Since uni finished last month running has taken over my life
to an even greater extent than it did previously. As well as that, I haven’t
blogged in several months, so I’m going to write a bit about competition sprinting, the
culture that surrounds it and what makes it so difficult.
*
The warm-up room at a major competition has a peculiar
atmosphere. There’s never enough space, and the athletes whizz around the room
like high-energy particles in a canister. A hundred or more fast, powerful,
highly-trained and most importantly high-focused young men and women hop,
sprint, skip and bound across the centre of the room in only a semi-organised
mess. Fittingly, perhaps, the unspoken one-way rule goes most frequently
unheard by the runners that warm up wearing over-ear headphones – Beats by Dre
are endemic in the sprinting world – to block everyone out. The most
interesting are the javelin throwers, who gracefully side-step/leap across the
room, trailing arm carrying an imaginary javelin and the other held at shoulder
height, flexing at the elbow with each stride. I realised with some excitement after
a few moments observation that it looks like they are playing enormous
imaginary violins while dancing across the warm up area. And there are always a
few athletes at the side that perform arcane warm-up gyrations and contortions
to no obvious end, loosening muscles that I didn’t even know existed. If the
athlete in question is particularly talented, it’s hard not to ask yourself
what they know that you don’t, but it’s best just to get on with it.
Trying to assess the opposition in the warm-up area is a
mug’s game, anyway. Bulging muscles, an intense stare and a dropped-hip swagger
– the sprinter’s prowl, I call it – are by no means indications of speed. Nor
is the rapid through-the-teeth exhalations produced by runners over the first
half-dozen strides or so of a maximum effort push out. It sounds impressive,
but when you realise it a) has no performance benefit, b) only distracts you
from the fact that they are not moving particularly quickly, and c) makes them
sound like a burst balloon, it is suddenly less intimidating. It’s incredibly satisfying
to beat these types. The temptation is always there to turn your warm-up into a
performance of machismo, but the real talents,
the guys capable of medalling, don’t bother with this because their
performances speak for themselves, so why should I? If I sound critical it’s
because psychology is a crucial aspect as sprinting: it’s easy to feel daunted by
shows of power, so it’s essential to be able identify them and to filter them out
in order to boost self-confidence. It has reached the point that a warm up is the
only time I feel bulletproof; I might not be able to beat everybody, but I will
never feel intimidated, no matter how much macho posturing goes on.
Sprinters take themselves very seriously. Go on twitter and
find a few sprinters’ profiles: many of them add their event of choice onto
their handle, and their bio will often describe them specifically as a
sprinter. For the most part these guys and girls are amateurs – talented and
dedicated, probably, but still amateurs. I can’t imagine any non-paid
footballers identify first and foremost as centre-mids, or false-nines - ‘@AndrewMcIntyreNo9
Up and coming
trequartista for the
Lion & Stag Inn, onesie enthusiast #teamnike #believe #livethedream
Location: in the hole’ – but it’s understandable. Runners that make the top 100
on the powerof10 rankings (
www.powerof10.info
– a fantastic website) would be able to earn a living if they were equally
ranked in, say, football or rugby. It follows that they would want people to
know that they are serious sportsmen, even if they there’s no money in it. For
what it’s worth, by my estimations I would be plying my trade somewhere in
League 2 if I were as good at football as I am at running.
*
A 100m sprint may last less than eleven seconds, but a serious amount of preparation and skill goes into a well-executed sprint. No
one ever believes me when I say I am useless over any distance above 400m, and
that from 5k and beyond, I am probably below average: we just don't have that kind of fitness. However, that is not to
say sprinting does not require fitness; rather, it requires a very specific
type of fitness. The event itself is over in a flash, but the warm-up lasts around
forty minutes, sometimes longer, and it has to be executed with a high
intensity and precision. To your averagely fit guy, this may well constitute a
full work out, but sprinters have to be fit enough to work their way through a
sequence of demanding exercises and short sprints while being able to go into
the race with a minimum of fatigue.
Oh how I envy distance runners. Their event requires incredible
levels of stamina and mental strength, but at least the basic movement is uncomplicated.
They have time to think, time to relax, and time to fall into a rhythm. On the
other hand, executing a sprint is complicated.
Like, it’s a really tricky thing to do, with a knotty contradiction between
staying relaxed – the key is keeping your face wobbly – while running at
maximum effort. It takes an extraordinary amount of self-control to pull this
off. Perhaps the hardest thing to learn is that 100m is actually quite a long
way. Maximum output, even amongst elite sprinters, is less than ten seconds. It’s
about four or five, and the key is distributing this effort across the distance
for maximum effect. This means taking time to accelerate properly. The
temptation to get up straight as soon as possible and go for it as hard as
possible is strong, but it has to be resisted. The key to running 100m is
moving through the phases efficiently, without rushing them.
The first phase is the sweep phases, which comprises the
first 3-5 strides – the ‘sweep’ comes from the necessity of keeping your feet
as close to the ground as possible in order to minimise leg-swing time. There’s
a common misconception that Bolt is both a bad starter and poor technically. A
complete myth. His sweep is precise and powerful, which is especially impressive
given his stature. Dem hip flexors.
Check it.
Following the sweep phase is the drive phase, which lasts
from about 5m to 35m. Sprinters are often told to stay low, but this advice is
slightly disingenuous in that makes it sound it like staying low is an active
process, which is not the case. A properly executed start mechanic will keep
the body angle low until it rises of its own accord; done right and this will
be between thirty and forty metres, depending on the maturity of the athlete.
Less powerful athletes will have a shorter drive phase because less
acceleration can be wrung from their muscles. This is really fucking difficult
to do because a combination of adrenaline and the runners around you storming
ahead throws you very easily into panic mode, which will scramble efforts to
stay relaxed and in control. I’m not sure I’ve ever got this right, although
fortunately the closest I’ve come also happened to be the
Hampshire Countyfinal. I was way back at 60m, but I’d executed properly which allowed me to
reach top speed and I clawed my way back. I set a massive PB of 10.80 and got a
bronze medal against the odds.
The final phase is maintaining speed. Apparently, and I’m
not 100% on this, but when you see an athlete pull away from the field it is
usually that they are maintaining their speed properly while imperfect sprint
mechanics of their rivals see them decelerate marginally. I’m not sure this
holds for the likes of Bolt: he’s just faster. One good example is
this race
between Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre, Justin Gatlin and Kim Collins. Lemaitre
is one of my idols since he is the only top-class sprinter who resembles myself
– tall, skinny, my age and white. Anyway, while it looks like Lemaitre hauls Gatlin in
through higher top-end speed, really it is Gatlin who imperfectly maintains
technique: the pressure from Lemaitre coming through made him tighten up
horribly, while Lemaitre remained relaxed right through to the finish. It was a
similar story for Collins, who saw his big lead gained from an unreal start wiped
out in moments because he too tightened up in the last 30. It goes to show that the assumption I often hear that the start is the most important thing is not true. It is important, yes, but more important than being in the lead at 40m is setting up your final 60m.
