a really good result no matter the circumstances.

I just looked back at my last few posts, and I pondered how those posts fit with my actual lived experience. To a surprising extent, that March 15th sprint workout was kind of the beginning of the end for me, as it were. Or maybe it was more the "horizontal plyos" I did that I never posted about a few days after that sprint workout. In fact, those plyos must have been what REALLY started to push my achilles over the edge, probably more so than the sprints.

I guess those plyos were a supremely bad idea. But, I did PERFORM them well. I suppose at too much of a cost. I guess I can't incorporate what I call "horizontal" plyos (which include single leg triple bounds as part of the overall session) into my plans until my achilles shows legitimate progression from its currently typically inflammed state. The depth jumps, which of course are bilateral, don't bother it as much. So...I'm going to just stick with those for now until after July (when I'll reasses my achilles and try to "rehab" it). Unless my achilles improves dramatically as I build up to the July masters meet I'm trying to run in, but clearly that's unlikely. 

Anyway, between my achilles, my back, and just my overall concept for my training plan, everything has been pretty steeply down hill from the successfully performed tandem of that sprint workout and plyo sesh. Until this workout I did yesterday, that is. This is the first truly decent output I've had in a workout since I pulled my back on March 31st. 

In essence, the workout yesterday was like a rebooted version of that March 15th sprint workout; it was highly wind aided, with good warm temperatures, big rest periods, and the results seem very exciting (if not tempered by the knowledge of the wind).

Except, in this case, I wasn't going in expecting big results out of the workout. The goal here was simply to get through the workout without blowing up my achilles.  Or anything else. When I looked down at the clock to see my times, I was very pleasantly surprised. And a little confused. Part of me wonders if I measured something wrong on my distances...

Originally, these longer workouts seemed more risky for the achilles. But I've done two of these since trying to get back to running again, and right now I'm actually preferring them to the faster, shorter sprint sessions. For the time being, I'm holding off on planning a full go shorter workout until I'm a little more ready to go. So next week I'm going to repeat the longer workout I did last week, but hopefully perform it more intentionally fast. Then from there I hope to reincorporate the shorter workouts, too.

I'm not out of the woods yet, but my achilles seems to be responding well right now. So the goal of running at a meet in June that I signed up for is now full go. That's kind of my deadline for whether or not I'll really go for the masters meet in July. If I can't run in that June meet, it's hard to imagine I'll be in a good place for July.

This workout result was a really good first step towards that, though. Assuming this was all real...

What If This is the Last Time?

Here's the thing....sprinting is just, a big deal. For me, on a personal level, it's a REALLY big deal. Still....all these years later. It runs (pun?) VERY deep; it's the kind of thing that no matter what I try to do to explain it with words....I'm gonna fall short, one way or another.

This goes all the way down to what I perceive as the very core of who I am, and its importance seemingly predates a lot of the stuff that came along down the line that further REINFORCED it as such an important aspect of my life and myself. The fact is, running fast (particularly in the context of "sprinting") has nearly always meant something big to me.

Frankly, the magnitude of this is a bit scary, and probably always has been. One really shouldn't put all their eggs in one basket, as it were. And, to an extent, I haven't. I've got a lot of other interests that I have real passions for (music, movies, video games, books if I ever sit down and read, etc). I'm married and have kids. There's a lot of other things going on in life with me (and MAN do kids take up time, effort, and energy)....but yet there it still is. "Sprinting". Still there, and here I am still wanting it and chasing it.

A big part of what makes the significance of running/sprinting so "scary" is this; it's always been something that could so easily be taken away. Of course, in fact, it very often has been "taken away". Which is maybe an additional layer to why I still want it so much. The "taken away" stories are long and varied for me, but while they are also a really big deal to me, I've become self aware enough to know that they aren't of terrible interest to others. I mean, certainly none of this is of any interest to anyone. That lack of interest expands exponentially the orgin stories of each chip on my shoulders is expounded upon. Even I can sense it when THINKING about explaining that stuff,  and then realizing I need to keep my miuth shit. Those stories absolutely DO swirl around in my head quite a bit, though.

Which brings me to my current situation. Right now, it seems like my right achilles is adding another entry to my "taken away" list; it doesn't feel very good at all and it may only get worse from here. I DID do a sprint workout last Tuesday. I made it through over a thousand meters of distance for the workout in total, an amount for a sprint workout that I haven't remotely attempted since early 2019. The results of said workout were pretty poor statistically speaking, and the achilles didn't really feel great...but it got BETTER as I ran. Which doesn't really prove much of anything...but for now I'm preferring to be optimistic about that.

The real key is, can I build on that workout? Can my body recover and allow me to push harder? I'm trying to plan for another sprint workout this Monday. Basically, I've got these next five weeks to save my "season", and these next five DAYS I will probably tell me if I'll sink or swim. I also did a depth jump workout yesterday, which was also statistically quite poor, but the achilles allowed the workout to happen. So, for now, that's a win.

It's not clear to me which way this will play out. But I have to try. Cause I want it. I always have, and I always will... And these days, I really have no idea if it's the last time I'll get to even try. I'm not even sure if this has truly counted as trying up to this point; it may never lead to a competition result. In 2018 and early 2019, I may have gotten to 10.6 or 10.5 fitness, but I never ran in a meet to prove that. So did it even happen? Kind of feels like it didn't. But...I'm at least gonna try to keep trying to try.