Mike TheWhite

Judging by the standard I had set before the race – to establish a solid position from which I can improve – my 2009-2010 season opener at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational was a success. My (consolation) final time of 6.78 was admittedly on the upper end of the range that I expected to run, but still within range. More importantly, I was able to come back after an abysmal semi-final performance of 6.82, execute a much better race, and ultimately win the consolation final.

I am still grappling with some technical issues, primarily in the start. While the start is a cliched and all too familiar excuse for poor performance, it is not without good reason. The start precedes every step of the race, and ultimately sets one up positionally for acceleration, transition into maximum velocity, and speed maintenance. A bad start can easily cause bad acceleration, bad max velocity, and bad speed maintenance. While it’s always good to be ahead in the race, a good start isn’t the one that gets you to 10m first, but the one that gets you to 100m first.

I am in the process of feeling out positions that I haven’t been in for years. It’s a tedious process, and to date has required numerous block adjustments, varying mental cues, and the like, all of which serves to discombobulate on race day. Needless to say, while I was feeling good physically at New Balance, I was less than comfortable with my ability to execute.

Things continue to move in a positive direction, however, and the past few days in particular have seen encouraging technical advancement. I am looking for a good improvement on my New Balance performance at my next race, two weeks from now at the Big East Championships, February 20-21 in NYC.

Rarely do we force ourselves to truly consider the fleeting and precarious nature of our accomplishments on the track. It is in our nature to be unreasonably optimistic, either because we do not understand the odds, or because we ignore them.

To begin with, all of us are unknown quantities. None of us truly knows ours own physical limits, and if our bodies will carry us to new heights far beyond our currents personal bests, or if we’re already flirting with our own personal ceilings. Compare the number of men who have run under 10-seconds (70 as of today) to the number of serious male sprinters in the modern track and field era (Mexico Olympics onward), and the sobering conclusion is that, statistically speak, none of us will ever join that club. This is, of course, an oversimplification. The probability of running sub-10 for a given individual takes into account an infinite number of variables, but most importantly current personal best, age, number of years training, etc. A 20-year-old with a personal best of 10.20 has a higher likelihood of breaking 10-seconds than a 27-year-old with a personal best of 10.50.

My point here isn’t to discourage us with unfavorable statistics, but to illustrate both how amazing, and how difficult it is to do what we do. Obviously the odds can be overcome, as has been proven by the 70 men who’ve already done so. In fact, they’re being overcome at an increasing rate; it took 31 years for the first 30 men to break 10-seconds, but 10 years for the next 40. This is indicative of an entire paradigm shift, where sub-10 doesn’t mean anywhere near what it used to. The unworldly exploits of Usain Bolt have made this point clear in dramatic fashion, but even before his record breaking runs, we were entering a time that required an athlete to be sub-10 capable if he wanted to guarantee himself a spot in a World Championship or Olympic final.

Most of us have already defied the odds. In my own case, hundreds of people have run under 10.20. Hardly super-elite, but exclusive in its own right. Statistically speaking, it is amazing that we have accomplished what we have, and fool heartedly that we expect to accomplish a great deal more. When we get injured, run slower than desired, or experience other setbacks, we acts surprised; we are amazed that our carefully considered plans to achieve remarkable performances didn’t come through. In reality, the failure is the normative outcome. Our goal to set a personal best, to run faster than we have ever run before, is only one outcome out of an infinite number of possibilities, and certainly not the most likely one.

We need to appreciate where we’ve already been, if we’re to have any hope at grasping the scale of where we hope to go.

In light of the fact that my time remaining as an Orangeman is sparse, I have decided to launch a new blog. The name, Mike TheWhite, is an obvious play on my last name, LeBlanc, and on the observation that I am often the only white guy on the line. No one need explain the profoundity of how lame it sounds; I am well ware. People often do call me Mike The White, and seeing as how I both needed a new site name, and wasn’t willing to devote any time or energy to coming up with one, this will serve just fine.

After being inundated with injuries for the past two years, I can safely say that I feel better than I have felt in a long time. My body hit a wall at the end of last April, one that I had been headed toward for a long time. More than anything, I needed the eight weeks of total off time I took this summer, and the aggressive physical therapy that followed.

Track and field is a sport of predictions that are swiftly followed by excuses. Rather than offer any substantive predictions, I will say that pursuits are valuable to me when I can excel at them. I operate in extremes. I take no pleasure in mediocrity or half commitments. I’ll either do something and endeavor to be great at it, or not do it at all. If I didn’t believe I had it in me to run very fast, I wouldn’t be doing it anymore. Eventually that day will come – I won’t be one of those athletes who gradually fizzle out into the background. When the immense amount of work I invest into the pursuit of speed no longer pays the dividends it once did, and has no hope of ever doing so again, I’ll hang up the spikes.

But today is not that day, and I don’t see that day for a long time.

Without giving away too many details, I’ll say that I am planning a spartan indoor season. I won’t be racing often, but the times I do race will be strategically important. I open my season on February 5 at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational in NYC. After ten months away from competition, I am looking to establish a firm footing from which to progress.

I want to mention the excellent blog run by the Wariner brothers, Justyn and Ian, at coverground.ca. They have a lot of great material on a wide variety of topics, and it’s worth checking out for anyone.