I raced the USATF Regional Masters Outdoor Championships (for the eastern and southeastern regions) yesterday, competing in the 1500 and the 800. Officially, I ran 6:14.91 for the 1500 and 3:18.46 for the 800.
I entered this meet as a final tune-up before the Hartford Nationals in Hoover, Alabama in mid-July, where I'll be running the 5000, the 1500, the 800, and the 400 (over two days, with two races each day).
My goals for this summer include improving my top end speed and running more smoothly when starting from a standstill. I've focused on this in both my running and my PT and have been using various races to experiment. The source of my difficulties in these two areas seems to be stiffness and locking legs, which get worse if I try to aggressively accelerate. Which makes racing, especially shorter distance racing, challenging.
In turn, the stiffness and locking legs have multiple interlocking causes (pun intended). One cause is my opposing muscles contracting against each other due to neurotransmitter stuff. I manage these with medication and stretching.
Another cause is balance issues. There are three components to balance - vision, vestibular function, and proprioception. Both my vestibular system and my proprioception are lousy, meaning that I'm never quite sure where the ground is relative to my feet, and that I rely really heavily on my vision to orient myself in space.
If you've ever gone up or down stairs and encountered a step that's not the same height as the others, then you know how your body stiffens for a second in surprise while you try to calculate where the ground actually is. That's pretty much what it feels like when running, since my foot regularly makes contact with the ground a microsecond earlier or later than I expect. And so a lot of my focus is on trying to stay loose even as that happens. Obviously, I do a lot of work on both my proprioception and my vestibular sense daily, and it's helped some, but it's not a full fix. I still need to rely on my vision, and to date that hasn't worked so well.
But recently, while discussing with a PT, we realized that when I ran I was looking generally either at the ground about 60-80m ahead (which sometimes shifted to looking at my feet - bad) or at the runner in front of me. Either of these would be moving objects - looking at something stationary would be much more helpful. So, I started picking and using fixed objects ahead (lamp-posts, trees, fences) as focus points. And it seemed to help substantially - I was looser, which translated to faster running.
After playing with this concept over some runs, I decided to test it this weekend in these two races - keeping my eyes focused on some part of the outside fence of the track, rather than on the track or my competitors. (How would I make sure I didn't collide with anyone? Peripheral vision.)
***
My races were in the middle of the day, expected to start around 11:50 (the 1500) and 1:15 (the 800). I arrived at the meet around 9:15 am so I could watch a friend pole vault, and then began warming up around 11 am for my race (the first two miles served double duty as I caught up with an old friend). I did 3.5 miles in my SL 20s, and then swapped into my Takumi Sen 7s. There was no stack height restriction for this race, so I could have worn Vaporflies. However, I wanted to stay familiar with the shoes I'd be wearing at the Hartford Nationals, so TS7s it was.
The meet was running late, with the result that I did 8 or so strides before we were ready to start (with lotsa chatting in between). Then we lined up. There were about 10 women, allocated among several different masters age groups. I reminded myself that I did not care about time or place here. The only thing that mattered was focusing on those external points and running smoothly and relaxed.
The gun went off and I pushed forward for a moment. Then I remembered, applied some mental brakes, and found my first focal point on the edge of the track. Around and around I went - passing people as I flowed but trying not to look at them or think too much about them.
Big thanks to Sara Whittingham for the two videos posted here
I should also note in passing that Sara (another T36) flew in for the day
to snag qualifying times for the Paralympic trials in the 100m and 200m.
And pulled off both. Pretty darn cool
This worked great until the final lap, when I passed someone who I knew was in my age group. At that point, I forgot myself for a second and tried to kick. And that was enough to stiffen up my legs. She passed me back and I worked my way to the finish line, crossing in 6:14. I was annoyed with myself, but it was a good lesson learned. And better here than in Alabama.
***
I had a several hour wait before my next race, the 800. I hung around and chatted with friends for some time, and then finally decided to go warm-up. Unfortunately, there wasn't really a good area to do so. I jogged easily on the asphalt path outside the track, but my TS 7s can sometimes slip a bit on pavement, so I wanted to do my strides on the track or field. But the field was too soft, and the track was occupied with the 400m hurdles. I finally found a stretch that would work by the javelin pit, only to be called to the start after one stride. Oh well, I'd go with this.
We lined up again, and I committed to focusing on my external points the entire race. Same start as before - the gun went off and I surged before pulling back and focusing. This time I did manage to keep my focus and stay smooth the entire race. Like last time I passed someone only to be passed back on the homestretch, but this time it was because she had a kick and I didn't. The race still felt like a solid step forward. I was surprised that the time wasn't a bit faster (3:18.46 as opposed to 3:19.95 two weeks ago), but I suspect I would have benefited from more strides.
All in all, it was a long day, but also good, fun, and valuable. You can't ask for more than that (though cloud cover would have been nice). I stayed to cheer a friend on in her 200m race, then grabbed my medals (2nd of two in my age group for the 1500 and 1st of two in my age group for the 800).
Other points:
- It was a pretty hot day - temperature of 88 F and dew point of 73 F for the 1500, and 90 F/74 F for the 800. Both those distances are so short that the heat was a non-issue, other than that I probably should have stayed out of the sun more between races.
- One thing about these long days - I don't want to race these short distances on a full stomach, so I end up not eating anything except bananas, dates, and occasional bites of a bagel until I'm done. Which makes for a massive post-race District Taco order.
- I'm starting to like the Takumi Sen 7s more and more. I will be sad when it's October and they are no longer legal for para-track meets.
- With my focus on running relaxed and focusing externally, it felt like my cadence was markedly slow for both races. I checked my cadence on Garmin, and....my cadence was 201 for the 1500 and 202 for the 800. Yeah, I don't think I need to worry about my cadence being slow.
- When I reviewed the videos of my runs in the 1500 and 800, I noted that I am bending slightly at the waist again and overstriding. (It's very interesting to compare my gait in the 1500 this weekend to my gait during the Fifth Avenue Mile in 2019.) So I need to fix that. That's almost certainly costing me a ton of time.
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