Average Joe vs. Olympic Pros

[Jeff Gilchrist]

Good luck on the race in hours from now. Please post a link to anything online when it is up. And have FUN!

[MooMoo2]

Yesterday's race was quite interesting.

I arrived an hour before the event to check-in, and I found out that I wouldn't be racing against the pros since there were too many people running. We were asked to provide a "best possible estimate" for our times, and based on that, I got into a slightly slower race against fast college runners, most of whom were former high school state champions (they run 2-3 seconds slower than the pros for one lap). They gave me lane 8, which was the outermost lane.

Once that was done, I watched the pros run 1500 meters. They don't look that fast when they're running by you, but you could tell that they were flying when you watched them from the opposite side of the track. The winner ran 3:43.

When my event started, I found out that one of the guys didn't show up, so lane 2 was empty. I didn't use starting blocks and don't know how to use them properly, which made me stand out since everyone else used them. Also, I was the shortest and by far the skinniest guy in that race. I wonder what the thousand or so spectators were thinking.

The starting gun sounded like a huge explosion during my warmups, but to my surprise, the gun didn't sound loud at all during my race. I had tunnel vision at first, and I didn't know whether anyone had passed me until I had run about 135 meters. To my surprise, only the guy in lane 7 was ahead. As I approached the second curve, a few other runners pulled ahead, but the gap between me and the leaders was only a meter or two. I heard someone yelling 22...23..., and I remember thinking "this is impossible, if I keep that speed up, my time will be less than two seconds slower than the world record". Then I realized that I was on the outermost lane, so I had a lot more than 200 meters left to run.

That's when things started to get ugly. Not only was everyone else faster than me, but they also had less to run since they were on the inside lanes. The gap between me and the leaders widened really quickly, but I got tunnel vision again halfway through the second turn and didn't notice how everyone was running.

I started getting really tired after that second turn was over, and I heard the crowd roar as the leaders were reaching the finish line. With 50-60 meters to go, I got a quick look at a clock near the finish line which displayed the time, and it read 48 seconds. I didn't think of the leaders anymore, and I focused on the second slowest guy, who was about 35 meters ahead. When he was done, my only thought was to finish the race and get off the track - I was out of breath, my legs were locking up, and a thousand guys were watching.

Two or three people gave me strange looks a few minutes after finishing the race, but other than that, nothing happened. A friend said that I ran the first 200 meters in 27 seconds and the second 200 in 30, which gave me a finishing time of 57 seconds.

Originally Posted by Jeff Gilchrist

Good luck on the race in hours from now. Please post a link to anything online when it is up. And have FUN!

Here you go:
http://www.oxyathletics.com/sports/t...iteResults.htm

I'm a little more than halfway down the page -

Section  4  
  1 Griffin, Carter              Cal Poly Pomona              47.64  
  2 Fortugno, Marcus             La Verne                     48.86  
  3 Vaughn, Eric                 UCLA                         49.02  
  4 Clark, Anthony               Fresno Pacific               49.07  
  5 ward, louis                  Unattached                   49.54  
  6 White, Deun                  Aag Sports Acade             51.36  
  7 Kwok, Michael                Unattached                   57.68  
 -- Thaler, Brendon              Cal Poly Pomona                SCR

[jasonp]

Originally Posted by MooooMoo

When he was done, my only thought was to finish the race and get off the track - I was out of breath, my legs were locking up, and a thousand guys were watching.

Most of those thousand guys would rupture something if they tried to do what you did. Are you actually embarrassed at getting only 80% of the way to an olympic finishing time?

[MooMoo2]

Originally Posted by jasonp

Most of those thousand guys would rupture something if they tried to do what you did. Are you actually embarrassed at getting only 80% of the way to an olympic finishing time?

I felt a bit embarrassed because most people expected me to perform near the level of a pro, and I didn't. Similarly, a couch potato would laugh at a basketball pro who couldn't do a slam dunk, even though the person watching TV probably can't touch the net.

I'm happy with my time, though, especially considering that all of my competitors practiced a lot more than me.

Many years ago, I had a fantasy of going off to some remote running camp, training like hell there, and then coming back to win an Olympic or world championship race. I still have the fantasy of going to a remote area and the fantasy of training like a pro, but this time it's different. I want to go to a rural area for awhile to escape the stress, noise, crowding, and fast-paced life of the city, and I sometimes think of training like a pro because of a curiosity to know what my limits are.

[ET_]

Originally Posted by MooooMoo

Many years ago, I had a fantasy of going off to some remote running camp, training like hell there, and then coming back to win an Olympic or world championship race. I still have the fantasy of going to a remote area and the fantasy of training like a pro, but this time it's different. I want to go to a rural area for awhile to escape the stress, noise, crowding, and fast-paced life of the city, and I sometimes think of training like a pro because of a curiosity to know what my limits are.

We all have similar fantasies...

Think about the hundreds of thousands of people joining GIMPS with the hope to see their names recorded in the big book of Math.

At least you can improve your skills and lower your timings, as long as the pleasure of running is what makes you run.

Good luck!

Luigi

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by MooooMoo

Yesterday's race was quite interesting.

< snip >

Reminded me of my one-and-only autocross.

I had a Datsun 510 with a BRE Mullholland suspension kit (shorter, stiffer springs, an anti-sway bar, and Koni shocks). My reflexes were nowhere near racing-driver quality, and I'd already done a 360 off a gravelly city street because of the oversteer. But I jumped at the chance when the local SCAA club announced an open-to-the-public autocross.

I took out the carpet, rear seat and spare tire to lower weight (maybe curb that oversteer a bit, too, I thought).

I had to enter the Modified section of the displacement class because of the suspension. All entrants first had a slow drivethrough of the ~1/4-mile course for learning. It had a hairpin 180-degree turn and a "garage stop" finish to limit speeds. Then I waited for my class as the runs worked up through the displacements, borrowed a helmet and, sweating, got my car in line.

When I got my start flag, I floored it. Fortunately, the engine didn't bog down as it often did when taking off at full throttle. (Good warmup, hot day.) Dodging cones, I shifted to 2nd. Much faster than I thought it would be - I had figured on 1st gear all the way. Then the hairpin. I badly muffed the downshift, but at least while mashing the clutch I made the 180 without going off course or into an oversteer skid. Then I got it back in 1st and floored it again. At the finish I made a perfect stop between "garage" cones.

Not one cone out of place -- no deductions!

While I watched the bigger cars, the results for my class were posted. I would have had the slowest time, except that another Modified driver had five seconds added for hitting a cone. If I'd driven in the Stock section, I'd have been dead-last ... period.

Suddenly, it occurred to me: I might still take "Fastest Four-Door"! (There was no such actual award.) All the other cars that had raced were two-doors! Yeah, well -- pretty soon there were some Chevy four-doors, and 250 cubic inches hauls their extra pounds plenty fast. At least I got the imaginary "Fastest (i.e., Only) Four-Door Under 200 Cubic Inches".

One of my best all-time memories.

[Historian]

Time to revive this thread.

After some intense googling, I've found the video for the race that he ran. It's at:

http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile....offset=9#video