June 20, 2014

For today’s blog post, a brief talk on confidence:

One of my female hurdlers, whom I’ll call Andrea, was saying the other day that she needs to work on the mental side of her race. It was a conversation we had had before, as she puts a lot of pressure on herself. While I demand a lot of my athletes, I don’t like for my athletes to want success too much. Too much tension impedes progress, has a negative affect on performance.

I pointed out to her a teammate, whom I’ll call Jill, who had decided to switch her start in the 400 hurdles from a 24-step approach to 23 steps, which meant switching her feet in the blocks, getting out faster, and risking a greater level of late-race fatigue. Never one to err on the side of caution, I approved of this change and decided to work with her to make it work.

I pointed out to Andrea that Jill was willing to try 23 steps because she’d been feeling a bit crowded taking 24 and she wasn’t afraid of what might go wrong if she switched. She wasn’t afraid of making mistakes. read more

June 16, 2014

So one of my athletes had the nerve to doubt that I could get over a 36-inch hurdle. He promised me he’d buy me dinner, to a restaurant of my choice, if I could do it. Never one to back down from a challenge, I said, “It’s on!”

Two days later, after rigorous stretching, meditating, visualizing, groin and hip flexor exercises, and hoping for the best, I took my talents to the track to get my hurdles on. After numerous drills and reps over a 30-inch hurdle and then a 33, I raised the hurdle to 36. The results are below:

Instead of dinner I settled for a funnel cake at New Balance Nationals, ’cause you know them funnel cakes ain’t no joke!

Special thanks to my athlete and Nigerian brother Arthur Njemanze for documenting hurdling history on his iPhone. Special thanks to my athlete Lamar Brewer for presenting me with the challenge. And special thanks to friend and inspiration Terry Reese for his endless hurdling videos proving that age ain’t got nothin’ on passion! read more

June 7, 2014

For today’s blog post I’m providing a snippet from an interview I did with Jon Hendershott – long-time journalist for Track & Field News – that will appear in the June issue of The Hurdle Magazine, which comes out June 14th. Usually on the other side of interviews, Hendershott has been writing for T&FN since 1967. Over that period of time, he has covered 9 Olympic Games and 13 World Championships, dozens of USA Championships, and countless meets at all levels of the sport. He has interviewed some of the greatest track and field athletes who have ever lived, including hurdlers Rod Milburn, Renaldo Nehemiah, Kim Batten, Kevin Young, and numerous others. The interview covers a gamut of track-related topics. The passage below addresses some hurdle-specific issues:

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McGill: Do you feel that the hurdling events should constantly be evolving? I for one have argued for several years that the height of the hurdles in the women’s 100m hurdle race should be raised. What are your thoughts on that? read more

June 5, 2014

For today’s blog post, back by popular demand, we have another round of “You Know You’re a Hurdler If …” Got ten more here in Part 2:

You know you’re a hurdler if…

10.            You’ve been guilty of driving while hurdling – taking your hands off the steering wheel and doing the hurdle motion with your arms while driving over a pothole or speed bump.

9.            You have bumped elbows and forearms with a hurdler in an adjacent lane.

8.            You have lumps or a numb spot on your trail leg knee from hitting hurdles in the exact same spot over and over again.

7.            You have broken a crossbar in half with the force of your lead leg foot slamming the hurdle.

6.            You have asked your coach before practice, “Hey Coach, we’re hurdlin’ today, right?”

5.            You have noticed a superior athlete in another event or sport and thought to yourself, I could beat him/her in the hurdles. read more

May 28, 2014

For today’s blog post I’m going Letterman on you by providing a list of things that make hurdlers hurdlers. I came up with twelve, and listed them in descending order, Letterman-style, although I’m aware that the order doesn’t really matter.

You know you’re a hurdler if:

12.            You have had dreams in which you are hurdling.

11.            You have yelled at people for walking in your lane, sitting in your lane, standing in your lane, and/or placing gear in your lane.

10.            You have run over somebody who was standing in or walking through your lane.

9.            You have attempted to educate non-hurdling teammates on how difficult and physically demanding hurdling is, only to realize they’re never going to understand.

8.            When running with no hurdles in your way, you feel a bit unsure as to what you’re supposed to do.

7.            You have tripped over something while walking and played it off like you were practicing your hurdling technique. read more

May 21, 2014

So at our state meet last weekend the girl I coach won the 100m hurdles in a new personal best of 13.52, and it would’ve been a state meet record except the wind was over the allowable legal limit. It was a great race in which she looked very fast between the hurdles and very fast over them. The only glaring flaw in the whole race was that she popped up at the start.

