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.