I've been listening to the "left disc" of the Nine Inch Nails album "The Fragile" a lot lately. It's probably my favorite album of all time, with NIN being far and away my favorite band. Anyone who knows me or knew me will not be shocked by these statements...and in fact they might roll their eyes since so little has apparently changed with me.
Anyway, I put a CD version (left disc) of The Fragile inside one of our primary cars a while ago, and I haven't bothered to swap it with anything else for quite some time. So when I'm using that car to drive anywhere without the kids (like to the gym or to the track), I crank up the volume and use the album as my hype music on the way to whatever workout I'm doing.
That album came out in 1999. That was a bit of a turning point in my personal life, as well. I don't really want to go into a full autobiography here, but it's noteworthy because 1999 was the year I finally essentially became the "sprinter" I always wanted to be, and it's around when I had my ACL tear AND repair, as well (which is all tightly connected, but we're not getting into that here). It was a pretty formative time period, to say the least.
That all went down when I was 15/16 years old, which is a formative period anyway, without any extra drama. But the ACL tear (where a kid seemingly intentionally leaned into my knee during gym class when I was on the ground during a simple pickup basketball game), all the way to running a 10.6 hand timed 100m Dash 11 months after the surgical repair was....a bit of a wild ride. And I remember listening to a lot of The Fragile (plus other bands like Korn, Staind, even Limp Bizkit, that whole rock era) during a huge chunk of it. The Fragile, very specifically, spoke to me then...and it still speaks to me now, frankly. It speaks to me in new ways, and in old ways...not unlike how training for sprints does, too.
Perhaps I'm an open book or I'm someone who just never really moves on, but a lot of what I learned, felt, and experienced during that period is foundational to the person I think I am today. And, certainly, still being able to attempt to "train" for "sprinting" even now is something I'm occasionally reminded to be truly grateful for. Which was something I felt and noted during (and especially after) my sprint workout this past Wednesday.
The Wednesday Workout
85m: 9.7
120m: 13.6
70m: 8.3
I took 11 to 12 minute rests between the runs. Maybe a little longer than I should have, but I was really going for quality this time.
Burying The Lead
I'm pretty intentionally burying the lead of this workout under a pile of narcissistic word vomit, as it were. But I do that because, the fact is, this workout is kind of a "come to Jesus" moment about what I think I know. And I'd rather make my grandiose claims under a filter of boring jibberish as a kind of filter/defense in case I end up proven completely wrong in a week.
Everything about this sprint workout should lead to pretty clear and concise conclusions. But those conclusions are all built on the past precedence of my flimsy logic and arithmetic. Using THAT information and data, the facts are pretty clear: I should officially be a sub 11 guy again now, and there's even a decent chance that I can legitimately dip under a 10.8 with just decent weather conditions within the next week or two. That's what the workout, based on how I read the tea leaves, says. And there's no getting away from that kind of predictive claim when, next week, I'm supposed to run an official 100m dash at a track meet.
That should all be great for building confidence and a fair amount of eagerness for the upcoming competition opportunity. BUT, if I've been living way out in left field with all these assumptions that I base my "100m conversions" on, then all that confidence is really just blind ignorance.
Further Methodology
So, I performed this workout almost identically to how I performed during the infamous (in my mind anyway) March 15th workout. If it wasn't an identical result, then it ended up being an ever-so-slightly better one based on thousandth of seconds self timing results (which one shouldn't do, of course). All of it practically identical, but for one SIGNIFICANT difference: wind. On March 15th, I had consistent 15 to 20 mph tailwinds while I ran, with random gusts even above that. This past Wednesday, I had 3 to 5 mph tailwinds, at best. It often felt windless. Simply put, wind wasn't a factor at all in this past Wednesday workout, whereas it was the whole story of my March 15th workout.
To be able to repeat the sprint results of March 15th, but do so with virtually no wind...is fairly huge. Even outside of me trying to guess what I can run in a competitve 100m off the sprint results, the proof of progress off these facts is pretty absolute. I've certainly improved legitimately, which is pretty invigorating in itself regardless of what these workouts "convert" to in my head. This, put plainly...is good.
Plus, the events leading up to the workout were not optimal. I had planned on doing the workout at my "home" track, but when I got there after already prepping extensively, I discovered that a high school girls lacrosse playoff game was being played at the stadium where the track is. I hadn't even looked around for official stadium usage info because school is OVER; I though the risk was zero. I was pretty confused when I rolled up and I saw buses and people at the gate, to say the least.
So I had to drive around looking for a different track to use. The first option I went to didn't work; the stadium was completely locked. At that point, my mind started to wander into catastrophic mode and I pondered what abandoning the sprint attempt would look like for the day and for the short term training plan. On a lark, though, I drove to ANOTHER track at a school I'd never heard of still fairly close to where I was at the time. The setup seemed iffy, but I still parked and went to the gate. That gate was, of course, locked. But another one wasn't. So...I went for it and went in. Started warming up. And...eventually did the whole workout.
I went from almost mentally giving up the pursuit at all, to back to DOING the workout (while wondering if I'd get chased off the track by security), all after sitting around longer than I expected driving and looking for a place to run. And after all that I still ran a workout of that quality and with that much health. To me...this is about as legit a performance result as I can get, outside of a track meet itself.
Adult Track Night
Speaking of a track meet, time to put my money where my mouth is (literally, since meet entries cost a ton more, relative to what I feel they used to). Friday, June 12th, I'm running at the Adult Track Night event at Green. I entered myself in the 100m AND the 200m, though it's not clear to me how certain it is that I'll actually run the 200. For training purposes, I really want to do it. But I'm not sure if it'll work out that way.
I figure there's no real point in playing coy with my meet info and plan at this point. Certainly, a LOT can happen still between now and next Friday, in terms of injury or family (these KIDS) complications. But the biggest risk was that sprint workout, and that workout is successfully over. I REALLY cranked it on those runs, too; there was no holding back in those results. Despite that, my body felt fine during it all; even the achilles was pretty decent. I've got terrible luck and I'm not very smart, so certainly I could still do something to hurt myself somehow in the next few days. But that workout actually seems to showcase a legitimate level of resiliency in my body currently. Theoretically, I should have a degree of confidence for once.
As a result, I bit the bullet already and purchased a USATF membership. I found ANOTHER track meet I want to run in that's a perfect dry run for actually running at the Masters Champs in July, and I've already entered THAT meet as well. I don't think I'll actually drop the money on the July Masters Champs until after the meet in Green, though. Each event at the July meet costs $65, for crying out loud. And I'm still leaning on trying to run both the 100 AND 200, too...
It just seems like the exact kind of stupid situation I'd put myself in to spend $130 for the July meet and then blow out my hamstring at this meet in Green next week. The deadline for the Masters Champs is June 16th, so I have plenty of wiggle room anyway. If I finish healthy at the meet next week in Green, then I'll officially enter the July Masters meet promptly.
I guess...still hold onto your butts.
