March 30, 2017
With indoor nationals over, I’ve continued to work with Matt Garrett as we now prepare for the outdoor season. Because he is only an 8th grader, our focus now is on getting ready for the Junior Olympic meets that won’t begin until June, although there will be some developmental meets that will take place prior to then.
With more training time available, our aim will be to build the hurdle endurance required to run a full 100 meters over ten hurdles, as opposed to focusing on the first five hurdles like we did indoors. We’ll also have some time to work on refining his sprint mechanics a bit more. Fortunately, because he started training with me back in September, he has gotten in the full range of training that I like to implement in preparation for racing outdoors. We did lots of drilling in the fall, as well as workouts that emphasized a race rhythm with closely-spaced hurdles, allowing him to increase his endurance while working on technique at the same time. In the winter, we were able to get in plenty of quality work in the starting blocks, as the weather here was unseasonably warm.
Therefore, all we need to work on now is increasing his flat speed so that he can maximize the benefit of all the technique work he has done. In addition, we’ll also have time to drill occasionally over 36” and even 39” hurdles as a way of preparing early for the big leap he’ll have to make next year from 33” to 39”.
In regards to preparing for the outdoor race, all I really need to do is add more hurdles in practice. Instead of doing starts over a maximum of three or four hurdles like we did during the indoor season, we’ll get up to as many as eight hurdles now.
The video below features two reps from last week’s practice – one rep over five hurdles, and one rep over seven. I apologize in advance for the low quality of the footage, especially in the second rep. I’m due for a phone upgrade in June; bear with me till then.
In the reps in the video, the hurdles are at 33”, with all hurdles after the first one moved in one foot.
