Eureka!

So for months now my coach and I have been trying to improve my start and first two hurdles. There is no reason for them to be as passive as they have been early in the season. Last week my girlfriend Nic drove up from Michigan to be at the Festival of Excellence and she attended one of my practices. We used to run track together in college and roomed and trained together for years, so she's hip to the game.

The menu: starts over three hurdles.

 

Nic is one of my closest friends and I love her to pieces. But I had to look at her crooked when she later revealed she wanted to just scream and shake me after each start. " Because there was just NO urgency!!" (If she had ever laid a hand on me, so help her God...)

I had no idea she was that frustrated while watching, she gave her two cents but for the most part was quiet and just watched as coach tried to get through to me. I always value her input and know if she was that affected, imagined my coach after all this time. Poor Gdub. Every week teaching this professional hurdler to execute a skill and having to start from scratch each session.



I pride myself in being an Academic-All American, graduating with honors and most importantly, being "coachable" a word Gary has often used to describe me.



So basically I'm not stupid...so why then can't I execute this skill the way I'm supposed to. I'm strong, proficient, and have some talent.



And yesterday we may have discovered it...
In Champaign around 1145am walking back after a start, coach approaches me and says: "I wonder if I'm just beating a dead horse, here".

Woah! Do I really look that outta shape Bubba. Sigh*

But I didn't say a thing and just let him ponder some more. I appreciate his ability to adapt to what he is seeing and make changes on a whim. For all I knew he'd can the starts and have me doing a 600m break down if that made sense.

The truth is I have actually been trying to make this part of my race better, so I'm not playing catch up during a race. It is just not translating and he sees that. I braced myself as he stood on the starting blocks in silence with his head down. Gdub giving birth to a bright idea.

Wait for it....wait for it.....

And then he told me to forget everything we have been working on, abandon the cues completely, they're history.

What? Really?! Because I have only been writing notes and making mental movies in my head for months about executing those cues perfectly. What a waste of paper and space in my brain. But OK.

He then directed me to execute the start the way I do a drill we use to warm up. It's the same thing he said, except you're using the blocks and not a box. The instant he said that, I knew exactly what he meant and how to actually execute that skill. I got in the blocks and the entire run felt sharper.

Eureka!

I walked back and we both were laughing!  I felt it. He saw it. The execution we both know I am capable of. I repeated it three more times and it stuck each one. What I couldn't do wasn't that complicated, it's perfect physics. Many others have learned it well and can do it without thinking. My brain just can't get a handle on it.

I don't care what that says about me, because we have finally found a way that my mind can understand what my body needs to do. And to quote Gdub yesterday: "forget science!".  

Right on brother, when it comes to coaching me, very basic is the new science!

Steady on the grind, 

Perdita

(See Nic no need for violence there was a slight mental issue at work!)