Seven Steps to Hurdle Heaven

Step Two: Claiming a Hurdler’s Identity

Now that you’ve fallen and gotten back up, it’s time to take the next step toward hurdle heaven, which involves seeing yourself not just as someone who runs the hurdles, but as someone who is a hurdler. The difference is subtle, but significant. Someone who runs the hurdles has yet to make the emotional commitment to excelling in the hurdling events.

This type of athlete, in many cases, excels or at least does well in several events, of which the hurdles are one. So he or she practices hurdles once or twice a week and focuses on other events most of the time. Such an athlete may be a very talented hurdler, but doesn’t like the hurdles as much as, let’s say the long jump, or the 100 meter dash. Such an athlete is quite valuable as a team player who can help out wherever needed to earn the team more points. These types of athletes can be frustrating to coach because their potential is obvious, they’re not lazy, but they spread themselves out all over the place. Such an athlete can be a head coach’s dream and can often become outstanding decathletes or heptathletes. So, I’m not hatin’, I’m just sayin’.

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In other cases, there are those beginners who are just gifted athletes, who run fast hurdle times despite sloppy technique, a suspect work ethic, and a lack of attention to detail. These athletes are, in a sense, victims of their own success. They’ll never take the hurdles seriously as long as they keep winning with minimal dedication. Sometimes their pure athletic abilities can take them very far; it may be years before they encounter opponents who can make them realize that talent alone can’t take them to the top. And by that time it may be too late to flip the switch because the habits of laziness have become too deeply ingrained. So even though such an athlete runs the hurdles, and has a lot of success in the hurdles, he or she is not really a hurdler, not in the sense that we mean it here.

Here, we’re talking about someone whose curiosity is piqued. After falling, or after a particularly disappointing performance, the athlete wants to know, How can I get better at this? The athlete has moved beyond the stage of just being happy to be out here hurdling, of being happy to have discovered a new event, but is beginning to realize that mastering this event will require a whole lot of work. Though feeling a bit intimidated, the athlete decides that this is a path worth pursuing. This is when the athlete becomes a true student of the game, and the learning process begins.

This curious hurdler looks everywhere and anywhere for information and inspiration. The hurdle coach and older hurdling teammates serve as the primary sources. There is no end to the curious hurdler’s questions. He or she wants to know everything. And there is so much to know. Hurdling, the curious hurdler realizes, is not just a matter of running and jumping like outsiders seem to think. Hurdling involves physics, geometry, physiology, kinesiology. It requires persistence, stamina, flexibility, speed, inner and outer strength. Just in terms of technique alone, there’s lead leg mechanics, trail leg mechanics, forward lean, lead arm mechanics, trail arm mechanics. Then there’s the rhythm part of speed between the hurdles. Then there’s all the “extra” stuff that isn’t so extra at all, such as core work, weightlifting, diet, sleep, etc.

While coaches and teammates are valuable resources, the hurdler in this Step Two stage of development won’t stop there. He or she will study the styles of opponents, and will notice elements of opponents’ warm-up routines. Over the years, there have been several occasions when I have made adjustments to my hurdlers’ pre-race warm-up routine that were inspired by my hurdlers’ questions.

And in the modern era there is YouTube, that inexhaustible source of race footage dating back to the 1960’s. And with sites like Flotrack, Runnerspace, Milesplit, and Universal Sports, race footage at the youth level, the high school level, the collegiate level, and the professional level are available, often for free, sometimes for a reasonable subscription rate. The modern-day hurdler can study his or her own races, those of his or her rivals, and those of basically anyone all over the world. Such access to footage is, to me, the primary reason that coaches have to constantly stay on top of their game, have to always remain open to new ideas, and have to be willing to explore unchartered paths along with their athletes. The modern-day hurdler will not settle for doing things a certain way and leaving it at that. He or she has too much access to too much information not to ask questions, not to explore on his or her own if the coach remains rigid.

I think a main reason for any success I’ve had as a coach over the years has to do with my willingness to allow my athletes the freedom to be creative – to ask questions, and to address the questions through experimentation on the practice track. I highly value my own creative space, and I don’t like to inhibit the creative space of others. I find that when athletes are given such space, their motivation remains high and their level of personal investment continues to increase.

What happens, after a while, is that the hurdler comes to understand that hurdling is just as much fun as it is frustrating, and for the same reason: because no matter how much you learn, there’s always more to learn. No matter how much better you get, you can always get better. No matter how much progress you make, there’s always more progress to be made. No matter how many times you think you’ve finally figured out this race, you always come back to a point where you feel like you’re starting over again.

Once that realization clicks, a sense of pride develops. Being a hurdler means being able to do something most people can’t do. Even athletes who are faster than you in the sprints don’t know how to hurdle. Even athletes who excel in other sports, who may be among the best in the world in other sports or other events, can’t do what you do. Distance runners have their thing, sprinters have their thing, pole vaulters have their thing, throwers have their thing, and we have ours. We’re hurdlers.

And when you say “I’m a hurdler” with pride, aware that being a hurdler makes you unique among athletes, that’s when you have taken the second step to hurdle heaven.

