Thought it not prudent to run an all out 400m three days in a row the week of Nationals (no sht Sherlock!), so I took it easy today, did some manual labor and swam across the lake and back.
Feeling much more confident since my event run yesterday.
Happy to report that Masters Track is healthy, alive and well. Nationals this year is the biggest in history of the event. Over 1500 athletes registered. In my age group, 26 for the 400m, and 40 for the 200m. There are usually a number of scratches but even so, probably 3 heats of semis in the 400m, and maybe 4 heats in the 200m. Medaling in this field in the 4th year of my age group will be a good goal and accomplishment. Last time I was in the 4th yr of my age group - 58 yrs old in M55, I didn't even medal at Nationals and did not make the World finals in either the 400m or 200m, missing by a few hundredths of a second in all. So, a medal of any color would be an improvement this yr.
I don't want to be one who looks back on my 'heyday' and past glory, but was just looking last night and I'm happy that I've maintained a decent presence in this sport through the years. Every year I've competed in the past 8 yrs, have been at least top 3 in US, top 10 in world. (I didn't mention the indoor season or the 200m, but had a few yrs of top rankings in those categories as well).
Outdoor 400m rankings in my age group: World, US (did not compete in 2019)
2015 - 3, 1
Try comparing your fastest 200m in a season to your fastest 400m and see what the differential is. This is 200 race pace not a 200 split on a 400 race.
ReplyDeleteNow possibly, if your problem is you are slowing intrinsically your 200m time will worsen, and so will your 400. If you are losing speed endurance capacity your differential will increase.
As an example, and I have never been in your league ! As a younger master I ran 200=29.5, 400=64, differential = 2x200 + 5secs. As my 200 dropped towards 30.5 my 400 went to 67, differential = 2x200 + 6secs. Finally my 200 went to 31.5 but my 400 went to 70.5, differential = 2x200 + 7.5secs then on to 74 secs, differential =2x200 = 11 secs.
As you can see my 400 time initially declined in sync with my 200 time, but then started to accelerate the decline at a faster rate as I lost the ability to sustain my speed.
Now of course for some people the problem may be an intrinsic decline in speed (worse 200) meaning their 400 time has to drop in sync. But iit is also possible to lose speed endurance thereby crashing overall performance.
It's really interesting to crunch the numbers as i did on my most recent post. I'm thinking I'm probably capable of a 200m somewhere about 25.8ish since I ran 26.10 indoor. In '21 I ran 25.36 and my best 1st 200m split in a 400m was right around 27. It was 26.8 in the championship race. So based on that I'm thinking 27.5 + .5 for a lesser speed endurance / VO2 max so about 28 / 30 is where I should be. Although I did run on 3/6 a rolling 56.81 which would adjust to about 57.41 'real world' and my adjusted splits were 26.73 / 30.68. It was probably an anomaly since I've failed to run good times going out that fast this year.
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