IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN….TIME FOR TRACK...YAY!
This is the time of year that I admire the most; track and field time. When the world’s fastest men and women, boys and girls take to the track to earn the titles of fastest man, women, boy or girl alive….heck even distance runners are fast in this sport so don’t sleep on them either! Everyone in this sport does 30m and 40m wind sprints and we ALL know the 100m acceleration pattern so unless you’re confident in your sprinting skills, I would strongly advise you NOT to challenge any track and field runner or field event person…yeah that’s right, even the shot putters and discus throwers have speed just watch how they turn in that small 5m circle!!!
Many track and field athletes have been preparing for this season since as early as the summer. Many have started in July 2010, many later in August, college athletes started in September and many of the world class athletes and even some high school athletes have been preparing since November! That’s the beauty of this sport,…the preparation it takes just for one race, one moment in time, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 44 seconds, 50 seconds, 11 seconds, 10 seconds, 9 seconds is all we prepare for. And those seconds, to us, is a lifetime; it defines our life’s purpose; we put all we are into those milliseconds, those micro ticks!
If you have a track and field team in your area I invite you to sit in on one of their practices. Observe at how the practices are carefully designed, how the coaches and athletes know the routines from the warm ups to the planned units of workouts to the cool down and even the routine of the weight room. It’s all planned out accordingly and in many cases it’s planned and carefully designed to fit the needs of each individual athlete. This is one sport where one size DOES NOT fit all…it is truly an amazing sport.
Many you probably don’t know this but a track and field coaches job is over 80% planning and barely 20% actual practicing! In this sport, our periodization or seasonal plan, starts from the end of the season works backwards! Yeah that’s right, we see the end from the beginning….we see it and envision it before it happens! Truly remarkable isn’t it??!!
However, the poor coverage of this sport is in no way a deterrent to its real fans. We have online resources, word of mouth, heck anything we can get our hands on to keep up with what’s going on. We race against the elements of nature, other competitors and the most powerful foe of all…father time. And that ladies and gentlemen is track and field at its core.
See you in the stands!
Continue in knowledge my friends!
Charone