Torrin Lawrence is quickly becoming a household name in the elite 400 meter running scene.
His recent 45.03 seconds was the third-fastest in collegiate history and the fastest time in the world this year. The indoor world record for 400m was set in 2005 by Kerron Clement’s 44.57. He also ran 32.32 in the 300 meters last month.
There were a lot of good take home messages in the recent article on onlineathens.com
I’m a big fan of single day track meets, but the US College system usually has the 200m, 400m and 4X400m relay spaced within the last hour! When you think about it, running a 3 x 325m workout with a full 20-25 minute recovery is tougher than racing!
Conventional wisdom still holds true: the success of a 400m sprinter will be a combination of a highly conditioned (or prepared) athlete with the right mental mindset going into the toughest event in track and field.
Also, having a good massage therapist for a post-race rub down and pre-race shakeup really helps!
Here is a partial article:
Georgia’s Torrin Lawrence ranks among the top sprinters in the conference and the nation, and he values preparing his mind above everything else.
"I’ve always felt that it’s better to have a better mentality going into a race than the physical," Lawrence said. "My race is physical and mental at the same time, so you’d better have a good grasp of both. I choose to work on the mental because everybody always says I already have the physical."
<snip>
Lawrence, a sophomore sprinter from Jacksonville, Fla., specializes in one of the most difficult dual disciplines in the sport, the 200 dash and the 400 dash. He also anchors Georgia’s 1,600 relay team. At most one-day track meets, the 200, 400 and 1,600 relay finals are spaced about an hour apart.
"That’s a tough double to do at a track meet," Georgia men’s sprinting coach Jon Stuart said. "He’s going to do a 400 and then he’ll do a 200. His legs are going to be burning. He’s got a lot of lactic acid in his legs. His vision is going to be blurry because he’s got tears in your eyes from running so hard. Your arms ache and then you’re going to run the 200, which is a pretty painful race in itself.
"But Torrin can make it look easy when in reality, he’s going to hurt. You’ve got to be really tough to do that. A lot of guys don’t do it because it hurts so bad and a lot of guys just don’t have the pain tolerance to do it."
<snip>
"It’s hard to run a 400 and then mentally prepare yourself to run a 200 because you know your physical part is not all the way up," Lawrence said. "I just have to lay down for about 45 minutes and then start warming up again for about 15 minutes. I just keep telling myself to finish the race no matter what. Then it’s time to get ready for the relay. When it’s all over, all I want to do is go home and go to sleep."
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Hello Jimson,
Yep. It hurts just to read the article. Looking back, what were some of your personal toughest days concerning scheduling?
Side notes about your website:
1. It’s great receiving your emails almost everyday but I noticed one thing that I do but try to avoid doing when it comes to reading them. (And I think everybody else does the same thing.) The complete posted article is there to read, therefore, a number of times I don’t actually go to your website every time. I’m not sure if this affects the number of people who visit your website but I’m sure the statistical numbers would support the assumption. What if you gave the title as well as a few words which start the article which would lead people to actually visiting your site? But maybe that’s not important. I don’t really know.
2. I like the new look of your site but it would be nice if the recent posts had a subheading just as the “Most Popular” and the “400 Meters” posts have. It would also be nice to be able to view the number of people who have commented on the individual posts so that we might be more inclined to check them out and participate by responding in kind. The way it is now makes it more of an effort to see if anyone has commented on a particular post.
3. But perhaps I’m not observing things properly because maybe your Facebook site has much more traffic and is a better way to interact. I don’t use Facebook that much.
0) I had to run a 300m final followed by a 4×400 in 20 minutes. That was my toughest double. I am not a fan of running 400 heats and finals within 4 hours apart. But if I have to, I will.
1) yes, one of the big debates is if RSS feeds (on web or by email) should be full feed or partial. I chose to elect FULL feeds. I rather have my readers gain knowledge and making it simple for them. Some readers like to read email, but not surf the web, while at work for example.
2) That’s a good feature I could implement. I’ll look into it.
As well, the comments are added in the archive page:
https://speedendurance.com/archives/
3) My Facebook Fan Page is just an extension of my thoughts, i.e. if I find an interesting URL or web site. Sometimes I’ll have extra videos or photos to show, so I didn’t want to pollute the blog with overload.
All in all, I am glad you are enjoying the content!