Have you read the first two parts? If not, CLICK HERE!
The 300m goes okay. You finish, look around, and everyone is standing. Usually these are run in lanes, but he sets up a waterfall start. You push out. You’ve done 400m’s before, how bad could this be?
Then it happens. Slow at first. Then it becomes obvious.
A gap.
Dangerous in any race, but especially here. You push harder, which only makes your calves feel like syrup. Lactic acid floods in. The heaving is back worse than before.
“Pump your arms!”
Your arms swing wildly, Is it fear? Determination? Both?
You want to give up, but you want to catch up even more. You push. And push.
Finally you finish the run and nearly collapse. Your calves feel like bricks. Coach calls out:
“On your feet. Only five minutes of rest!”
Get up? You can’t. You just used everything you had.
But the top three jog over—not to laugh, but to help you up. They hand you water and tell you something that makes no sense:
“This isn’t a sprint, but it’s not a jog.”
What?
You have to try but not try?
Still confused, you make your way to the line for the 400. You’ve been moved down to the second group. They’re tired, out of breath, but silent. They never complain.
For the 400, you try your “four Ps”: Push the first 100m. Pace the second. Position the third. Pray for the fourth.
But after the first 100, it becomes all pray.
Your legs are sandbags dragging behind you. Thinking takes energy you don’t have. The air hurts; you are breathing pins and needles.
Somehow you finish the first 400 then collapse. You want to cry. But you don’t.
You manage to stand and stumble toward the coach. You’re terrified.
“I can’t do this,” you tell him.
He pauses for a long time. You’re convinced your words didn’t even make it out.
Then he finally says,
“You can. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”
And suddenly it makes sense. Why the distance group does this every Saturday. Why they never complain. Why they show up no matter the weather.
They want to be better. And they know better isn’t an easy road.
And you want that too.
Then at that moment among all the pain, you feel something more pain.
A charley horse.
Your calf twists into a knot, pulling and pushing at the same time. You yell because words are gone. You try to lay down, but it tightens again, even worse.
“Get a roller!” Cahill shouts.
The grooves of the roller brands your skin with angry welts, shredding the pain with the pain it produces.
And that’s how your Saturday practice ends: Not from a sprint. Not from distance work.
But because you didn’t take a minute to drink water.
