No pain, no gain: Aaron Brown runs 400 metres to limit rust-busting in short sprints

Retired high school track coach Bill Stephens was "very impressed" after viewing video of a rare performance in the 400 metres by Aaron Brown, one of his former athletes at Birchmount Park Collegiate in Scarborough, Ont.

The sprinter reached the finish line in 45.84 seconds on April 1 at the Florida Relays in Gainesville, his first 400 in four years since a 46.33 debut at the senior level on March 23, 2019 in Tampa, Fla.

"It was windy as heck, but he ran smart and didn't get too tired," said Stephens of Brown's race last Saturday. "If you go out too hard, you die. It's a balance."

In 2010, Stephens wanted a tall and lanky Brown, who excelled in the 100 and 200, to join his 400-relay squad at Birchmount to improve his strength following the basketball season. A few months earlier, the multi-sport talent helped the Toronto high school football champions as a wide receiver to their first-ever Metro Bowl final.

"I knew he could run well, and I didn't have a very good 4x400 team [after we] had won at OFSAA [Ontario high school championships] eight times in the previous 10 years. I wanted to keep it going," Stephens, who remains a coach at Phoenix Athletics in Toronto, recalled over the phone this week. "But he tore his hamstring in the 200 final so he couldn't run [the relay].

"With the speed and strength he's got now, he could run in the 44s. He's only 30. I've said for years the male [runners] don't peak until they're 33, 34, 35."

Brown had planned to implement 400m base training into his program the past two years, but it didn't work out scheduling-wise in 2021, while a planned 400 race last year at the Florida Relays was rained out.

"Psychologically," he told CBC Sports, "it makes me feel prepared [to open the season in