Pace (2/4 of "My Track Career in 400m")
Last week, I published "Push," the start of my track career and the first of five parts of a personal essay titled "My Track Career in 400m." If you missed it, you can find it here.
Pace is part two and represents the backstretch, my favorite part of a 400m. Enjoy!
PACE.
*
As I enter the backstr
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etch, I downshift a gear. If I kept pushing for the next 100m, I will have legs of cement for the final 200m (speaking from experience here). So, instead, I assume my “fast and relaxed” form, inspired by a cue my dad tried out in my early teenage years. I press the pace gently with a slight forward lean. My stride opens up, covering more territory with each step. My arms swing freely at my side and extend the momentum from the push down the track. After the race, a spectator might approach me, telling me I made it look easy. I then guess that they were seated in the back stands for this moment of relaxed concentration. Unlike the first or third 100m of the race, I don’t need to tell my body what to do. It just does it. No technical thought or strategy are needed. My mind leaves my body, but it doesn’t go anywhere. It simply lets go, risking no interference with the flow of inertia. I feel empty yet whole at the same time, like a piece of driftwood rushing atop the whitewaters. This is my favorite part of the race because each step feels so effortless as though it were meant to be.
*
I tend to push my way through life. It’s far too easy to chase after the next goal and far too difficult to relax and enjoy the moment. As a result, the finish line keeps moving. Yet it’s not reached by pushing but by pacing. In the second 100 of a 400m, I let off the gas a little bit. In life, that’s not so easy to do. Sometimes there’s traffic and one just needs to brake. Sometimes one slams the brakes to the floorboard. I have even given someone else the wheel entirely. For me, that’s the hardest part.
*
I hit the brakes for the first time my sophomore year, right before I got my driver’s license. My freshman year, our team won the state championship for the first time in program history. The following indoor season was the start of the road to a repeat season. Entered in the “elite” division at New Balance Indoor Nationals for the first time, I was running one more race in Colorado, the Air Force Holiday Open, to fine tune for the upcoming out-of-state meets.
I was also nursing my hamstring.
As the favorite for the 200m, I had my eyes set on the watch prize that every successful Colorado runner owned but never wore. It was silver and thin, yet the face was encircled with rhinestones and featured blue AF initials at the center.
I remember praying to God that my hamstring would hold up through the race as I climbed into my blocks. The initial acceleration posed a risk, but I smoothly transitioned out of it. I came around the turn in relief.
POP. It wasn’t the sound of the starting gun telling me to push this time. No, it was my hamstring, begging me to pace myself. I didn’t listen. I kept running, through the finish line (in first, might I add), and off the track, angry, annoyed, and inconvenienced. Crying. When I finally got to my head coach and dad in the stands, the only thing that could console me was my coach’s promise that I could still run at Simplot, a major regional meet, in two weeks. I had finished the race, he explained, and if it was serious, I would not have been able to. A few days later, I found out that it was in fact serious: a grade 2 hamstring tear. Now, I would have to pace myself for the next 8 weeks as I recovered. Nationals would have to wait, too. The finish line had moved: I just needed to be healthy by the state meet for my team. One push too far, and it could be another 8 weeks recovery.
Though I have no Air Force watch to symbolize my ironic lesson in patience, the season was worth the wait. I set 4 league records and 2 state records, and our team dominated the state meet with a historic high in points scored.
I put my newfound endurance into practice the following year when, two days before my redo at New Balance Indoor Nationals, the pandemic canceled that meet and the subsequent outdoor season. My national pursuits were delayed once more, settling into an even slower pace than before. Together, these two seasons prepared me for an entirely new position my senior season.
Part 3, "Position," will come out shortly. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss it!
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