About Hometown Hopefuls Hometown Hopefuls follows Atlanta Track Club Elite Team members Abe Alvarado, Brandon Lasater, Keturah Orji, Yolanda Ngarambe, Jarryd Wallace and Allie Wilson as they continue their journey toward Olympic glory. Be there every step of the way from training camp to the Olympic Trials and to Tokyo with every workout, every split, athlete reflections and coaches' comments too. Six athletes. Six months. Six shots.
Lasater reflects on his training period between April 4-18 in this post. To learn more about Lasaterclick here.
Workouts for the Week: April 5-11
Monday: 4 easy miles at the river at 6:36 pace. First day on the ground since the race.50 minutes easy bike later in the day.
Tuesday: 5 miles easy at the river at 6:41 pace. Did a few strides which went okay. 40 minutes easy bike later.
Wednesday: 5.5 miles of running for a track workout at Life University. 10x200 with about 75 secs recovery. Splits were 27, 28, 28, 26, 27, 27, 27, 26, 26, 27. Ankle was a bit sore but didn’t get any worse from the workout or putting on spikes for the last 4. 30 minutes easy bike later.
Thursday: 5 miles easy at the river. I did not wear a watch.
Friday: 4 miles easy after travelling to Miramar. Ended up running a lot later than I normally like to. Did 2x200 at the track for pre-race strides. 26/25.
Saturday: About 10 miles on the day. Did a shakeout in the morning. Raced the 800 at Miramar Invitational and ran 1:51. Not a good time by any means if not typical for my early races. Post race did 3 x 4 minutes at approximately 5:20 pace then 3x1 minute at about 4:40-4:20 pace. Cooled down 2 miles.
Sunday: Day off as we travelled back from Florida. Pretty rough travel day. Got to the airport at approximately 9 AM and then due to rain delays/boarding/deboarding we didn’t make it back to Atlanta until about 10 PM.
Commentary and Reflection of the Week: April 5-11
Brandon continues to make progress after spraining his ankle in Texas. This was a big transition week. He cross trained and then ran on the Alter-G up until this week. We tested out his ankle on Monday and it felt pretty good.
Brandon looked better than expected on the pre-race 200’s we did on Wednesday. He looks smooth and easy. That was a pleasant surprise. His ankle isn’t at 100%, but it isn’t causing him to change his gait, so we'll take it.
On Saturday, Brandon raced at the Miramar Invitational. This is a World Athletics Silver Continental Tour event. Brandon didn’t get a real first race at Texas, as he ran the 2nd half of the race on a sprained ankle, so this was really his first race of the season.
He got out well. He didn’t cover the move midway through the race, so he fell off the pace a bit. This is expected when an athlete hasn’t raced in a while. It takes a race or two to wake up the brain and sharpen the instincts. Things happen so quickly in an 800, that you really don’t have time to think through what you are doing. You have to react. As expected, Brandon is a little rusty here.
At the end of the day, he looked smooth. He had a good workout, and the ankle felt pretty good. We will call this a win. He has some work to do, but if anyone is capable of getting it done, it is Brandon! He will compete in the US Road Mile Championships in a couple of weeks, so he will have a good week of training next week.
Workouts for the Week: April 12-18
Monday: Post travel long run. Legs felt pretty bad but managed 12 miles at 6:30 pace. Avery and I ran through Atlanta. It was pretty nice to run by Georgia Tech and see some places I used to run quite a lot and how they’ve changed.
Tuesday: Avery and I had our workout today. A bit over 6 miles for this one. Workout was 3 sets of 4 x 200m with 100m jog, 4 minutes between sets. Splits were 28, 30, 29, 31, 27, 28, 27, 27, 26, 27, 27, 26. First set felt like garbage and I was a bit worried about the rest, but we recovered well and got down to pace.
Wednesday: 6 miles easy in the morning then got the 2nd shot of the COVID vaccine afterwards.
Thursday: Rest day in anticipation of feeling bad after the COVID vaccine, but I seem to have been lucky and only had a headache that could be attributed to lack of caffeine.
Friday: 6 miles easy at the River. Didn’t wear a watch. Ran into Abe on the way back to my car.
Saturday: 9 miles on the day for a workout at Life. Workout was a 400m, 4 minutes rest, 6 x 800m with 2 minutes rest, then 3 x 300m with 2 minutes rest. The 400m was 54, the 800s ranged from 2:13 to 2:19, and then the 300s were 39-40. Felt pretty tired by the time we made it to the 300s, but it was a pretty solid workout. In the future I need to get the 300s down.
Sunday: Ran 6 miles easy at the River to make up for missed mileage on the week as I did not do my doubles as planned.Saw Robin for massage.
Commentary and Reflection of the Week: April 12-18
Solid week of training. Saturday’s workout went fairly well and my ankle wasn’t any more sore than when I started the week. On that note, the ankle is still kinda iffy, but no sharp pains. Next week and then again in May will be heavier race weeks, so I need to be sure I stay on top of recovery as we go through them.
Commentary and Reflection From Coaches Amy and Andrew Begley on the Week: April 5-11
Brandon had a great week! Brandon did a workout on Tuesday as he had his 2nd vaccine on Wednesday. He was tired from a long trip home from Miami (weather delays stranded them at the airport for most of the day on Sunday). The workout started out rusty, but he nailed the last ⅔ of the workout.
We took the day off after the vaccine. We have been cautious as the athletes get the vaccine. An easy jog day on the day of the vaccine, and a day off after the vaccination seems to work well. Brandon had no symptoms, so that was good.
Saturday, Brandon took a big step forward. This was a tough workout, and Brandon nailed it! There have been some ups and downs this season, but Brandon keeps moving upward in the season as a whole. We can’t wait to see him race a mile next week.
