Last summer I closed out my return to masters track feeling on track for a successful summer. This week delivered the sequel: two meets in two days, three season PRs, a lightning delay, and a 200m run at 11:15pm that ended, quite literally, in the dark.

Thursday: BRR #3

Thursday night was the third meet of the Boulder Road Runners All-Comers series at CU’s Potts Field, and it produced my fastest 400m of the season: 1:09.8, a 2.4-second drop from my previous season PR just two weeks earlier. That also makes it my fastest 400m since my comeback began two years ago, when a pulled hamstring ended my first meet after a single race. Actually, that makes it my fastest 400m since the 2020 indoor championships – before COVID, a cross-country move, a spinal surgery, and a second kid.

The splits told the story: a strong opening 100, a smooth 200, a tough 300 where the fatigue really bites, and then a hanging on for dear life 400. My football readers will recognize the feeling: it’s one thing to look good in the first quarter, and another thing entirely to finish strong in the fourth.

Thursday also featured my competitive shot put debut. Throwing the full 16lb implement, I put up 7.68m; it’s a modest baseline, but every baseline is an opportunity to improve.

By the end of the night my hamstrings were destroyed. Recovery smoothie, twenty minutes in the pool, and an early bedtime were non-negotiable, because the very next day was an even bigger test.

Friday Night Lights: The Denver Twilight Finale

Friday evening brought the finale of the Denver Twilight Series, a proper Friday night lights experience for a guy whose Friday nights under stadium lights used to involve shoulder pads. I arrived at 16:30 and was fully warmed up for a 17:30 100m start when lightning was spotted and the meet shut down for an hour of rain and waiting. By the time we resumed around 18:30, I had rewarmed from scratch, and my legs were already reminding me that Thursday’s 400 hadn’t fully left the building.

The 100m went out in 14.58. That’s not my fastest of the season, but, on dead legs and after two full warm-ups, it was a comparitavely better result than my 14.47 from regionals last month, which came with a huge +5.3 m/s tailwind. It was just enough to take gold in my age group.

Then came the long middle of the night. This turned out to be a massive meet, with dozens of heats per event, so I spent hours resting, refueling, and cheering on friends between races. By the time the 200m finally came up, it was already 22:30, I was yawning, and my legs were really stiff, so I was warming up for the third time in one evening. There was an additional problem, too: city regulations required that the stadium lights go off by 23:00, so there was no guarantee that they would even make it to my heat, which was scheduled to be last.

The meet operations team did an excellent job of hurrying everyone through their heats. The moment the gun went off for one heat, the next heat was already ready to take the track and set their blocks. They also combined heats in cases where there were several scratches. Despite their best efforts, though, there was no way they would get to the masters heats by 23:00. Then they made an announcement: they had successfully negotiated with the city to extend the lights cutoff to 23:15. It was like the governor called with a death row pardon! It would be close, but now there was a chance.

My heat was finally called onto the track at 23:13. After everyone got their blocks set and everybody’s lane was confirmed, the clock read 23:14. We just needed to get started before the lights went out! If we had to run in the dark, so be it. We got set, the gun went off, and we we all bolted around the track. Seconds after we finished, the lights finally went out for good. I stumbled my way through the tents (and picked up my second gold medal!) back to where my bag was, changed out of my track spikes, and phone-flashlit my way out of the stadium to my car. We did it!

When I arrived home well after midnight (So much for a proper recovery protocol!), I could finally log into the race website and receive the best surprise of the two days: 30.93, a new season PR, run on legs that had already survived a 400m PR and a twice-warmed 100m. I felt bad for the 5K and 4×400 relay, both of which had to be outright cancelled, but grateful that the race organizers worked so diligently to ensure that all 200 runners got their chance. Finishing the race in the dark felt like some kind of track and field Cinderella story. It was Friday night lights in the most literal sense: clear eyes, full hearts, and then absolutely no lights at all!

The Lows Make the Highs

Five years ago, after spinal surgery, running a single all-out 400m would have seemed like a fantasy. Two years ago, my comeback lasted exactly one race before my hamstring gave out. This week I competed four events across two days, on triple-warmed-up legs, and came away with three season PRs and zero injuries.

The lows were real: destroyed hamstrings, hours of waiting in the rain, legs that felt spent before the biggest race of the night. But the lows are exactly what made the highs worth writing about. Training works. Showing up works. Persistence works. And sometimes the most satisfying race of the season is the one you run near midnight, in the dark, when most others have already gone home.

The season isn’t over yet, and neither am I. Onward and upward – or at least onward and around the oval!