Seven Steps to Hurdle Heaven

Introduction

Recently I was listening to a song Miles Davis recorded back in 1963 called “Seven Steps to Heaven.” Of course, with my hurdle-centered mind, when I hear a title that triggers something in my imagination, I put a hurdle-related spin on it. So in this case I’m not referring, for once, to seven steps to the first hurdle. Instead, Miles’ tune got me thinking about the steps, or stages, of a hurdler’s evolution.

When you think of sevens you think of things that start at the bottom and rise to the top. Like the seven notes on the musical scale, the seven colors of the spectrum. When I look at my own hurdling journey – from where I started to where I am now, and where I may be going – I see that I have evolved in stages, and that I continue to do so. I’m convinced that such is the case for anyone who decides to live a life devoted to the hurdles.

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In my estimation, hurdling is an event in the sport of Track & Field in name only. That’s its disguise. The competitive element masks the reality. The reality is, hurdling is a celebration of life. To hurdle is to celebrate life. To be a hurdler is to be one who celebrates life. Through hurdling, the physical body becomes a gateway to the divine within us; it is how we find the part of ourselves that is pure and true, untainted by a world that constantly seeks to define us, and by our own worrisome minds that chatter away with expectations and demands.

In the opening paragraph of Chapter 18 of Track & Field Omnibook, entitled “Why Men Run,” author Ken Doherty says, “Why do men run? The wisest answer would undoubtedly be given by a child, or by a runner, or by a Zen master; without saying a word, they each would start running” (323). And if someone were to ask why men and women hurdle, the appropriate answer would be exactly the same: don’t say a word; just start hurdling.

Hurdlers get asked all the time why they hurdle. And not just by ignorant fools whose opinions don’t matter. But by their own parents, siblings, close friends, and even their own teammates and coaches.

Why would anyone want to hurdle? Why would anyone be crazy enough to want to jump over 5 or 8 or 10 barriers on the way to a finish line? Just the falling part alone is enough to scare most people away. Then you throw in the shin splints, hamstring pulls, and bloody trail leg knees, and another good portion walks away without ever coming back.

We all have our reasons. We hurdle because it’s fun, because it requires a multitude of skills, because it’s more challenging than just running or sprinting, etc. I’ve given all those answers and more at one point or another. But I know fully well, as we all do, that none of those explanations really answer the question. That’s because there are no answers. None that can be put into words anyway. None that make sense to those who don’t hurdle.

Hurdlers hurdle because they hurdle. Because, for reasons beyond their own understanding, it’s who they are. And to me, that’s what’s so wondrous about the hurdles. It gets down to the core of life, to where the essences lie, to where mystery reigns.

So what does the hurdler’s journey consist of? What are the seven steps to hurdle heaven? Bear with me. This could take a while.

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 Step One: Getting over the Fear

There’s something about hurdling that draws a crowd. People are curious about the hurdles. Little kids, athletes from other sports, athletes from other events might be on the track and see random hurdles set up, and just for the heck of it they’ll jump over them. This past year I had numerous incidents when a quarter-miler or half-miler would come up to me after his workout and ask me, “Think I could be any good in the hurdles, Coach?” My response is always, “Yeah, if you work at it.”

But most people don’t want to work at it. Even people with talent, with the prototypical body type. One sprinter on our team last year, a senior who also played wide receiver on the football team, swore up and down to me that he could be a good hurdler. He was a big trash talker, so I assumed he was just playing around. Then he went ahead and jumped over a hurdle and his form actually looked pretty good. “Told you I could do it Coach!” he shouted, pounding his chest. “Told you I could hurdle!”

I admitted that, yes, he had shown me something. But it was the end of practice and he had already done a full sprint workout, so it was too late to put him through any drills. I told him that if he’s really serious about hurdling, come back tomorrow at the beginning of practice and let’s see how it goes.

“Okay Coach,” he said, nodding his head up and down confidently. “Is this how high the hurdles are in a meet?”

The hurdle he had cleared was in a girl’s lane, so it was 33 inches. I shook my head no, walked up to the hurdle and raised it two clicks. “This is race height,” I said.

And before I had a chance to explain that I wouldn’t start him out in practice at race height, he was walking out the gate and up the steps toward the locker room. “Can’t do it Coach,” he said on his way out. “That’s too high.”

Such scenarios are played out all the time, all across the country, all across the world. Many would-be hurdlers never even get to step one. They’re stopped by a fear of what might happen if….

Those who do face their fears and keep going are usually those who have been inspired in some way to pursue a hurdling path. In most cases, they saw someone else do it first, and were inspired by that person’s example. For me, as I’ve written about in other articles, seeing Renaldo Nehemiah’s world record race in 1981 when I was a 14 year old boy lit a flame in me that to this day has yet to expire. Former athlete of mine Wayne Davis II told me when I interviewed him for a profile for The Hurdle Magazine last year that he was inspired to hurdle by watching Allen Johnson at the 1996 Olympics.

An 11-year-old that I’m coaching now, Alex Nunley, had two older brothers that I coached. So Alex grew up around hurdles, and would even jump over banana hurdles while his brothers were practicing. Alex, in his first year of hurdling competitively, is already at the point where I can’t get him off the track. He wants to hurdle every day.

Someone like Alex is an exceptional case. Most hurdlers aren’t hurdling out the womb. Most hurdlers come upon hurdling later in their athletic lives, after they’ve already participated in other sports and/or other track and field events. In a lot of cases, athletes are encouraged by a teammate or a coach to try the hurdles. So there’s a lot of uncertainty in their minds if “this hurdling thing” will work out or not.

