Fountain of Youth: Need for Speed

 BOOM, BOOM, POW....Now that I got your attention I am going to recap the month of June in terms of training, racing and life's obstacles/choices that I have encountered.  Sometimes I like to think of myself as a creative writer, a person who looks at life slightly differently than others from time to time. My training is no different as of late, I have held my focus away from running more than I ever have over the last 7 years so and fortunately have been able to still have some minor success along my journey.

   As the first week of May hit, I decided that it would be a great time to jump back into my training regimen but under a totally new perspective and approach. After The Cooper River 10k and my unset of pain from my shins, I shifted my focus away from all forms of cardio to solely strength building. I was hitting the weight room 3x a week pretty hard core and noticed some solid gains in a 5-6 week process. No I did not come out looking like I was hopped up on the roids BUT I felt 10x stronger, more powerful and confident than ever. For the first time ever I felt that taking a few steps back and looking ahead into the long term, this change of focus would be hugely beneficial. Building strength with muscles that are weak or very seldom used, it could only increase my chances of staying injury free as well as being able to lift a couch effortlessly if a friend ever needed my assistance.

   Despite being very reluctant I began incorporating lunges, squats and the leg press into my "off season" routine, it brought along some pretty stellar soreness but I enjoyed the change.  This new routine was a massive "HELLO" to my body as it truly put a shock to my system which allowed me to actually trim down while building muscle at the same time. After jumping in the Twilight 5k from 5 straight weeks off from running I decided it was time to start back. I began with 2-3 days of running and would increase to 4 days a week by the beginning of June. I found a training plan online through googling a few key words like "getting fast quick", "a fast mile" and etc then bam, I FOUND IT!

Murderous Mile; UK style

   After reading through and article and looking over this plan, I knew I had a short amount of time to find some turnover in my legs as I had recently signed up for the Ultimate Runner, a race I first completed in 2001 and had always listed as one of the few races I really wanted to win one day. Plus I wanted to see if a sub 4:30 mile was possible again, as the sub 15minute 5000m race has seemingly slipped out of my traps this year. As this plans shows, it is all about intensity and lots of it! As a disclaimer I want to say that I have never been a person who did more than one workout a week at times, adding a 2nd workout as I was building up for a race increasing the anaerobic speed as well as threshold workouts. This could ultimately lead to injury in a very quick way, but I just wanted to try something like this to see what results would follow. Through the 1st week I was falling to pieces and needed someone to scrape me up off of the ground to say the least.

4th Week when Bert wrecked me

  As time progressed my body adapted to these workouts and I began embracing the faith that I could in-fact challenge Mr. Bert Rodriguez in the championship mile at the end of June. Week after week I made the trip out to the track series and made my best effort to do nearly every event possible in order to stress my body, building strength and speed. The most beneficial component of doing so many events is not being able to recover and forcing your body to handle the tightness throughout your body as you gasp for air. In week two I witnessed Bert run away from everyone in an stellar 4:23 mile which blew my mind. "There goes beating Bert, I thought maybe a 4:25-26 could do it but he ran 4:23 in the 2nd week OUCH!". Week after week I kept my trainers or flats on for the most part at the series, hiding away my Nike Matumbo spikes that would lead me to greatness.

   It's D-day, I arrive to the track early in order to get in a solid warm-up and dynamic exercise before the Championship Mile. While doing some drills at the AG track my truck key falls out of my pocket without notice as I am listening to MGK's single "Wild Boy" pumping through my yurbuds. As I reach Myers park I realized I don't have my key which opens my truck which ultimately holds my spikes! I rush back to the track thankfully to have Clint point out my key and rush back to my truck. I feel so light on my feet as I toss on my Nike Matumbo spikes, someone says, "oh sorry man, Bert is here!", I reply back, "Good, it's going to be a fun day". We all line up and I am thinking to myself, "Stick with Bert, if he goes out to slow then just go for it, you better at least break 4:30". Pow!!!! We are off and Bert takes the first lane and I immediately go around him and began pushing the pace. This is not my typical style but this is not going to be a sit and kick, the both of us are going to earn this race.

  Pulling the pack felt great as we passed through the 1st lap with a nice home crowd of CRC folks cheering us on. Bert eventually pulled just ahead of me before 800m and I could hear so many people screaming "Come on Chris, Come on Lamperski, stay with him stay with him!!!". I was PUMPED, this is where I needed to be in the moment and for a change I was, trailing as he began lifting the pace faster and faster as he did the previous week leaving my in the dust over the last 400m. "Surge, Surge, stop being a baby, this is your time" I am telling myself, by the time we hit the bell, I can tell all of my friends are going crazy because they are in disbelief that I am still with Bert. With the last 300m looming we both give it our best efforts heading for home. Fatigue setting in, gasping for air I look up with about 70m to go and see the clock.."4:10, 4:11..."....<pause> "HOLY SH*T" I am close to breaking 4:20 not 4:30! I push through the clock as it turns over 4:20 and scream in joy!
Link to race results for Championship Mile

  Never in my wildest dream would I imagine that I would run a 4:20 mile at 30 years of age, none of my workouts ever indicated that, partially because I never chose to wear a watch after the very 1st workout bomb. This goes to show you that sometimes going in with blind faith can really lead you to the promise land. Now I think I will go down in history as the HAPPIEST 2nd place finisher but I will take that any day. One of the things I take pride in is doing my own training and believing in myself, but most importantly understanding that at the end of the day everyone in the race is in it for the same exact thing; to conquer fears. After all we are a bit scared for having success at times, think about one time you went out too fast and were running with someone who was "faster than you". Maybe you should have not thought about it but just kept racing, did that thought hold you back, did it hamper your entire run?