No pain, no gain: Aaron Brown runs 400 metres to limit rust-busting in short sprints
Toronto native 3rd Saturday in 100 in Florida, also has 'unfinished business' in 200
Retired high school track coach Bill Stephens was "very impressed" after viewing video of a rare performance in the 400 metres by Aaron Brown, one of his former athletes at Birchmount Park Collegiate in Scarborough, Ont.
The sprinter reached the finish line in 45.84 seconds on April 1 at the Florida Relays in Gainesville, his first 400 in four years since a 46.33 debut at the senior level on March 23, 2019 in Tampa, Fla.
"It was windy as heck, but he ran smart and didn't get too tired," said Stephens of Brown's race last Saturday. "If you go out too hard, you die. It's a balance."
In 2010, Stephens wanted a tall and lanky Brown, who excelled in the 100 and 200, to join his 400-relay squad at Birchmount to improve his strength following the basketball season. A few months earlier, the multi-sport talent helped the Toronto high school football champions as a wide receiver to their first-ever Metro Bowl final.
"I knew he could run well, and I didn't have a very good 4x400 team [after we] had won at OFSAA [Ontario high school championships] eight times in the previous 10 years. I wanted to keep it going," Stephens, who remains a coach at Phoenix Athletics in Toronto, recalled over the phone this week. "But he tore his hamstring in the 200 final so he couldn't run [the relay].
Psychologically, it makes me feel prepared [to open the season in the 100 and 200 metres] and gives me that base [of training] I build off for the rest of the season.— Canadian sprinter Aaron Brown on racing the 400m distance
"With the speed and strength he's got now, he could run in the 44s. He's only 30. I've said for years the male [runners] don't peak until they're 33, 34, 35."
Brown had planned to implement 400m base training into his program the past two years, but it didn't work out scheduling-wise in 2021, while a planned 400 race last year at the Florida Relays was rained out.
"Psychologically," he told CBC Sports, "it makes me feel prepared [to open the season in the 100 and 200] and gives me that base [of training] I build off for the rest of the season."
Full season racing 400m 'daunting'
After his 400 in 2019, Brown hovered around 20 seconds in the outdoor 200 early in the season before a 19.95 personal best in July.
"I pushed through that rust and got rid of it sooner. I attributed it to the 400 base training," he said, adding the thought of training to compete in the 400 for a full season seems daunting.
"You know at the end [of a race] it's going to hurt. I certainly had my moments of doubt if I wanted to go through [the] pain [this time].
"The more you understand and learn it, you appreciate it because it's more of a technical race," continued Brown. "You have to take [the race out from the start] at a certain pace in order to hit certain times. You have to be able to [finish strong] and mix speed with strength, so it's a very, very difficult race in that sense."
Another motivating factor for Brown to run the 400 this year was being called out by American sprinter Trayvon Bromell, who said he could beat the Toronto native. They didn't race because Bromell got hurt but Brown is looking forward to the showdown next year.
Sub-10 action to open up the season 💯<br><br>Windy or not, fastest opener ever 😈 <a href="https://t.co/c2LexjDAjo">pic.twitter.com/c2LexjDAjo</a>
—@KingsleySCBromell was victorious in the 100 (9.96) at the Diamond League Final last September in Zurich, where Brown was third in 10.06.
"Friendly chirping between longtime competitors. He was underestimating me so I'm out to prove him wrong," said Brown, who also teamed with Andre De Grasse, Brendon Rodney and Jerome Blake to win the 4x100 at Florida Relays in 37.80, only 32-100ths of a second off their winning time and Canadian record at last year's World Athletics Championships.
WATCH | Brown & teammates golden in 4x100 relay at worlds:
Brown, who has run several relays in the 400 dating to high school, also competed in a mixed 400 relay recently at Prairie View Relays in Texas.
But the three-time Olympian will put the 400 on hold for the foreseeable future and ran his first 100 of the season on Saturday at the Miramar Invitational, a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver event in Florida, where Brown lives and trains.
Brown ran a wind-assisted 9.97 seconds to place third in his heat and third overall among 15 finishers Saturday after going 10.10 in the first round earlier in the day to qualify seventh. He was fifth at the competition two years ago in 10.08.
The legal limit for a tailwind is 2.0 metres per second and Saturday's final measured 2.2.
Fellow Canadian Jerome Blake was fifth in the same final heat as Brown and sixth overall in 10.05. They are training partners with Star Athletics in Montverde, Fla. The Jamaican duo of Oblique Seville and Ackeem Blake ran against Brown and Blake and finished 1-2 in the race and overall in 9.91 and 9.93.
Rodney, from the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, Ont., was fourth in a field of five (20.42 in a legal wind of 1.9) in the men's 200 final on Saturday.
Aiyanna Stiverne of Laval, Que., was sixth (54.01) in the women's 400 final, won by American Shamier Little in 50.73.
WATCH | Brown 2nd in stacked 200m at 2022 Diamond League Final:
Brown said it's "possible" he'll be a regular 400 guy in the future but noted he has unfinished business in the 100 and 200.
Olympic bronze at 35
Brown has long admired the 100 to 400 range of U.S. runner Allyson Felix, the seven-time Olympic gold medallist who started training for the 400 soon after picking up gold medals in the 200, 100 relay and 400 relay at the 2012 Summer Games in London.
Nine years later, she earned bronze in the Olympic 400 at age 35 with a time of 49.46 in Tokyo. Felix ended her career last July in the 400 relay heats at worlds in Eugene, Ore., after collecting 19 medals at world championships and 11 at five Olympics.
"She was a great role model … not only for her excellence on the track but off the track [in] how she pushed the boundaries of what a track athlete could be," said Brown. "I always wanted to do something similar.
"I like someone who can be dominant in the [100] all the way to the [400]. … That's a complete sprinter in my book."
Having made a notable improvement in his block starts in the latter half of 2022 to be competitive with some of the best starters in the world, Brown has since made strides in his upright running "trying to make the most out of each stride so I'm most efficient with how I'm running and adding technique, not just competing."
On April 29, Brown will race at the Botswana Grand Prix Continental Tour Gold meet in Gaborone, six days before he opens the Diamond League season in Doha.
"I feel confident," said Brown, who won the sprint double at a fourth consecutive Canadian championships last summer in Langley, B.C. "I have a good mix of speed and strength."
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
