As a high school track coach, I spend nearly every weekday parked on the infield of the 6-lane oval, stopwatch in hand, screaming splits and rallying my athletes to dig deep and conquer their training session du jour. 

But when it comes to my own workouts? I typically run right off the track and onto the roads, or trails, or grassy fields, or the treadmill—basically anywhere else but that 400m loop. 

Most of my reason for avoiding the track is because, for years, I’ve trained for longer races. And the idea of running countless loops has never appealed to me. Sure, I’d tackle some interval workouts here and there, but they were always longer, tempo-paced efforts. At minimum, I’d do several 400m repeats at 5K pace (which certainly felt fast enough!). But a 200m all out? That just screamed instant injury to me—and besides: I didn’t really want  or need that reminder of  just how much I’ve slowed down since I last ran shorter distances in high school a few lifetimes ago.

But then, along came Snoop Dogg. In case you missed it, he attended the U.S. Olympic Track Trials at Hayward Field last month and participated in the mock race against Olympians Ato Boldon and Wallace Spearmon in preparation for his duties as a guest commentator at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. When Snoop finished in 34.44, he proudly posed by the scoreboard as though he’d set the world record, before quipping to the camera, “34.44 for a 52-year-old? Ain’t bad.”

I was intrigued: Could I beat Snoop? 34.4 seemed doable enough, but I had no idea what I was actually capable of. (For the record: My high school PR was around 28 seconds but I only raced it once or twice.) Inspired, I jogged over to my local track the next day, and, after about 3 miles of warmup—I probably could have used more, to be honest—I made my first attempt. 

The whole thing was like an out-of-body experience.  I felt anything but smooth as I chopped my typically loping stride into a quicker turnover. My arms flailed as they tried to keep up with my legs and lactic acid surged through my quads as I reached for the finish line. Once I crossed the line, I tapped “lap” on my watch and bent over, gasping for air, before I looked at the screen. Surely, I’d just blasted through that 200 in a 34 or faster, right? I blinked hard as I read the numbers before me: 37.7. 

Oof.  This was going to be a lot tougher than I thought. 

Never one to back down from a running challenge (even the self-imposed kind), I have now made breaking 34.4 in a 200m one of my missions for the summer. The quest has begun to nudge awake my long-slumbering speed—and triggered some new racing goals. No, I’m not going to actually compete in the 200m anytime soon (I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ve never been a sprinter and will never be a sprinter), but I’d love to enter a track meet at some point and see what I can run in an all-out mile. Plus, the weaknesses I feel while trying to run at my top-end speed (hello, screaming quads and glutes!) remind me of the necessity of a proper warm up, recovery, and strength training, which I’ve been more consistent about. 

Since that first 200m attempt, I’ve tried few more times. A week or so later, a friend joined me in my mission to beat Snoop, and he did it off the bat, as I finished behind in 37 (again). A few days after that, with my teenage son pacing me on a bike, I got down to 35.5, twice. 

While I haven’t yet hit that elusive (and arbitary) mark, the process to get there has been fun and invigorating. I’m grateful that I have the ability to even try, and I’m happy with the progress. Because to quote Snoop: 35.5 for a 45-year-old? Ain’t bad.

Fo Shizzle.