So all the other coaches were congratulating me later on and remarking on how wonderfully she ran. But my mind was still on the boys’ 110 prelims, where my guy was on his way to finishing in the top two and automatically qualifying for the final before the speed of the race finally caught up to him and he clobbered the ninth hurdle with the foot of his lead leg, falling back to fifth or sixth place and out of a spot in the finals.

All I could think about – as soon as it happened and for the rest of the day – was, I should have jammed him. I should’ve jammed him in practice. This state championship meet was his first race on a mondo surface after running on slower rubber surfaces all season long. I knew the faster surface would cause crowding issues. When practicing block starts, I should’ve moved the hurdles in three feet to mimic the crowded feeling he’d have in the race. But I’d only moved them in the usual one foot, which wasn’t enough to prepare him for those hurdles rushing up at him. read more

May 8, 2014

For today’s blog I’m inserting an excerpt from an article that will appear in the May issue of The Hurdle Magazine, which will come out on Wednesday May 14th. The article is entitled “A Different Kind of Warrior.” Here’s a snippet:

Hurdling is all about individual expression. More than any other event in track and field, hurdling is about styles. There are as many styles as there are hurdlers. You see hurdlers like Aries Merritt, David Oliver, Liu Xiang, Jason Richardson, Dayron Robles, all having extreme levels of success, yet all with contrasting hurdling styles. While there are similarities that can be pointed out from hurdler to hurdler, you can tell who is who just by how they look over the hurdles.

One of my funniest memories occurred several years ago when one of my athletes, messing around toward the end of practice, imitated the styles of several hurdlers. “Let me do Dominique Arnold,” he said. And he looked just like Arnold over the hurdle. Then he said “let me do Trammell,” and he looked just like Terrence Trammell. He did two or three other hurdlers and it was hilarious. All the other hurdlers, as well as myself, nearly fell on the ground laughing. But a very important point was being made: you can identify a hurdler by his or her style. Your style is your thumbprint. It is your identity. read more

May 2, 2014

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling

My take on the whole Donald Sterling thing is a little bit different from most. I think that any time we are reminded of the racism that exists in our society, we must take the opportunity to be introspective and to be honest with ourselves regarding our own latent prejudices. I’m sure that if you were to ask Sterling if he is a racist, his answer would be no. As he said in the phone conversation that ignited the whole scandal, he does pay his players handsomely, so what’s the problem?

As an African-American who attended predominantly white schools throughout most of my educational career and who taught at one for almost two full decades, I never considered myself to be someone who held any prejudices against whites. But a couple years ago I wrote an article decrying the fact that American hurdlers were losing races to slower hurdlers from other countries because those foreign hurdlers were better technically. I mentioned that Sally Pearson couldn’t beat any of the American female hurdlers in an open 100 meter dash, yet she was beating them consistently over the hurdles. read more

April 24, 2014

With the annual Penn Relays Carnival taking place this weekend in Philadelphia, I figured this would be a good time to share one of my Penn Relays memories. Having grown up in the Philly suburbs, I attended the meet fairly frequently, although I never competed there.

The year that stands out the most to me is 1991. I was in my last year as a hurdler at nearby Cheyney State University. Four of my teammates would be competing in the 4×4 against other DII schools. So I hopped into my Chevette, picked up my girlfriend and my hurdling partner and drove into the city to support my teammates.

Three things stand out to me about that meet, and I’ll list them in no particular order:

The biggest shock came when Carl Lewis and his 4×1 teammates on the Santa Monica Track Club walked onto the track in skin-tight, skin-colored uniforms that created the illusion that they were about to run the race butt naked. Now that they had everyone’s attention, they went out and blasted the competition in a dominant performance. read more

April 20, 2014

David Oliver’s hurdling style has often been compared to that of two-time Olympic champion Roger Kingdom, and in the two photos above you can see why. In a previous post I discussed Oliver’s “shoulder lean” style based on the above photo (on the left), and you can see that Kingdom (on the right) had a similar shoulder lean, putting his upper body weight over his lead leg, pushing that leg back to the ground, thereby reducing hurdle clearance time.

In these two photos, Oliver and Kingdom are almost at the exact same point of clearance. I would say though that Oliver is a slightly improved version of Kingdom. D.O.’s trail arm is tighter, with the elbow rising straight up for a quick punch back up instead of flaring out for balance. His lead leg is descending whereas Kingdom’s is straighter. Oliver’s lean over the thigh is deeper. And although the trail legs are almost identical, D.O.’s ankle is flexed so that his toe is pointing up. read more