WOODBURY — Everything burns.
Your throat is on fire, your legs are numb, that awful pins-and-needles sensation creeps through your feet.
These are the feelings that take over your body during the 400-meter dash.
It’s one lap, full sprint, in 60 seconds (if you’re lucky) of pure agony and pain.
Is it the hardest event in high school track and field?
When asking this challenging question, Nonnewaug athletes shared many different opinions and reasons about why the 400 is the hardest event.
Junior Veronika Nicholas, a three-year member of Nonnewaug track team, is adamant about her opinion.
“It gets to a point where it’s really mentally challenging and you hit a wall,” Nicholas said. “You have to push through it and push through the pain because you get to a point where you feel like your muscles are disintegrating inside of you. You have to have so much muscle mass to get there and be so strong.”
While many point to the mental challenge, there’s no denying the physical strain involved.
“The last 100 meters [during the 400-meter race] everything goes black, everything hurts,” says junior Brycen Gagne. “It’s an event where you must sprint the whole lap, while knowing how to conserve energy, it really is so challenging.”
Senior Thomas Lenygel agrees that the 400 is the hardest event.
“It is an all-out sprint, but unlike in most other longer distances, you have to pace yourself, yet for this one you kinda just gotta sprint,” says Lenygel. “It is really rough on your body as well, especially your legs.”
Boys track coach Deborah Flaherty speaks from experience in that the 400 is one of the most difficult events in track.
“I used to run a lot of track events from sprints to long-distance, including the 400 meters,” Flaherty said. “Imagine running an entire lap, full speed. It’s exhausting.”
Flaherty also finds many other events challenging.
“The 3,200 is a distance event so grueling in itself, yet athletes also have to have the mental capacity to run hard while running eight loops with no change in scenery,” Flaherty said. “[It’s] mentally and physically so hard. Then there are field events. They are so technical, especially the high jump, pole vault, discus, and javelin. Many athletes make it look easy, but there are many, many technical aspects that go into each of those events.”