Step Three: Becoming a Hurdle Warrior

There comes a time in every hurdler’s development when you have to learn to be a warrior. The competitive beast in you has to come out. Some hurdlers have it naturally; for others it’s a step in their development that constantly eludes them. Hurdlers often tend to be too cerebral over-thinkers who live too much in their own heads. That’s the negative consequence of step two. Being a student of the game is so important, but you can’t be a student of the game when it’s time to line up against a group of opponents and the gun is about to go off. That’s the time to trust your training and run as fast as you can, confident that you are prepared for battle.

The whole point of all the exploring, questioning, experimenting, and learning of step two is to apply all the acquired knowledge in a race. The key, though, is to be able to turn off your brain and trust your instincts. If, come race time, your brain is still thinking, then all that mental activity will inhibit your ability to trust your instincts and to let out your inner hurdling animal. Renaldo Nehemiah once spoke of the need for hurdlers to run with a “controlled recklessness.” But hurdlers oftentimes put too much emphasis on being in control and not enough on being reckless. Being reckless doesn’t mean being wild. It means letting go of fear.

I think a lot of times, because hurdlers tend to be so cerebral, they are easily plagued by self-doubt. They’re so aware of their own flaws that they are critiquing their own race even while they’re racing. They get so upset about the mistake they made at hurdle six that the whole field passes them by heading into hurdle seven. Or, because they’ve been working on their trail leg in practice so much recently, they enter the starting blocks thinking about their trail leg instead of focusing on the gun.

What hurdlers need to understand at Step Three on the path to hurdle heaven is that a hurdle race is, in fact, a race. The aim is to win. The point of all the training is to prepare to win. Technique is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. When it’s time to race, you have to forget about technique. All the hurdlers lined up against you want the same thing you want, and nobody’s gonna give you anything. You’re an individual in a race full of individuals. All your coach can do is watch. He or she can’t call a timeout midway through the race if things are going bad. The teammates you trained with are now lined up beside you trying to beat you. They’re trying to make it to the finals too. They’re trying to qualify for regionals too. You have no friends at the start line. You have no teammates. It’s just you and this lane of hurdles. If you are not a warrior, if you are not in warrior mode, you will falter.

In many cases, the anxiety comes from the belief that you have to compete at a certain level to call yourself a hurdler. The greatest fear at Step Three is that “I don’t belong here.” If I’m a junior in high school running 17.2 in the 110’s, then the mindset is, I’m not good enough to call myself a hurdler. But that’s not reality. The reality is, if you’re putting in the work, you’re a hurdler. Don’t doubt yourself. Run your race.

A couple stories. The first one goes back to somewhere around 1999 or 2000, when High School Outdoor Nationals were held at North Carolina State University, and Adidas sponsored it. The boys 110 final featured two of the best hurdlers in the country – Joshua Walker and Rickey Harris. I had seen Walker before in USATF youth meets and recognized him as a masterful technician. He was easily the best technician I had ever seen at the high school level. In past years, I had pointed him out to my hurdlers as someone to watch and learn from. I’d never seen Harris race before, but knew his times were right up there with Walker’s. (And keep in mind there was no YouTube back then, so if you didn’t see someone race in person, you didn’t see him race).

The gun went off and Walker looked as smooth and fluid as ever, effortlessly stepping over the barriers, skimming the crossbars without touching them. Harris looked surprisingly sloppy for someone who had run so fast. His arms were swinging, his lead leg was going in one direction while his trail leg was going in another. It was quite clear who the superior hurdler was.

Then, around hurdle six I think it was, I realized that Harris was ahead. And he ended up winning. While it’s worth mentioning that in college Harris would go on to focus on the 400 hurdles while Walker would go on to become a two-time NCAA champion over the 42’s, indicating that technique would prove to be a much bigger factor at the next level, I still say that their head-to-head duel taught me a lesson about the importance of being a warrior when that gun goes off, technique be damned.

The other story involves one of my former athletes, Booker Nunley, who was USA Junior Outdoor champion in 2008, in a personal best of 13.41. But when I spoke with him after the race, he expressed great frustration at how poorly he had executed his technique. We had been working tirelessly on his trail leg, getting it to push off and drive upward/forward to the front. It had been looking so good that I felt confident he could do it automatically. But in the race the trail leg stayed low and wide the whole time. He got by on a snappy lead leg, speed and aggression between the hurdles, and a refuse-to-lose mindset.

So I said to him, “Hey man, you went out there and did what you had to do to win the race. We can always go back and work more on the trail leg.”

The lesson here is that the fastest races aren’t always the best technical races. Nehemiah made a lot of technical mistakes in his 12.93 race in 1981. Allen Johnson clobbered more than half the hurdlers on his way to Olympic and World Championship gold in 1996 and 1997.

Hurdlers need to stop thinking in terms of running a perfect race. There is no such thing. Trying to run a perfect race can prevent you from running the best race you have in you on that given day.

That’s why I say, on race day, don’t be a hurdler; be an athlete. Don’t hope that you belong; know that you belong. Don’t be a thinker; be a warrior.

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Steps four and five of the Seven Steps to Hurdle Heaven will be discussed in next month’s issue of The Hurdle Magazine.

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