It’s one thing to talk a good game when it comes to mastering the fine art of 400 and 800.
It’s quite another to listen to the talk of how to get better at it and show improvement week after week.
Last spring as a sophomore, it was evident Mentor’s Sarah Lane was starting to get the intricacy of it all. Now as a junior, she is hopeful it can lead a little further down the postseason road.
Lane got state experience under her belt on the Cardinals’ 4x400- and 4x800-meter relays and was a solid sixth in 800 at the Division I Austintown-Fitch Regional, providing a nice launching point into what could be a breakout 2018.
“It really set goals for me,” Lane said after the Nordonia Knight Relays on April 7 about getting a taste of competing in Columbus. “And now, I really want to go down in open events. So I’m going to try to work really hard this season to try and get down in an open.
“I have the experience going down there, and I ran at regionals, so I know what I have to do to get down there.”
Lane’s 2017 campaign in open events showed promise in the finer points of her running, showing improved sense in pacing and backstretch attacks and culminating with a 2:19.21 in the aforementioned Fitch 800.
In the regular season, she had the second-best time in The News-Herald coverage area in 800 with a 2:19.79 to take fourth at the Greater Cleveland Conference meet and was D-I Mayfield District runner-up (2:23.59).
She had a good example for how to approach an 800 with 400 speed in older sister Emma, a two-time top-three D-I 400 state placer and one of this area’s fastest 400 runners ever now competing at Michigan.
“What I did last year is I ran a lot of 400s before and then went to the 800, and I think I’ll do that this year more,” Lane said. “I feel more comfortable. I think of it as two 400s so I really kick hard at the end just like I’m finishing a 400.
“I just feel like sprinters have more of an advantage like in 400s and 800s, because we kick and we have that inner speed, whereas distance kids, they have a little more endurance than us. But we can always get them with our speed at the end.”
Lane’s speed looked pretty good on a frigid day at Nordonia as part of the Cardinals’ winning 4x2 and running 400 on the first-place sprint medley.
Clearly she gets it, too, as far as how to apply herself and avoid the muscle pratfalls cold weather can yield.
“On days like this, I try to warm up later,” Lane said. “I try to be sweating when I get to the line. I wear a lot of layers. I just kind of do high knees and skips when I’m at the line — keep moving. I stretch a lot when I’m in my blocks.”
And she hopes the last blocks in which she can step will be at Ohio State once again in June.
Getting to state in relays was fun last year — and it would be again. But as the fine art of 400 and 800 comes along, she would love to join her sister as an individual qualifier.
All-time at Mentor on the girls side, only four 400 and 800/880 runners have qualified for state, the last in 800 coming in 1994.
Maybe this is the year that latter fact changes.
“It does (feel odd without Emma as a teammate),” Lane said. “But I’m kind of happy, because I can be Sarah Lane and start making a name for myself.”