Every day in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better be running.
-Abe Gubegna, Ethiopia, circa 1974

Some dictionaries define it as “moving rapidly or at top speed for a brief period.” To me, sprinting is a way to get in touch with your primal self–the self that got buried somewhere between elementary school freeze tag and the more sedentary life of adulthood. Sprinting at your top speed, you can feel every part of your body come to life.

Here at Intrepid, we’ve posted WODs with a wide variety of distances when it comes to running. From Death by 10 Meters to the Intrepid 5k, we’ve tried to keep it constantly varied, but with an emphasis on shorter distances and greater speeds. All athletes should get to know their physical capacities well enough to differentiate how to pace a 100m dash vs a 400m, etc. If you loathe the concept altogether, try to think of it in CrossFit terms. You would pace a Fran vs a Filthy Fifty.

Wikipedia further differentiates the differences between the distances:

Races up to 100 m are largely focused upon acceleration to an athlete’s maximum speed. All sprints beyond this distance increasingly incorporate an element of endurance. Human physiology dictates that a runner’s near-top speed cannot be maintained for more than 30-35 seconds due to the accumulation of lactic acid in muscles.

Run today’s 100′s at your top speed. That speed may be not be the same in Round 8 as it was in Round 1, but the effort should be the same. Anybody can coast through the workout today if they use the 100 as a recovery run but those who push themselves during every sprint will make the most strides toward becoming fitter, faster, stronger.

Here are some tips to keep in mind today:

Pull, don’t Push: Remember to pull your foot back into that POSE position instead of pushing out the back and risking a hamstring tear.

Relax: Don’t clench your fists or the tension will spread to your shoulders and torso and slow you down.

Arm Swing: Think of swinging your elbows back and down so your shoulders don’t rise up. Make sure your don’t cross your midline with your hands or you’ll waste energy twisting your torso.

Lean: Keep your lean originating from the ankles and not the waist or your lower back will [not so gently] remind you how much that can suck in the morning.

A very happy birthday to Corrine, who recently finished her Foundations and came to her first group class yesterday! If you see her in the gym, make sure to introduce yourselves and wish her a happy birthday!

WOD 10.04.11

Press 3×5

As Many Rounds in 12 Minutes of:
100 meter Sprint
10 Pull Ups
10 Push Ups

*WOD courtesy of CrossFit Football