This past summer, the world's greatest athletes assembled to compete in their respective events for the Olympics. Track & field is usually one of the events that dominates the news coverage and TV time for the summer games.
Some of the fellow runners I know, as well as many of my coworkers, marveled at the accomplishments of one athlete in particular—Usain Bolt. The sheer speed he possesses is simply awesome. Any time he is running, another world record might be broken!
I do some speed work too in my running in order to build my fast twitch muscles, but I know I'm nowhere near as fast as Usain Bolt.
A couple of my coworkers and I had a conversion about how fast each of us thought we could possibly run 100 meters, the strongest event for Bolt. Most of them aren't true runners but they thought I would be really quick since I am a runner. I said I really didn't know because I never really sprinted all out for that (short of a) distance. I've ran hard on the straightaway of a track before, but never a 100%, give it all you have effort.
Because of conflicting schedules, I was never able to meet up with my coworkers for us to try this 100 meter experiment. So the other week I finally just decided to try it myself.
I measured the distance using my Garmin GPS watch, which very closely matched the outer white lines of the soccer field I was at. (I wasn't able to find an open track for my experiment.) I also knew it would be hard to time myself too, for it is very hard to look (clearly) at your watch when you're sprinting. I knew going into the experiment that the results would be slightly off but then again it was just for fun. I was also running on grass too so I didn't otherwise have the advantage of running on the smoother and more stable surface of a track.
I warmed up by running a mile at a progressively faster pace and then decided it was time to see what I was made of. I got to my starting point and looked at my watch. I was going to start when the seconds hit double zero. When it did I took off as fast as I could and tried my best to maintain that speed the entire way through. I felt incredibly fast for awhile near the beginning but it's super tough to keep that up. I was also trying to run landing on just the front part of my foot, which is a little new to me and actually made me feel a little unsteady for a few steps too. The last 50 or so meters seemed so long!!! I couldn't believe how long 100 meters could seem when your really, really, REALLY getting out of breath and your muscles are working overtime! I glanced at my watch as I crossed the far white line of the soccer field and then jogged back around to my starting point. I ran the 100 like that a total of four times and I was pretty much spent as far as energy. My cooldown mile that I ran was fairly slow because of that.
So what were my results? Again, it was hard to view my watch when I was going at that speed but I was able to see the seconds. The first two attempts were around 16 seconds and the final 2 attempts were around 15 seconds. That's about where I thought I might be.
However, after running that hard—and I do mean harder than I've EVER ran before—I really wish my effort would have shown something in the 13-14 second range. I think with perfect conditions—having some time me more accurately, training more for this type of effort, doing it in the summer when my muscles would be warmer overall, and of course running it on an actual track—I think I could possibly knock down my time to something in that range. Maybe I'm just a believer in wishful thinking though!
Regardless, it was a fun experiment (sans the sore quads for 2 days) that gave me a new respect for the accomplishments of the greats like Usain Bolt and all that came before him. Maybe by the time he breaks 9.6 seconds for the 100 meters in the 2016 Rio games I will have broken the 13.6 barrier. I wouldn't be surprised if the former happens before the latter though!
