Reading the Athletics Weekly over the weekend I was interested to read the article entitled 'A Match for Bolt? Which discusses some American Footballers who believe they can run as fast, if not faster than Usain Bolt.
I have never claimed to be a sprinter but the article did bring to mind my two attempts at sprinting. Like the majority of club runners when representing your Club at Track League meetings you invariably get asked to 'fill in' for events when there is not a full team.
Such was the case for both of my attempts. The first was at a Northern League Division 5 meeting at Rotherham, where I ran 5000m, but was also asked to make up the team for the 100m (and shot put - but that's another story). As I lined up for the 100m B race the aim was to just try to hang - on and I thought possibly pip a couple at the finish. However, as the gun fired, my reaction time was so slow that the rest of the field seemed to be nearly half way down the track as I got going. Being roundly beaten by everyone I finished last - but at least I scored a point for the team. If you glance at my list of PB's at the side of this blog, you will see that I have not recorded this 100m effort. But for the record it was 13.1 seconds (and now you know why I have not recorded it)
The second attempt was again to 'fill-in' this time however, it was to run a leg of the 4 x 100m relay (shows how desperate we must have been). The other three runners in the team were all sprinters and so the plan was that our first leg runner would get us off to a good start, I would run the second leg and try to keep in contention for as long as possible and our remaining two runners would try to make up for what I had lost.
As the race got underway our first leg runner came storming around the bend in the lead! As he approached the agreed point on the track I set off at what I thought was a good speed and waited for the baton to drop into my hand. The problem was he was travelling a lot faster than I thought and he ended up flying past me and passing the baton back over to me. But we weren't disqualified, so either this is still a legal changeover or the track judge missed what happened (or was to busy laughing).
This, then is the sum total of my sprinting career.
Back to the now
The snowfall here was pretty heavy last night, as a result I decided to run into work this morning rather than struggle in with the car. So 11 miles in before work. As large stretches of the route home are on unlit roads I didn't fancy playing dodgem with any cars I came across so decided this evening to get home using a combination of running and bus. so it was only 5 miles tonight. Still 16 miles for the day is not a bad return.
It's still snowing so it looks as though I may be repeating the journey tomorrow.
I have never claimed to be a sprinter but the article did bring to mind my two attempts at sprinting. Like the majority of club runners when representing your Club at Track League meetings you invariably get asked to 'fill in' for events when there is not a full team.
Such was the case for both of my attempts. The first was at a Northern League Division 5 meeting at Rotherham, where I ran 5000m, but was also asked to make up the team for the 100m (and shot put - but that's another story). As I lined up for the 100m B race the aim was to just try to hang - on and I thought possibly pip a couple at the finish. However, as the gun fired, my reaction time was so slow that the rest of the field seemed to be nearly half way down the track as I got going. Being roundly beaten by everyone I finished last - but at least I scored a point for the team. If you glance at my list of PB's at the side of this blog, you will see that I have not recorded this 100m effort. But for the record it was 13.1 seconds (and now you know why I have not recorded it)
The second attempt was again to 'fill-in' this time however, it was to run a leg of the 4 x 100m relay (shows how desperate we must have been). The other three runners in the team were all sprinters and so the plan was that our first leg runner would get us off to a good start, I would run the second leg and try to keep in contention for as long as possible and our remaining two runners would try to make up for what I had lost.
As the race got underway our first leg runner came storming around the bend in the lead! As he approached the agreed point on the track I set off at what I thought was a good speed and waited for the baton to drop into my hand. The problem was he was travelling a lot faster than I thought and he ended up flying past me and passing the baton back over to me. But we weren't disqualified, so either this is still a legal changeover or the track judge missed what happened (or was to busy laughing).
This, then is the sum total of my sprinting career.
Back to the now
The snowfall here was pretty heavy last night, as a result I decided to run into work this morning rather than struggle in with the car. So 11 miles in before work. As large stretches of the route home are on unlit roads I didn't fancy playing dodgem with any cars I came across so decided this evening to get home using a combination of running and bus. so it was only 5 miles tonight. Still 16 miles for the day is not a bad return.
It's still snowing so it looks as though I may be repeating the journey tomorrow.
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