The Joy of Hurdling Alone
by Steve McGill

This past Sunday I had a hurdle practice with two girls on my school team. One girl, Marie, started on the 300 hurdle race, getting her stride pattern locked down for the first four hurdles. Because our school doesn’t have a track, and because we usually focus on the 100 hurdles on Sundays, we’re just now implementing specific stride pattern work. After finishing up on that side of the track, she came over to the other side of the track to join her teammate, Grace, on the 100h side of the track to work on that race. Grace, who has an outside chance of winning the 100h at the state meet, decided to focus exclusively on that race for this session. 

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All in all, we were on the track for about 90 minutes. It was a nice day for training. In the high 70’s but overcast, warm enough to get a good workout in but cool enough that heat fatigue wouldn’t be an issue. The workout went outstandingly well, as Marie and Grace are two very focused, dedicated athletes. As they were doing their cooldown, I sat by myself on the track for a minute. And I found myself to be in quite a reflective mood, kind of how I used to feel after completing hurdle workouts on my own back in the day when I was a competitive athlete. Back in those days, I lived for doing hurdle workouts on my own on days off — usually Sunday — when I could focus totally on myself and my love of the hurdles without dozens of other people on the track creating distractions. After completing such workouts, I always felt such a tremendous feeling of gratitude. I’d thank the hurdles, I’d thank the weather, I’d thank the track, I’d thank the universe for giving me the space to do what I love.

I was filled with that same sense of gratitude at the end of Marie & Grace’s workout this past Sunday. As I sat there by myself while they walked a lap around the track, I thanked the hurdles, the track, the weather, because all those factors made this moment possible. Then I continued to acknowledge other factors. The head coach at the school where we were training who was kind enough to open the gate and let us train there. Whoever the people were who constructed the track. Whoever the people were who paid for the construction of the track. The athlete I coach privately who helped me establish a solid relationship with his coach. 

Later, when I was sitting on my couch watching TV with my wife, I found myself wondering why that workout with Marie and Grace had felt so fulfilling, so gratifying. And the answer hit me quickly: because we had the track all to ourselves.

Now, if I’m talking strictly on a practical level, I’d say that when hurdlers are doing hurdle workouts, they need a coach present to troubleshoot problems as soon as they occur. But recently I’ve been letting Grace and Marie train at a nearby college that allows athletes to use the track, but not with a coach present. In order to get in a hurdle day during the week, I’ve been sending Grace and Marie to the college to get in some hurdling without my supervision. They’ve been with me long enough that I can trust them to at least not regress and to work on specific things that I have identified as focal points. And for me back in my competitive days, I never had a coach who could be called a hurdle coach, so my best workouts occurred when I hurdled by myself, experimented with different techniques, and let my body coach me through feel. In addition, throughout my years of coaching for school teams, the best hurdle workouts have always come on days when I can get the hurdlers alone and focus on them exclusively.

Unfortunately, at the high school level, staggering workouts is not an option. When I interviewed for the NC State sprint/hurdle position this past summer, one of the things that really appealed to me was when the head coach told me that I could work with the sprinters and hurdlers separately. I could work with the sprinters, say, from 11-1, and then with the hurdlers from 2-4. But at the high school level, the only time we have available is that short window right after school and before it’s time to go home to eat dinner and get homework done. And because Saturdays are usually rest days or meet days, Sundays often provide the only opportunity to get in some work when there are no other athletes on the track.

Hurdlers are space hogs by nature. A lane with hurdles in it is a lane that other people can’t run in. When I was coaching for a club team back around 2006-2009, the hurdlers trained on the track where I was teaching at the time. I had about six guys and four girls, and in a typical workout we took up every lane on the track. In a typical school team workout, the hurdlers need to squeeze into the two outside lanes, and constantly have to worry about people accidentally or nonchalantly walking across their lanes right before a rep or even in the middle of a rep. Same for large club teams. I don’t see how it’s possible to effectively develop hurdlers under such conditions. The one year I coached for a large youth club team, I had the hurdlers come 90 minutes early so we could get all or most of our workout in before the rest of the team arrived. Otherwise, we would’ve had to deal with everybody else’s noise and nonsense.

So, to all you hurdlers reading this article, treasure those moments when you can hurdle alone. Those days are the days when you can develop a deep relationship with the hurdles and gain a full appreciation for how magical the journey is. Hurdling alone is what teaches you that while having goals is great, loving what you do is even better. 

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