Sean Gregory
Noah Lyles should be a miserable human on this suffocatingly hot May morning near Orlando. Two nights earlier, the U.S. sprint star was up until 3 a.m. in the Bahamas, waiting on a delayed drug test after a race. You can still spot fatigue under his eyes.
Lyles, however, can summon social energy on command, and today he’s yapping away between stretches and sprints: about his love of anime, how he needs a pedicure, how he’s the most fashionable guy in all of track and field. He had been absent from the past few practices while running in Nassau, where he and his 4 × 100-m relay team took first place. “We did miss you,” one of Lyles’ training partners, Paralympic sprinter Nick Mayhugh, tells him. “But did we enjoy the peace and quiet of the past two days? Yes.”
Lyles runs a 120-m practice sprint in 12.4 sec. “You don’t have to run any faster than that,” says his coach, Lance Brauman. “You ran fast twice this weekend. You don’t have to do it again.” Lyles isn’t feeling this advice. “My body’s turned on!” he says. “I can feel the rust coming out of the legs! These two are going to be faster.” Brauman rolls his eyes. Lyles runs the next two in 12.2 and 11.9 sec., respectively.
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