Months ago, a teenage athlete asked me if I liked the 300 meter hurdles as a high schooler. I responded, “does anyone really *like* the 300 hurdles?”
That answer was callous and dismissive. As it turns out, she loves the 300 hurdles. Two other teenage athletes I’ve been trusted to work with love the 400, one of whom hopes to run the 400H in college…so the point is that I set a crappy example with that response.
Next time I saw her, I apologized for writing off her event with a flippant comment. Then I confessed: I always wanted to be good at the 300 hurdles and the open 400, but I was afraid of the pain and didn’t do the work to succeed. Rather than ever owning that as a high schooler, I decided those were dumb races, avoided them, and sneered at athletes who were “forced” into them.
Fast forward 6 weeks when I got to working with a Masters sprinter on his 400H race. I gave him the right work, corrected the right technical things, and watched him put up great results in the last race of the season. I was so jealous that I could taste acid in my mouth.
But to be jealous is utterly stupid here. I’m jealous of the pain? I’m jealous of the immense technical challenge? I’m jealous of the beatdown necessary at practice to become an accomplished long hurdler?
No point being jealous; all of those are free to claim, free to strive for, and free to earn.
I’ve just been running away from them because I fear them.
But I professed aloud, fully spontaneously, to a group of athletes I brought together for a speed endurance practice that I would contest Masters nationals in the 400H in 2026. One of them asked – innocuously, but I took it as menacing – why I’d decided to do that. This was moments before their third of four long sprints, a 150, fully 90 meters farther in that rep than I’d run in any practice over the last 2 years.
I responded, “Because I’m done being afraid of the pain I ask you to work through at practice.”
If this were a movie, there would have been a pregnant pause, then cut to a close-up on my emotional expression, before the music swells while I deliver my line.
Instead, said athlete nodded, chuckled to herself, and said, “Seems fair!” Then she got on with that 150, no drama.
So there it is. I’m going to contest the 400 meter hurdles at USATF Masters Nationals 2026. It’s only fair.
Why not 2025? I have my heart set on improving my 110H over my 2017 marks and on being back at a sustainable weight and on expanding my coaching practice and on being more present at home and on…well, I’m trying to do enough in 2025, ya know?
But laying the foundation starts now.
Conditioning is still overrated, but it’s inescapable in preparing for a sub-60 race over 10 sticks. I need the most speed and the least dead weight, which my 110H prep will provide, but I also need the courage to run through lactate in lonely practices so that I’ll have the confidence to race flat-out at meets.
More than anything, I need to stay close to what I ask of athletes. As a coach, I feel I should intimately know the discomfort, distress, and difficulty of the workouts I prescribe to athletes. I don’t get to cherry-pick my own workouts to be 95% pleasure, yet dole out 70:30 pleasure: pain ratios to my athletes.
In doing that, I’ll stop running from my fears on the track. If I run toward fear, I’ll figure out where I am truly weak and where I could be great.
And if I run toward fear often enough and hard enough, I can set the right example for that teenage athlete. To LM, the honest answer is that I love the 300 meter hurdles, but I wish I had worked both smarter and harder at them. I’m excited for your success in them come spring – and I’m ready to try my hand at the 400H race for the first time next year, too.
I’m afraid of the pain and the technical demand and the hard workouts…but those fears are just what are between me and the finish line, no different than those 10 sticks.
Cue the music.
