Asafa on the record

[Charlie_Francis]

@fogelson

Charlie–

I understand confidence comes from a good preparation, however, how do you know if you have a good preparation?

This seems like a dumb question… maybe it is, but for me and many others I know, training times just don’t line up with meet times. For example, on 6.5 60m / 10.1 100m (European medalist, Olympian, etc.) has a fly 30m PR of >2.80 and generally goes 2.85 or so. EDIT: Also want to note that he is beaten by 10.5-10.7 guys in practice at times as well… a fair amount, too, and he is trying, so it isn’t just a training set-up causing this. Other people I know, using a training set-up very similar to your’s, run .3 slower in training (ie might run 7.0 at best 60m in training then goes 6.7 in a meet) very regularly.

I know you did your own form of HT and things like that, which may have accounted for these things, but as an athlete, I find it hard to generate confidence from running times in training that, even while they may be a substantial TRAINING personal best, are well behind meet personal bests. How do you generate confidence when you are not sure what you are going to run?

Example, how much money would you have put on Ben going 9.72-9.75 (assuming he ran through the line) in Seoul? Life savings? Even $50k on it? Don’t want to put you on the spot, but I am not sure of anybody THAT confident in what they are going to run except for some ambitious athletes.

It is hard to compare various hand times. I know mine are very generous compared to others but I build that in to my idea of conversion and it works well for me indoors (where there is no wind to screw with results one way or the other. I then would build in a margin for outdoors. IE in 1987, I times Ben from stands in times I figured would give him 9.80 and predicted 9.85 to allow a bit of wiggle room. and in 88 I figured 9.75 or so and predicted 9.80. in each case he was in the middle somewhere.
When you have a substantial training background over years, you can look back and see exactly at what point you performed at your best and then try to match that point the next time to be at your best again. That’s what planning is about. Read my next general post for more.