I wish I could explain the whole “harder you try, the slower you run” idea, but you just have to feel it.
We do trap bar deadlifts as our main lifting exercise for legs, with a few other things added in occasionally. I think my coach feels its safer than squats. So far I’ve been steadily improving, so who am I to argue? I look forward to learning some Olympic lifts though.
I would respectfully suggest that you forget about your time, and run in meets within the next few months. You are not doing this for anyone else but yourself, correct? The great thing about running slow is that you have to just stay in your lane and concentrate on yourself. I learned a lot running in races and getting beat! Don’t avoid it!
If you run in open meets with seed timed heats, they will put you in heats with others near your ability, so don’t worry too much about it. The slowest time is the one that is not run. There are a million couch potatoes out there choking back nacho after nacho while you are out there working hard on the track, and you are beating all of them by default. Don’t worry about your times, just do the work. The times will run themselves.
One of the most freeing things for me has been to just go out there and do something I enjoy, regardless of whether I am any good at it or not.
Do you have a coach? Are you joining a club? If not, you MUST. Training on your own is not an option!
T