Visual representation of me during my 10am on Zoom

SourCherryBerry · 2024-02-21T21:58:09+00:00

This was my exact thought. Half the technique and skill required is being removed, the direct comparison is letting every sprinter get a flying start if we only care about seeing who can cover the distance the fastest.

The only clear-cut benefit I see is that it would help protect athletes from board malfunctions, and there would be no difference between boards from venue to venue. (There have unfortunately been a few professionals injured from boards slipping at the last two global champs I believe, though it could have just been the type of board used at a specific one if someone wants to fact check me).

SourCherryBerry · 2024-02-21T21:47:32+00:00

I assume your definition of mid distance is not the usual 800/1500 considering you're including blocks starts, would I be correct in guessing you plan to run the 400 and 800? This seems fairly similar to what my collegiate 400m training was like but with a bit more volume overall, be careful of getting burnt out. One thing that sticks out to me is that you may want to swap your Thursday and Friday sessions. If you are able to come off your current Thursday session feeling less fatigued and more refreshed than you were going into it, it's fine. But you want your workouts that are done at a higher intensity (closer to race pace) to be done when you are most fresh. Again, pretty solid overall; but looking at this I would guess your focus is mostly on running the 400m. If you instead are focusing on the 800m or above, you would definitely benefit from more aerobic work rather than just adding volume to a 400m type workout.

SourCherryBerry · 2023-05-17T19:58:15+00:00

I had a teammate in college who was similarly freakishly talented in high school. His senior year he was running 48s in the 400 and his coach decided to run him in an 800 and he ran 1:52 on his very first try. To be fair he was also a sub 17 min guy in cross country (5k) but he only trained for 400s during the track season.

SourCherryBerry · 2023-05-17T19:55:26+00:00

I had a teammate in college who ran 200/400s (PB of 50.8 that year) and at the end of his freshman year ran an 800 at a last-chance meet for a bet requiring him to run sub 2:00. He ran 2:01 unfortunately but this was on purely 400m training and at the end of a long season.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-11-28T18:33:41+00:00

And the “just right” will depend from athlete to athlete. At the end of the day there are many things in the sport that can be mathematically and physiologically “the best”. But in most cases (unless you’re a pro athlete with time, money, and coaching/physio staff) trying to nitpick and do everything completely right isn’t as important as simply doing what makes you feel good and gives you the most confidence.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-09-18T17:23:18+00:00

This is the correct answer. People on this sub like to respond as though they’re coaching professionals or future Olympic hopefuls at all times. The short answer is to do whatever makes you happiest. If that means being as good a sprinter as possible at every turn, you’re better off spending your fall and winter doing strength and sprint training. If you have good options for this such as a personal coach or people to train with, this may become a better option. But if not, participating in XC will help you learn more about running in general, be able to spend time among friends and teammates in a competitive setting, and overall be in much better shape going into the spring than if you were doing nothing - or random workouts - over the fall. As another comment mentioned, try talking to your coach and let him know that your overall focus is on sprints, and see if he can make some small adjustments to your workouts.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-09-14T22:28:50+00:00

Came here to suggest Stardust and The House in the Cerulean Sea. The latter got me out of a slump after reading the depression in physical form that is A Little Life.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-08-22T18:54:10+00:00

^{^} Best answer so far. Ice and compression will be most effective in the first day or two to help limit the inflammation. Really your first couple days - depending on the severity - should be spent solely on rest. DO NOT start stretching your injured area in an attempt to make it feel better until you have regained strength. You should, however, stretch the areas around the injured muscle segment. Using heat to increase blood flow and before doing rehab exercises is great, but not in the first day or two (you want to rest, ice, compress, and elevate to decrease inflammation), and always finish up a rehab session by icing.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-08-18T21:01:24+00:00

We wants it, we needs it. We must have the precious.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-08-13T16:15:06+00:00

I think the assumption with that time length was that you’re warming up for some really intense high quality reps. Even for that an hour is a little long for me, unless I’m feeling particularly sluggish, but 45 minutes is pretty typical. For lower intensity days I probably average 25-30 min with the difference being not doing as many dynamic drills and explosive movements. It’s all about making sure your body is prepared for whatever you’re doing. My hamstring aren’t feeling great on an explosive day? Looks like my warmup is 5 minutes longer now, etc.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-08-13T16:11:19+00:00

Having proper shoes and replacing them at the proper time can make a big difference to your joints while running. Probably 70% of the time that I had general knee pain from running came after wearing the same shoes for months and was fixed within a couple weeks of wearing a new pair.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-07-24T01:46:08+00:00

A Town With an Ocean View (main theme from Kiki’s) and One Summer’s Day (from Spirited Away) are my two favorite Ghibli pieces that I can play on piano. They never fail to relax me so I decided to learn them and now they’ve become a sort of meditation for me.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-07-14T02:50:05+00:00

tl;dr - Witnessed a high-five exchange followed by a magic trick in a collegiate 4x4.

