Chieftan's Championship Quest

[ESTI]

Thursday April 26

I dug into my library and looked up some info on the DDR relay tables. I did the tests and determined the steps for my boys and girls teams. It's amazing how accurate they are. The timing of the pass is near dead on. I'm hoping to shave some time with these new faster passes this weekend in the 4x100.

I got to the track at 330 and found out a 7th and 8th grade track meet was to start at 4pm. The kids were warmed up at 330 and we did 4x200 at their selective paces. Last week was speed, this week I went with more intensive SE work.

F, the hurdler, did 4x200 in 27, 25, 26, 25, all with a 200m jog back recovery (back to line in 90 seconds approximately).

[trackfan1010]

Could you explain how the tables work?

[ESTI]

You have athletes do a 0-26m all out sprint and time it. Then time the last 25m of their 100. You match the incoming 25m time with the outgoing 26m time and it gives you a take off distance.

http://www.charliefrancis.com/commun...raining-in-GDR

[trackfan1010]

interesting, do you time using free lap, brower or something else?

[ESTI]

Hand time worked fine.

[glaeser]

It has been my observation that if you time high school athletes on the straight and lane 2 on the turn, the top six rankings can be dramatically different for the straight versus the turn. In other words, a ranking of 1,2,3,4,5,6 on the straight may be 2,5,3,1,4,6 on the turn, which is to say, some athletes can sprint well on the straight but can't manage the turn. I have informally polled many high school coaches regarding their selection of the athletes for the relay, and most will select the four fastest 100 meter times. IMHO, this can overlook the ranking disparity in the example above. Two of the athletes have to run the turn and if #5 on the straight is #2 on the turn, what then?

The high school track season is rather short, and I like to get some data early in the season so I get a rough idea about leg assignments. (This is only preliminary and may change due to athlete development, injuries, grades, and other issues.) I use the 35 meter low hurdle marks for fly-in sprints on the straight and the turn. The markings are already there, and I don't have to use a wheel to measure the turn. I use lane 2 because I prefer to accentuate the affects of the turn, but avoid the potential for stepping on a rail in practice. I used Brower for many years, but having switched to Freelap, I can leave lane 1 open for the distance coach. (I can also simultaneously measure both athletes and all the zones throughout the hand-off, which is not possible with photo beams due to multiple athletes breaking the beam).

I have also observed a disparity in the acceleration of some athletes when when an athlete is coming in versus no athlete coming in. I set up the timing equipment to measure their acceleration. Every other acceleration is done with an athlete coming in (no baton, just wait for the mark and get out) and then by themselves. I show them the numbers, and they can see for themselves that they are hesitating when someone is coming in. I let them know that they don't need to hesitate, and we will make any needed adjustments with the steps.

To further encourage the outgoing leg to get out and the incoming leg to "run through" the exchange zone, I use exchange zone races. I divide the lane in half using flat soccer cones. The outgoing leg has to wait for the mark, and then it's a full-on race to the end of the exchange zone (no baton). I measure these accelerations as well. The first few times, the incoming leg will often blow by the outgoing leg. After a few practices, the outgoing leg will make the mental adjustment need to get out, and their accelerations with an incoming leg will begin to match their accelerations with no incoming leg. I continue to time their accelerations when we add the baton pass.

As the season progresses and I gain confidence in the leg selection, on some speed days, I may have legs 1 and 3 do some speed work on the turn with a baton in their hand. I place the transmitters on the low hurdle marks and record the fly-in times just as I monitor the speed on the straight. I record the lane number as our lane assignments may change from practice to practice.

Best,
Christopher

[glaeser]

Hand time worked fine.

What is your setup for the 0-26 meter? Are you timing a gun and smoke, first movement, or something else?

Best,
Christopher

[ESTI]

What is your setup for the 0-26 meter? Are you timing a gun and smoke, first movement, or something else?

Best,
Christopher

I went from first movement, standing start. It was an experiment that worked perfectly for my 4 girls. The boys times weren't on the table and I had to make some adjustments based on the table progressions. Considering I am a math teacher this was quite fun and interesting! Maybe DDR athletes who used this table had beam timed splits back in the 60s and 70s (book was written back then).

Overall, the boys time dropped 0.8 seconds Saturday off their previous season best.

Chris, I do like your idea of exchange zone games. I have felt some athletes don't get out well. I think this will be fun to do in the next two weeks to get prepared for the bigger meets of the season. My kids don't get enough races in the 100m through the season and I've found it hard to see nice drops in time. Most many run 3-5 races only. When I ran, I counted one year I ran 15 100m races in 12 week season, which may explain why for two years I opened at 11.4-11.7 and ended at 10.9/10.8. My kids opened at 11.9 and may break 11.4 if temps are warm. I say this because I think the only way the relay times will drop much will be mastering baton velocity.

I also think you are on to something with the turn times. Next year as part of my testing, I will include a lane 2 trial standing, and lane 2 trial from blocks.

[ESTI]

Saturday, April 28
Temp: FREEEEEZZING!! meet started at about 39F, and topped around 48F around the middle of the meet. Wind was strong, but the track was in a bowl stadium and wind on the track was negligible.

The competition for most of our kids was very high. This was why we wanted to come to this meet. No one really knew of us cause we are from the other county, and most teams in our county are not as fast.

In the boys 4x800, we set a season PB by near 10 seconds, thanks to 2 teams pushing their paces. Almost every runner set a season best PB in their splits. We ran this time last year the second week in May. so we are about two weeks ahead of pace. Our goal is sub 8 minutes by June 2 at state finals. We ran 8:09. The next fastest team in our county is about 8:30.

In the 110H, F, ran rounds for the first time. He handled them well. He wont the final in 14.76 FAT and won by a lot. After the meet, a local Big Ten school approached us interested in him. He is a junior right now and is very promising future since he considers track his first main sport and not football or basketball. We have been working on the half spacing drills and it was very clear the difference in his flight times and hip heights over the hurdles. It's not perfect but much improved. Using my 60 fps camera, previous flight times averaged approximately 0.40-0.45 seconds. This race was 0.30-0.36 seconds per hurdle.

He later ran the 300h. He has the fastest recorded 300H time in Michigan to date at 38.1ht. he ran out of rhythm and hit nearly every hurdle, running 39.1 coming in second to the kid he beat by a second last saturday.

In the 800, G, ran a tactically bad race and ran 2:00, a personal best in the open 800. He ran his last 100m in lane 4. He misunderstood my tactical instructions. He was to keep pace with a group of 3 runners and then kcik in the final 100. He tends to kick too soon and get passed. He just ran with the middle pack and kicked the last 100m! The winner, one of the ones he was supposed to chase, ran 1:56. Again, he won't see this speed again until June 2 at state finals if we decide to let him run the open 800. He is ready to run sub 50 in the 400m, which usually is top 8 in Michigan. He has run high 50s this year in poor conditions. Hoping in the next two weeks, he has 3 chances to go after it. By May 12, we will have to decide what we will do. 2:00 is ok, but will get smoked at state finals. The top 8 last year ran under 1:55, with 2:01 being last place.

As mentioned above, the 4x100 ran a new season best, which I was very pleased.

Overall, a great meet for our kids and really pushed their comfort zones and opened their eyes as to how fast teams are compared to us.

[martijn]

Maybe DDR athletes who used this table had beam timed splits back in the 60s and 70s (book was written back then).

They did have quite sophisticated equipment in the sixties. Have a look at this page on technology for measuring sprints from the Museum for Sports in Leipzig.