I will be the first to admit I’m not much of a runner these days. I will occasionally take to decent paced walking on a treadmill, but rarely, if ever, full on running. I’m just not that into intense treadmill-like cardio these days.
As I’ve recently discovered, that’s not to say I would not excel in running-based activities, at least in short bursts. As part of the body fat percentage challenge one of the challenges was essentially a 400m dash with “turn around’s” every 20m. Basically there was only room for about 20m at a time. The official challenge was “down and back ten times.” Based on measurements, every down and back was 40m.
The math equals out to a bit over four football fields, for a visual, if running straight on.
My initial run clocked in at about 1 min, 41 seconds. To my surprise, this garnered a fair amount of praise from my trainers. I was not quite sure why.
My personal speculation was that given my overall mass, this time was legitimately surprising. I was roughly 265-ish lbs at the time of the 1m 41s run.
This speculation and internal review had me also wondering what I may have been doing during the time trial to aid myself. Specifically, I think part is all in how you position your body during the turn.
As a clarification, when in the moment, it’s not as easy as it seems. However the idea is that during that last moment before the turn around, you land in a position where you’re already facing forward in the new direction. That way you’re not having to so much physically turn around after landing. I have not done such repositioning, likely since my sophomore year in high school for basketball.
Back on topic, I was feeling some pressure to top myself and that 1m 41s time, based on the hype from my coaches. I do not mind that pressure, because I know they want the best for me and want me to excel. I love them for that and I hope they know.
So, I slowly and steadily built myself up to a rematch with myself and the 400m dash challenge. Sometimes, timing is everything, and I wanted to make sure that I was at my potential peak to try again. Given my weekly schedule, this was going to be on a Monday, when I was relatively fresh off a relaxing weekend.
Before the time came, I made sure I had at least some carbs late in the afternoon to provide some energy, but mostly just an overall healthy diet. I also hoped to not be mentally worn out from my day job. On Monday afternoon, February 24th, I gave my second attempt at the 400m dash.
As a fun little spoiler, after this new run, I apparently have two different coaches envious afterwards. I am told I managed to best them both for overall time.
With my second attempt, I clocked in at roughly 1m 38s*. The asterisk is not a typo, but a footnote of sorts, added for a very specific detail. On the very last leg of the run, the home stretch, I tripped and fell. I got up, and finished my run. Based on eye witness reports, it took me a good 4 seconds to actually get up and finish. I am not always the quickest at getting off the floor.
So, not only did I literally trip and fall, I still beat my previous time by a good 3 seconds. I’m still thinking about and imagining what other times I could achieve. I still want to see how well I do when:
- I don’t trip
- I attempt this without having gone through two exercise sessions immediately beforehand.
I have to believe low 1m30s range is possible.
