Sprint till you can't walk

by Susheelkumar Singh
(India)

The hardest workout I ever did was supposed to be a fool-around fun workout in high school track. But I don't fool around, and so I paid for it.

The workout was a twelve-leg, four-person relay, where each teammate ran two 400s and one 800, in any order.

Well, the other teams go 400-800-400, but I tell my team to start out 800-400-400. I run first, and my team is in the lead when I hand off the baton because I just set my PR (personal record) in the 800.

When I get the baton, again, my team is no longer in the lead, but somehow we're only 150m behind. By after I run my 400, we're at a dead heat again, because I just ran a race-pace 400.

When the baton comes around again, we're two steps ahead, and we have over 100m of lead by the time I finish my last 400, because it was even faster than my first one; a personal record.

I was able to stand long enough to watch my team finish, but after that I couldn't walk.

Way back in 1989 I had walked on to the University of Oregon's cross country and distance squad.

They let me in as a scrub for their depth pool because my high school times were fast enough.

What I didn't know was I had been anemic for several months. I'd also suffered stress fractures and had averaged less than 30 miles a week, and was nowhere near the shape I'd been in a year before.

Note from Dr. Dan

Susheelkumar,

I guess your motto is "leave it all on the field!"

You don't back off -- stress fractures, anemia, personal bests in a "fun" workout.

Dr. Dan