i am 16. i recently ran a 15.00 FAT in the 110 hurdles. the first half of my race is my strength. the kid who won my heat ran a 14.00 and i was leading him going into the third hurdle. after that my form deteriorated, he passed me, and i started hitting hurdles. this race was my PR by a half second, but i know i still have a lot of room to improve. i have two questions.
what sort of 55m hurdle time would correlate with a 15.00 110, taking into consideration that the first three hurdles is by far the best part of my race?
how should i go about improving my speed endurance in the hurdles? should i just do regular 150’s or something, or should i try to incorporate sets of 12 or so hurdles at regular spacing?
A few years ago, my top scholastic hurdler ran 15.15 FAT and typically ran 9.0x (ranging from approximately +/- .13) during the previous indoor 55mh season.
Another specific hurdle workout we did which improved hurdle SE for him was the 3-5-3 session. Three steps between h1 & h2, five steps between h2 & h3, three steps to h4 and so on. Max was 3 segments and hurdle spacing was determined from stride analysis of previous hurdle and sprint races.
that’s odd because my fastest was 8.50 last year, and this outdoor i ran a 16.1 to open. both terrible times. i ended the school season with 15.5. i ran 15.00 at JO nationals. a kid who just graduated who now runs 14.3, ran a 7.9 when he was at 15.00.
If you are dropping off around hurdle 4, I’d focus efforts on that point. You can do some longer sprints and such, but I think you should stay specific on this at least once a week. Have someone time your hurdle intervals or videotape yourself and see what your touchdown times are from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and 3 to 4. When the 3 to 4 time is comparable to the 2 to 3 time, you can add 5 and start working on that. At your level, some of the early splits may be slower than some of the ones in the middle as you build speed. Later, you can expect some drop off – typically, the last three hurdles. But working on those split times in the range of 4 to 6 hurdles will get you good results and give you the feedback you need to improve.
I think you are right on with these times. As I said, somewhere near 8 seconds would be likely.
Charlie had good comments on the 12h arrangement. Lower and closer than regular. I think that can improve conditioning and also aid in developing the quicker rhythm that can help you go faster.
When you are working the split times as I mentioned before, you could pull each hurdle in a foot or foot and a half. 1 for the second hurdle, 2 for the third, 3 for the fourth and so on. This allows more high quality reps, keeps the rhythm quicker and simulates how it would feel in race conditions when you’re a little more “amped”.