He also discovered that he runs best when he manages to leave the past behind. Last autumn, a few months after winning the 100 meters, the 200 meters, and running a leg in the 4×100 meter relay championship for the United States at the World Championships in Budapest, Lyles realized that to achieve his ambitions in Paris, he could not limit himself to training in the same way he had done in Budapest.
“I have to keep reinventing myself,” he emphasized. “We were all trying to follow what I had done last year, and I realized that I was starting to get complacent.”
The transformation began in the gym. Lance Brauman, who has coached Lyles throughout his eight-year professional career, had been cautious in the early years about adding weightlifting exercises to the usual routine. This year, the coach and the athlete decided to focus on improving start times. When the sprinter won silver at the indoor world championships in March in the 60 meters, a race that requires a fast start not particularly suited to his strengths, it was a sign that, despite weighing 78 kg (4.5 kg more than in Budapest), the muscle he had built by lifting heavier weights (especially in power cleans) had translated into greater strength and speed in the early phases of races.
“If this doesn’t frighten the others,” Lyles prophesied, “it means they are simply ignorant of what is about to happen.”
In late spring, Lyles trained in a way to convince Brauman that he could run “between 9.7 and 9.6” in the 100 meters. What is Bolt’s world record, so fast it is considered unreachable? 9.58 seconds.
Of course, he tends to think big. Years ago he told me about a dream he had as a teenager where he was running on a blue track in an Olympic 100-meter semifinal when he saw his time: 9.41 seconds.
In Paris, the Olympic track is purple and he won. Not far off.
Last autumn, Lyles and his girlfriend, Jamaican sprinter Junelle Bromfield, an Olympic qualifier in the 400 meters, had just arrived at a hotel in Montego Bay. Seeing them at the check-in desk, the manager immediately moved them to the most luxurious suite, complete with a butler, and offered them their entire stay for free. But that was not the most surprising part of their vacation.