A new year and the start of a new season

We celebrated the New Year with a quick trip to Tahoe. Jon and Heather told us that we needed to do a double sled ride, so we went for it. But then afterwards, they told us we were "doing it wrong." I'm not sure what they meant by that. How else would you double sled down a hill? (Laura: And how else would a barrel of angry birds come down a hill?) I will admit, I don't really like sledding double, because it makes it hard to breathe...

Tahoe in the winter brings some challenges to working out. If we were distance runners, we would be pretty much out of luck, since finding an ice-free run would be almost impossible. Luckily, we can get away with lots of short sprints. We found a nice, ice-free 100 meter stretch of road and did some hill sprints, so we were able to check off a workout for one day we were up there. The day we drove home we made our weekly day off.

Coming back from Tahoe marked the last week in our last "pre-season" cycle. Unfortunately, I pulled my calf a bit in the last workout before we started an easy week, so I'm out for a few days before I try to transition back to running. Currently I'm sweating it out on a stationary bike.

The transition from pre-season to early season training also means more of an emphasis on "tuning up" some of the event skills. We ended our preseason with a trip to an all-comer's meet in Los Gatos. With my calf, I couldn't compete. Laura did the long jump, 60m hurdles, and 400m (as a workout).

In the LJ, I have had her working on being more "powerful" in the run. We have spent a lot of time working on her knee drive and turnover in general. As a side effect of this, I was afraid she would lose some of her power on the LJ runway in favor of speed and turnover. To combat this, we have done a number of drills working specifically on training her to run properly down the runway. At the all-comers, I told her to focus on her run up and carrying her speed through the board. 

We have been working a lot on a sprint form in general. In these parachute runs, we're focusing heavily on knee drive and turnover.

For her first jump, she was too choppy down the runway, letting all the running form drills we have been working on get in the way of proper technique down the runway. As a result she was a foot behind the board and jumped 16-5. For the second jump, she corrected this and was well onto the board, jumping 18-6. For the third jump she also executed well and jumped 18-8 with only her toes on the board. Had she gotten "all of the board" on that third jump, she would have been about 19-2 or so.

So overall, I was happy with how she did. She is exactly where I would want her to be for this season, being capable of a 19+ jump with current fitness and technique.

Her landing is currently pretty dismal. This isn't surprising and was even expected, since we haven't been working on that aspect at all. I would estimate she is losing about 8 to 12 inches compared to a good landing.

I am also not 100% happy with her takeoff. She is driving her free leg (left leg) too "forward." I'd like to see her foot come slightly above the plant knee while rising, but she is coming flat with that leg. This doesn't generate as much vertical impulse, losing distance on the jump. I think it stems from a bit too high of a back kick on the plant.

1) Good positioning of the plant (right) leg, decent arm position. Drive (left) leg is a little high, but the biggest issue is her lack of dorsaflexion, which will slow down that swing phase   2) Her drive leg looks to be in a good position, except for the lack of dorsaflexion     3) She is starting to dorsaflex her leg, but it is a little too late to really drive that leg        4) Looking across from frame 1 to frame 4, you can see how her drive/swing leg is moving forward when it should be moving upward into the jump       5) As a side effect of driving forward with the free leg, her knee angle opens up      6) The knee continues to open in front of her, rather than allowing her leg to cycle under her, in an imitation of "running into the air." She now has to "catch up" and rush into the hang.

Overall a good jump for January, though.

So the landing and takeoff angle are what we will start to emphasize more over the coming month or two. I'm confident that the first time she integrates these two fixes while maintaining what she is currently doing well, she will be well over 20 feet.

Then she had the hurdles. She looks great in her warmup practice starts. Her hurdle race itself was ok. She didn't get after it as well as she could have, and it shows in her hurdle form a bit. (Laura: I've been trying to remind myself to be a sprinter first and just run over the hurdles!!! It's getting better, but certainly not where I want it to be.)

Then she ran the 400m. She ran about 63 (we are still waiting on the "official" time). She did this as a workout. (Laura: Considering I haven't ran a 400 without a baton in my hand, expect in workouts, it went pretty well. Definitely didn't start fast enough for the first part of the race, which just slowed everything else down. But, if that's the only 400 I run [right, Josh???], then I'll be happy.)

Next week is our "easy" week, then we head to Boise to run an indoor meet on Saturday. Stay tuned...