Noah Lyles doesn’t usually do things quietly. At track and field meets and on social media, at the starting line and certainly the finish line, all eyes tend to find him. He is fast, colorful and always looking to put on a show.
But as the novel coronavirus pandemic lingers, the sprinter finds himself training out in public but also in near-anonymity. With gyms and track facilities near his Clermont, Fla., home shut down for more than a month now, Lyles has taken to public parks and soccer fields to squeeze in his daily workouts.
“It’s very low-key,” said Lyles, a two-time world champion who is among the medal favorites at next year’s Tokyo Olympics. “Nobody really knows [we’re] there.”
The 22-year-old hits the park at 7:30 each morning. His coach, Lance Brauman, is usually already there, along with an assistant and a strength coach. Their gym is now mobile, with all of the equipment — including barbells, heavy bumper plates and plyometric boxes — packed into the back of two trucks.
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“Now we’re just randomly lifting weights in a park,” Lyles said.
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Read nowLyles and his brother, Josephus, turned pro shortly after graduating in 2016 from T.C. Williams High in Alexandria. They relocated to Florida to train with Brauman at the National Training Center, a part of the Orlando Health South Lake Hospital that includes full track facilities. But it closed March 20 as the virus spread, and Brauman had to take his show on the road, trying out different area parks with his runners.
“It’s difficult but doable,” Brauman said in a recent phone interview.
State guidelines meant Brauman’s runners could no longer train as a large group, so now he works with a handful at a time. When the Lyles brothers finish their session, Brauman and his mobile gym stay put and a new group of runners starts up.
Lyles knows he is vulnerable to the coronavirus. He has suffered from asthma since childhood and said he contracted the swine flu in 2009.
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“We’re not going out because of social distancing, seclusion, keeping distance,” Lyles said. “But other than that, I don’t really have to do too much different. I just have to be more conscious of it. So who I’m hanging around at practice is probably the biggest concern I have to take into account.”
The brothers will lift weights in the parking lot or even in Brauman’s driveway. With no track available, Lyles laces up his running shoes and runs on the grass of a soccer field. Asked if he feels slow moving on the softer surface, Lyles paused and quipped, “We don’t feel fast.”
He can’t work out of starting blocks and is limited in what he can do. Brauman’s runners do a lot of speed training — 4x30 meters, followed by 3x50 and 2x70 — and try to hone technique and work on short sprint bursts.
“We’re spending a lot more time doing some technical running,” Brauman said, “working on some different things that you might not usually have time to work on because you’re busy getting ready for meets. So we’re playing the hand we’re dealt.”
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The training isn’t as strenuous as it was at the National Training Center — “It’s not horrible, just not ideal,” Brauman said — but the brothers haven’t missed a day, and Lyles said he feels like he is always ready to post a fast time.
“We’re getting as much done as we can get in,” Brauman said. “I’d say we’re doing the minimum we need to and checking as many boxes as we go along.”
Lyles is making do but also acknowledged frustration with the circumstances. He just missed the 2016 U.S. Olympic team, finishing fourth in the 200 meters at trials, and he aims to medal in three events in Tokyo: the 100 and 200 meters and the 4x100 relay. He took gold in the 200 and 4x100 relay at last year’s world championships.
“I was running 19s in practice. I was ready to go,” he said of his recent 200 times. “We were supposed to run a race last week, [and] it’s like, ‘Dang, we’re supposed to be running right now.’ But practicing is better than nothing. At least I have something to keep my mind off of just staying quietly in the house.”
With the track and field competition calendar still uncertain, Lyles doesn’t know when he’ll compete again. For now, he’ll stick to public parks, feeling confident that his dreams, while pushed back a year, are still attainable.
“Every year I get faster,” he said, “so I guess I’ll be a year better than what I would’ve been this year.”
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