How Fast Can Keni Run?
Those of you who have kept up with the magazine and the website over the years know that I coached Keni Harrison, current world leader in the women’s 60 meter hurdles, for her last two years of high school. Her sophomore year, she was more of a soccer player who also ran the 300m hurdles in the spring. I began working with her as her private hurdles coach in the fall of her junior year. During that time, I helped her to gain a confidence in clearing the 33-inch barriers for the 100 meter race. We did tons and tons of drills to develop rhythm and technique. I’ll always remember that, on her first attempt at going over two hurdles at full distance in practice, she four-stepped.
[am4show not_have=’g5;’]
[/am4show][am4guest]
[/am4guest][am4show have=’g5;’]
By April of that year she was racing over a full flight of ten, and by May she was winning a state championship. She went on to win a national championship at the USATF Junior Olympics in July.
Keni was the most focused, driven athlete I’ve ever coached. One time she arrived at practice complaining of a headache. When I told her it would be fine if she went ahead and sat this one out, she gave me a glare like she was about to smack me in the face. “I was just letting you know,” she said, making it clear that she had no intentions of shirking the workout.
When people ask me about Keni and the success she had while at Kentucky (where she won multiple national indoor and outdoor championships), and the success she is having now in her first year as a professional, I tell them I am not surprised. I saw it coming. And I know there is more to come. Because Keni’s will to win is on an exceptionally high level. Though very quiet and unassuming, almost to the point of being shy and somewhat embarrassed by all the attention she is receiving, Keni is a fierce competitor.
In addition, her hurdling IQ has increased tremendously over the past five years. When I was coaching her, I had to explain everything to her. She didn’t know how to think the event – mainly because she was new to it, not because she was unwilling. But gradually, in our phone conversations and text message exchanges throughout her college years, it became clear to me that her understanding of the various aspects of the event was increasing rapidly. I could tell by the level of questions she was asking. I’ve always felt that athletes have to be “students of the event,” so to speak, because you have to develop the ability to troubleshoot your own problems. Wrong should feel wrong. Slow should feel slow. Off balance should feel off balance. If you’re making mistakes but can’t feel that you’re making mistakes, then you’re going to be very difficult to coach.
What impresses me most about Keni know, in comparison to past years, is that she has developed that feel. She’s asking the right questions. She’s no longer asking how she can run faster times, but how she can run more efficient races. That is why I feel like her ceiling is unlimited, that she may well be on her way to being one of the greatest female hurdlers in the history of the event. Of course, I’m biased, but that viewpoint is also based on practical evidence.
In 2015, Harrison ran a personal best of 12.50, coming off a personal best of 7.87 indoors. She has already run 7.82 indoors this year, which indicates she is already on pace to run in the 12.40 range outdoors.
She and I have discussed the possibility of running under 12.40, and I think it can happen. But, as I have expressed to her, it can only happen if her trail leg learns to keep up with her speed and with her lead leg. Last year, Keni got a lot faster, and her lead leg became lightning quick, but her trail leg lag behind. As a result, she was able to run very fast times on speed and lead leg alone, which is a very common phenomenon among female hurdlers – one that exasperates me to no end. A male hurdler with a low and wide trail leg is going to be smacking hurdles until Doomsday. Women can get away with it … until they can’t. In other words, once they come upon a superior technician with comparable speed, they’re going to be in trouble. Keni found that out last year. In several races, opponents caught her and passed her in the latter half of the race, as her trail leg got sloppier and sloppier and caused more and more lateral movement in the lane. As far as this year goes, 7.82 is certainly flying, but how many hurdlers are in race shape right now? Indoor success is great, but, especially in an Olympic year, provides no assurances of dominance outdoors.
In the fall and early winter, Keni sent me practice videos on occasion showing her working on her trail leg execution at lower heights, with closer spacing. It was looking awesome, but the improvement has yet to translate into races. As I explained to her, getting the trail leg to keep up when moving at full speed will prove to be the hardest challenge. But what I’m hoping she doesn’t do – which she kind of had to do last year – is just rely on default mode and let the lead leg and her speed carry the day. To me, the trail leg does matter, even for the female hurdlers.
So, what’s the matter with her trail leg? Let’s take a look at a couple photos from the 7.86 race in Karlsruhe from a couple weeks ago.
In the above photo, you can see that the leg lead is extending, attacking the crossbar. The knee of the trail leg, at this point in clearance, should be pointing up. Instead, it’s pointing down. That’s an indication that there is some back-kick in her stride. Not a lot, or else the heel would be moving toward her butt. But still, there’s enough that the groin of the trail leg will be forced to open wider than it would otherwise need to once she is on top of the hurdle, which is evident in the next photo:
In the above photo, The groin is wide, like a male hurdler’s, instead of the groin being tighter. If you were to see a photo of Sally Pearson at the same point of hurdle clearance, you would see that Sally’s trail leg knee is above the crossbar, whereas Keni’s is below the crossbar. A Pearson will, at this point, be able to drive the trail leg directly to the front, whereas Keni will still need to raise the knee higher while driving the leg to the front.
In regards to the trail leg, I always tell my hurdlers, what you do as soon as the foot leaves the ground determines the flight of the leg all the way to touchdown. Even the slightest back-kick creates unnecessary width, leading to a longer path to travel to reach the front, leading to balance issues. In the case of someone as fast as Keni, the balance issues worsen as she gets faster in the middle part of the race.
If you look at video of her Karlsruhe final, you can see, particularly in the slow motion replay from the head-on angle, that her trail leg is fighting to stay the course. She is running fast in spite of her trail leg, not because of it. She is running fast because of her lead leg, her lead, her speed between, and her incredible will to win.
If she can add in the trail leg as the year goes on, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her run in the 12.35 range. You heard it here first.
[/am4show]
