As an aside, might I also say that almost nobody does this style of program in Toronto, so people were totally making fun of us for the weird workouts. The lack of traditional over-distance was disconcerting for the Long to Short volume monster type coaches, and the delayed addition of true speed work was disconcerting for the Short to Long guys. Some of them shut their pieholes when he broke 48 in only his third outdoor 400m race since high school off of like 10 weeks of prep though!
After the 47.98 race, ESTI send a copy of the race to KitKat, who commented on the sag between 150 and 250, as well as my athlete having weakness and lack of flexibility in the hip flexors and adductors, which was absolutely spot on. I still don’t understand how he knew this simply from watching a race, but that’s why you ask the master coaches for their feedback! KitKat was very generous in sending key pieces of feedback and advice over the span of the season that added to the advice that ESTI, Waldemar, Angela, and my coach generously provided.
The hip flexor strain that he picked up trying to race the 200 down south was still an issue. There were regular complaints of tightness in the area, and we had some treatments of acupuncture with micro-current to reset the tonus of the muscle. This was done by a chiropractor- and as you will see later, we learned a BIG lesson about trusting chiropractors with your athletes, as their egos sometimes get in the way of good treatment practice- despite the fact they may know their stuff and be very good people.
OK back to the story- after the race and our unwillingness to let him run a windy 200 the next day, we headed back to Toronto and got back to work. We were able to get through another 40-20-20 EFE day, and we focused on having him drive out of the blocks with full extension in his first 10 metres during the 30’s, 40’s, and 60’s that followed. Things were definitely improving.
It was closing in on about 12 days out from Trials, and it was getting close to time to start tapering. I had him run a final 300m from a three step walk up, and he nailed it in 33.40, a pretty significant improvement on the standing start 34.60 run in the GPP test week.
We had a 200+200 workout scheduled for that day. Now, my athlete is one of my BBM contacts, and he added me to one of his BBM friend groups that discusses track. I noticed that he was making comments at 8:15 am, which is way earlier than he is usually awake. I asked him what he was doing up so early. “I’m going to Wonderland!” he stated happily (a local amusement park). “What? You’re going to an amusement park 10 days out from Trials to walk around in the sun all day, dehydrate yourself and you think you’re going to come out and complete a workout this evening at 5 pm?” I asked. I could almost predict the reply; “Yeah- I’m a beast!”
I told him to forget the workout and take the day off. We got together the next day to attempt a workout near his parents home in the other end of the city. It was comical- this was a public high school track, so some stupid 3 year old kept moving my cones, another dipshit kid was riding his bike on the track, and an older group of recreational runners were doing extremely slow 300m intervals. It ended up not mattering, because when he warmed up and started doing a few strides, he looked just atrocious- I have never seen such awful form from him. He tried to do a few accels, and I was so taken aback by his horrendous form that I just had him cool down- didn’t even think of substituting tempo instead!
Interestingly enough, Tony Sharpe was out at the other end of the track coaching (one of Charlie’s athletes, 10.17 / 20.21 PB’s, 100m finalist in LA 1984) and we were both happy he didn’t see my athlete looking so piss-poor. It was absolutely shocking to see the level of fatigue he was displaying from his amusement park visit- he couldn’t believe how awful he felt, and I couldn’t believe how awful he looked. We didn’t need any more setbacks. I went home and re-watched the “10 Day Taper” video three times that weekend just to make sure I understood the big concepts and wasn’t forgetting anything.
I gave him the next day off, and we got back at it on Sunday. It was a totally different guy that showed up. We ran 3x30 along with 40, 50, 60, 80 and a single 150.
I can tell you that his 30m accelerations at the end of GPP were at 3.70, by mid-transition they were 3.65, and at this point in the early taper I timed each one at 3.58, 3.58, 3.58- things were coming down nicely. The 60 was in 6.40, and the “smooth” 80 was a PB of 8.49- he lined up for the 150 and ran it smoothly from a standing start in 15.71, a hundredth faster than his three step walkup 150 from a couple of weeks earlier. Nice! I think we made the right call of letting him run at faster than 95% for these runs, as he needed a confidence boosting time heading into Trials. However, as explained by Charlie on the Taper DVD, if an athlete runs really fast in the taper, you risk tightness rearing its head, often with a couple of days delay. Of course, he was spot on.
Monday was an easy bike day, and Tuesday he went in to get some therapy, but I hadn’t arrived at the track yet. As predicted he was feeling tight from the Sunday speed work. I usually like to be present for therapy sessions, as even though these therapists are well regarded, they work for me- they aren’t going to be doing things I’m not comfortable with. This particular clinic has a big Active Release Technique bias, and I’m not sure how I feel about ART. I’ve felt it be helpful before, but as someone who follows Waldemar’s approach, I’m suspicious of the stress it puts on the musculature and I’m not sure how close I’d like it done to a race.
About this specific session, my athlete went in and started the session without me, and the Chiropractor did acupuncture with micro-current on his hip flexors. This is a fairly aggressive treatment to be doing 8 days out from a major competition and these are some seriously small muscles and the margin for error is therefore I suspect much smaller, so I was not pleased. But here’s the kicker- once the current was turned on, the chiropractor left the room for 15 MINUTES and left the athlete ALONE while being stimmed- I’ve seen this done reapeatedly by almost every chiropractor- it’s as if they are too important to stay and monitor the athlete during treatment. I do not understand this behavior at all- what other professional charges you upwards of $80 per session and leaves you unattended in the room for over half of it?
In contrast, Waldemar would NEVER leave an athlete alone during an acupuncture treatment. He is always conversing and verbally and visually checking for signs of discomfort or changes in response.
Of course in this case, everything that could go wrong did: the current was cranked too high and since the chiro had left the room there was nobody there for my athlete to tell. He ended up with sore, hypertonic hip flexors eight days from Trials and had to pay for the privilege. I was pissed!
