ONCE TRACK SEASON GOT INTO FULL SWING and winter was gone for good, it felt awesome to fully immerse my mind and body in even more intense training. The rest of April brought a heavy dose of intervals: 300s, 400s, 600s. We always finished with a series of 150s to simulate the ends of races. Curtis insisted I needed to build the muscle memory necessary to dig deeper, reach for that last gear, and harness and unleash a kick. Even when every ounce of energy seemed to be sapped from me.
My body was strong from winter training. The countless long runs in the cold and darkness began to pay off. My skin, muscles, and bones were hardened by the snow, cold, wind, sleet, and slush. Curtis still owned me at any distance beyond the 1600, but he could no longer keep up with me during interval sessions. He decreased the recovery period, but I still outran him. So he devised workouts where he took various leads and I chased him down, and I developed new skills and strategies to apply in races.
As he promised, the 1600 did become my race. I followed his advice and ran the first two laps more aggressively and pushed the pace, and sure enough nobody had the strength left to run with me in the end. I ran 800s and 3200s to improve my speed and strength, but I owned the 1600. By mid-April I had shaved thirteen seconds off my personal best, winning the 1600 at the Kirkwood invite in 4:19.
“Not bad, Leo,” Curtis congratulated me. “But your work is far from done.”
We decided to opt out of the bus ride home after that meet to get in a slow seven-miler.
“Take ten or eleven more seconds off and you’ve got a legitimate shot at winning state,” he told me.
I counted off ten seconds in my head as we continued running. The distance covered in that time seemed overwhelming. “Ten seconds is impossible, Curtis.”
He laughed. “Once it gets even warmer in May and this wind disappears, you’ll be a different runner. Believe me.”
We took a right turn onto Clayton toward school and were rewarded with one more cold blast of April wind.
I counted off ten seconds again and again in my head as we took turns breaking the headwind on our run home.
Ten seconds seemed quantum.