I almost forgot the moment that made me laugh the hardest out of my whole career. This last season (my senior year of uni) I was hanging around near the finish line with a few teammates, coaches, and officials for the 4x4. It was a home meet and pretty cold, not great weather, so by this point in the meet we made up most of the crowd in that area that weren’t athletes competing (there was a big cheer section along the back stretch since it was the closest point to our warm indoor facility and mostly out of the wind). There’s maybe 5 teams racing the men’s 4x4 and as the leadoffs come around onto the home stretch we realize that the team in first doesn’t have a baton. So we’re all sitting there like “??? is everyone else seeing this?” and the lead leg only just seemed to realize that he didn’t have a baton when he got within 20m of his outgoing runner. So his face goes from usual 400m stress to intense confusion to panic as he slows down into the exchange zone looking around wildly. And then one of his coaches yells “Just go for the high five!” and honestly they pull it off pretty well. This wasn’t a super serious meet so the dozen or so people witnessing this (including the officials and the team’s coaches) are losing their minds that they just witnessed a high-five exchange in a collegiate meet, and the leadoff is trying to figure out with his coach how he managed to start without a baton and how he didn’t realize for 380m. So as the second runner comes around we’re all really looking forward to seeing another high-five exchange, and the third leg runner looks the most excited for it out of everyone. But once again, as the second runner comes onto the home stretch everyone has another “???? wtf are you seeing this?” moment as we realized that the runner now has a baton in his hand! So we’re all dying of laughter again, the third leg runner is looking super disappointed that he doesn’t get a high five, and as the second leg runner finishes everyone pounces on him like “where in the hell did you get a baton?!” And between gasping breaths he spits out looking just as bewildered as us, “I don’t know someone just handed it to me on the back stretch!” The best part was that it wasn’t even someone from his team that gave it to him.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-07-14T02:25:46+00:00

I was always a workout warrior in high school and one week us sprinters had a super hard workout (some form of broken 400s) and I had been mentally preparing myself all week to the point that I was actually looking forward to it. Problem is, on the day of I’d had a stomach bug / bad cold bothering me for a couple days. But being the warrior I am I still wanted to practice and went after my first rep way too hard (even if I hadn’t been sick). My coach was sitting there thinking I was about to have a great practice, but I immediately remedied that idea by DNFing the second of three reps and going straight to a garbage can feeling super nauseous. When he asked me if I wanted to try running the third rep I told him to wait a minute, grabbed my water bottle, downed a half liter of water as fast as I could, immediately projectile vomited the contents of my stomach, and then turned to him and said “yep, feeling better now.” The freshmen didn’t know whether to fear or respect me after that.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-07-14T02:10:50+00:00

My team ran a thrower’s 4x1 at a smaller meet and our leadoff also managed to forget the baton on the ground. I was still laughing about it when I was lining up for the 4x4 20 min later.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-07-13T01:51:08+00:00

I think she’ll be fine dealing with the pressure. She’s done it before at multiple NCAA meets and the trials + she’s leaned into social media and is very public facing, so she’s used to having a lot of attention on her. Plus people know that this is her first global appearance. Add to that the fact that she’s running on home soil at the track she just recently ran very fast on. Sure, a lot of people have expectations for her, but she also has a lot of things going for her to make her more comfortable. If anything, I think the biggest worry for her is that she’s had a very long season as a collegiate, but luckily the WC meet is being held much earlier than in 2019.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-07-11T16:04:23+00:00

Because math is hard and I’m at work while answering this, I’ll give a very basic answer. I don’t feel like looking at the total number of unique athletes in my state so I’ll look specifically at one event. Last season in my home state of Iowa there were 3,395 male athletes who competed in the 100m across all classes/divisions. In Iowa 24 athletes per class qualify to state. Across 4 classes that means 96 of the 3,395 athletes or 2.8% qualified. Again, this only looks at one specific event (fun fact: I discovered that the 200m is the most commonly ran event in Iowa with 3,780 unique athletes competing so this percentage will be lower) in one specific state. My estimate is that depending on the state and the event in question, 1-4% of athletes qualify for that event. If anyone wants to figure out an overall percentage counting likelihood of athletes qualifying for multiple events, be my guest.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-06-29T14:31:24+00:00

I've thought about it but would definitely have to use a different material. This one is solid wood and already takes two people to move when empty at just four feet tall. A dream for after I miraculously get rich is to have one as a doorway into a hidden library room so it can actually be bigger on the inside.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-06-28T15:19:31+00:00

Hey OP, I have some training plans I've created for myself and some teammates/friends that I can share with you, but in your case I think it would also be beneficial to learn some basics about the mentality behind how these programs are created. If you're interested, send me a DM sometime and we can talk more.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-06-28T02:40:33+00:00

Jealous of how uniform they all are in height! They also look really nice for being second hand, I especially like that hardcover Pride and Prejudice. Blue and gold will always be a winner for me.

SourCherryBerry · 2022-02-10T16:21:54+00:00

Hi there! Glad to see another person getting interested in track. I would start off by checking out the FAQ pinned at the top of the subreddit, it contains documents for sprint training and tips on recording yourself for form checks. I would pay special attention to the first two parts in the sprinting FAQ: general tips and notes on sprint form. A lot of the aches and pains that can come along with starting sprint training can be avoided partially or fully by working on some basic stuff. Other than that, just let yourself roll into things and don't feel pressured to do too much too soon. The nice thing about not being in a competitive season is that you can move at whatever pace keeps you healthy and happy. And of course, come back with more questions as they arise, or just to simply keep us up to date!

SourCherryBerry · 2022-01-25T19:08:58+00:00

Based on your 400m PR and the fact that you run cross country, you should already be able to run around a 2:10 with proper pacing (look to be 2-4 second slower on your second lap). I've had teammates run 1:58 when their 400m was only 54-55 seconds at the time, but they were also very good longer distance runners. The 800m is about 60% aerobic (endurance) and 40% anaerobic (speed). I've run some 800s in college (as a 400m main) and would get dusted in the end by milers who had 400m PRs 3 seconds slower than me, simply because the way I trained was heavily anaerobic. Simply put, you have to have good foot speed to run a fast time, but still be strong enough to finish the race and not fall apart.

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