[video=youtube_share;wMyD-hnBk5s]http://youtu.be/wMyD-hnBk5s[/video]
I was going to do a meet tomorrow (Sunday). It is at one of my biggest favourite tracks in the province. Apparently it’s made of the same material as the Beijing 2008 Olympic venue. But I handed in my forms late and was not able to participate in it. I don’t regret it as I was introduced to a lot of new training elements and I want to stabilize them first. Our club’s new coach is called Derek. He is a very busy guy and has a long history of coaching. Just yesterday, when he was breaking down the start of the race and demonstrating the infamous ‘toe drag’ - I was just watching and saying “That looks so damn cool”. He knows so much and hopefully we can lower our time together. We haven’t started doing hurdling work yet but I believe it will be there by next week. I want to ask him some questions like discounting the hurdle height/distances, special end. stuff… etc. I feel really fast after practicing the ‘toe drag’ with him. Every time I’m at home just walking, I’ll always have the first two steps as low heel recovery then eventually move it up to high knee mechanics - it’s so crazy how cool it feels. My next meet is Saturday - I’ll do the 110MH at 36" - this is great because I get to see a ‘speedier’ run. There were many comments in this thread about lower the height and decreasing distance in between during training. I realized that all the fast guys do this - ESTI’s 13.6 athlete, Steve McGill (and most likely Wayne Davis, 13.08!!) and even Aries Meritt (12.80!!!). It is not a coincidence! And after watching my video, it seems that I really am REALLY slow compared to these fast guys. So running the 36" will definitely capture more speed, and hopefully I can carry this to 39". I will also want to run the 200m. I was reading some hurdlesfirst posts (McGill’s blog) and he mentioned that sprint hurdlers should really want to work at the longer distances earlier in the season - to build up more endurance. And again watching my race, I lost the snappiness near the end, and it must be linked to not running enough distances such as 200, 400, 400mH etc… Last year, at our cities (USA equivalent of regionals?) I did A LOT of 4x400m, 400MH and I seemed to finish better at my races last year. I want to touch the 200m more and hopefully I’ll see some positive carry-over into my speed end. of the sprint hurdles.
Also some stuff about school.
I’m grade 11 and I’ll be graduating next year. The class of 13 grad ceremony was yesterday and I really thought about how fast high school is ending. I have to plan for post secondary. Before this year I was always wanting to do track just for high school and just go to a university close here - track takes up too much energy and time after high school. But really watching the olympic replays on youtube and being submerged in the essence of track and field meets, I realized I really love it. The olympic energy is absolutely riveting; I’m watching the 100m final on youtube right now and just through the screen, I can feel this electric atmosphere. I want to continue this ecstasy after high school. The question is: should I continue my education/track career here, in BC, or should I take it south, to the states. Taking it to the USA - the highest quality and quantity of hurdlers in the USA will definitely catapult my track career miles ahead. But can I make it? My PB probably would not even make the state finals in the USA; will they accept me, and even give me a scholarship? Do any coaches down there linger around on this forum, if so, please shed some light. Cheers!