After that initial spark is lit, it’s time to do the grunt work. Which means a whole lot of repetitions of basic drills. Fence drill for trail leg, fence drill for lead leg, walk-overs, etc. A lot of drills with hurdles lowered and spaced closely together. I also usually have beginners do full-speed sprints over the first hurdle at a lower height just so they can face their fear very early on in their development. It’s often funny to see how slow “full speed” is when a hurdle is in the way. So I usually have to prod them to really sprint without worrying about possible consequences.

At this stage of development, the hurdler is like a newborn baby, struggling to find his or her way in this strange new world. Beginners have to learn the motions, they have to learn the rhythm, and they have to get a sense of the speed involved. And because they may end up being better suited for the long hurdles, they also have to be introduced to alternating.

Last week I had a session with a beginner-level middle school hurdler with an extensive background in soccer. It was my first time working with her, and the first thing I noticed was that she ran on her heels, like many soccer players do. I spent an hour and a half with her, and the first hour consisted mainly of just A-marches and A-skips. Getting her out of the habit of running on her heels and into the habit of running on the balls of her feet. I was nit-picking the heck out of her, pointing out every time her toe dropped and making her walk back and start over again. I was looking for signs of annoyance or frustration on her part, but they never came. In the last half hour we were able to graduate to some hurdle drills. And at the very end I had her put on her spikes and go full speed over one, then two hurdles.

After we finished and I was walking off the track with her and her mom, I told her that I think she has a bright future in the hurdles because she demonstrated the patience and persistence needed to excel in the hurdles. Most beginners, especially that age, do not have the patience needed to do marches and skips for an hour; they just want to get to the fun stuff.

So how do you know when beginner hurdlers have graduated from stage one? How do you know when they’ve moved beyond fear, toward being a seriously competitive athlete in this event? There are two instances.

The first comes when they run their first full flight. And indoors doesn’t count. It has to be a full flight of ten (110m hurdles, 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles) or eight (300m hurdles). The first time I faced a full flight of ten hurdles in my sophomore year of high school (which was my first year hurdling), I was terrified. It was a no-pressure dual meet, but still, when I walked up to the starting line to set my blocks and saw those ten hurdles staring back at me, I couldn’t fathom that I’d be able to get over all of them. It looked like there were a hundred of them.

I walked over to my coach, who was standing nearby, and said, “Uh, Coach, I don’t think I’m ready for the 110’s yet.”

He patted me on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry about all ten; clear the hurdle in front of you.”

Man did that help! “Clear the hurdle in front of you.” It’s a phrase I’ve repeated dozens of times over the years, not just to beginners running their first race, but in any race situation, because it’s always relevant. I’ve even repeated it in non-hurdling contexts, in non-track contexts. If I ever get around to writing my life story, that has a good chance of being the title.

My coach’s advice calmed me down, freed me of my anxiety. Instead of focusing on the overwhelming task of clearing ten hurdles without a chance for a do-over, I focused on getting a good start. After clearing hurdle one, I focused on hurdle two. And on down the line. My time was garbage, my arms swung like windmills, but I finished.

I think that should be the goal of all hurdlers running their first race: finish. Don’t worry about time, don’t worry about place. Because if you finish, you have a benchmark time, you have a sense of where you stand in relation to the competition. You have something to build on. If you don’t finish, for whatever reason, the fear remains, and you’ll have to go through the whole process again in the next meet.

The other instance that enables hurdlers to graduate from stage one in their development is their first fall. All hurdlers can agree that falling is the first major rite of passage that a hurdler must endure. It may happen on day one, it may not happen until the first race, or it may not happen till further down the line in one’s career. It may happen during a simple drill, during a practice rep, or during a race. But one thing is for certain: it’s going to happen. If you run the hurdles, then at some point you will fall.

The first time you fall, it shocks you. You always knew it could happen, you had seen it happen to others, but a part of your mind remained convinced it would never happen to you. So when you fall for the first time, you’re embarrassed, bewildered, perhaps a bit angry, and in many cases humbled.

But if you’re really a hurdler, a funny thing happens after that first fall: the fear of falling goes away. Now that the worst has happened, there’s nothing left to be afraid of. Now you can focus on getting better. If you’re really a hurdler, the first fall motivates you. You want to know why you fell, and how to prevent yourself from doing so again. You want to improve your technique, and you want to gain a better understanding of the relationship between rhythm and speed and technique.

If you’re not really a hurdler, your first fall is your last fall. You view your fall as evidence that hurdling is as dangerous as you thought it was. So you stop hurdling. That’s why I always say, hurdling’s not for everybody. No shame in the game if it’s not for you. Athletes who give up on hurdling after falling won’t overtly declare, “I quit the hurdles! This sucks!” Instead, they’ll just kind of disappear. “Coach So-and-So wants me to work on long jump today,” they’ll say. Then the next day they’ll need to work on baton exchanges. They’ll keep finding a reason to stay away. Me, I don’t chase them. If you’re really a hurdler, you’ll come back. If you’re not, you won’t.

Those who do come back have taken the first step toward hurdle heaven.

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Work Cited

Doherty, Ken. Track & Field Omnibook (Fourth Edition). Los Altos: Tafnews Press, 1985. Print.

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Steps Two and Three of  “Seven Steps to Hurdle Heaven” will be discussed in next month’s issue of The Hurdle Magazine.

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