So much drama in the BRC (not really, just hearkening back to some 90s Snoop Dogg)

Boulder Running Company: you have outdone yourselves

Awesome, awesome night at the BRC!

I think the owner, Pete, was pretty psyched with how many kids showed up tonight. The staff was patient, friendly, helpful, and full of tons of knowledge. By the end of the evening I think we had 50 kids show up with a variety of needs, and all walked out with something in hand to help this season. Coaches Nack and Kuhn even got hooked up with some new shoes to get us through the season. Woohoo!

If you did not make it tonight, we missed ya and wish you coulda been there with the team, but the BRC has extended the kindness for the rest of the season. For the remainder of the season any CV track athlete with a school ID can show up to the BRC (at Arapahoe and I-25) and get a 20% discount off of their selections.

Make sure to remind me to bring a uniform to the BRC to be framed and hung on the wall. I would like to make this a yearly tradition for our program! Hopefully you all agree its worth it.

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On another note entirely, check out these hops...


Only 5'11"! High Jumpers: we need this explosiveness. (My favorite, BTW, is at the 1:04 mark)

Coach Nack

League Relay Line-Ups and Athlete Goals

Ladies
Follett 5'4" Bacovcin 5'1" Grimm 4'10"

Gents
Reasoner 5'9" Bills 5'9" Brandes 5'6"

The end of this week holds the culminating event for many of our athletes. Some will move on to state, and some will end there track season. Whatever the end it has been a great season (I know I have had a lot of fun), and thank you for all your hard work.

If you haven't done so yet set your goals, write them down, and think about what it takes to ger there them. Many of us set our goals in terms of numbers (e.g. "I want to jump 6 feet" or "I want to run a sub 12.5sec 100m"). These goals are fine and good, but I would more define them as "missions". Goals should be more focused, such as (high jump specific) "I will run my best curve of the season", or "I will have my top speed when I reach my takeoff point", or "I will look off the back corner of the pad with my hips up", etc... These may not seem like traditional goals, but when you think about it these thoughts are what will get you to the numbers you've worked so hard to achieve.

Nack

High Jump: For the Gents

As I promised some time ago (has it been two weeks already?!?), below is a video of the progression of male high jumpers. This is the second part of this video, so please go to youtube if you wish to watch the first part.



This is a great video, that has many great examples of fabulous high jumpers. However, I would like to apologize for the music. Creed sucked, they still suck, and they always will suck. Terrible song. Also, the last song is Van Morrison and Tom Jones. Nothing says world class athletic performance like a duet between Morrison and Jones. What were Ronstadt and Bolton not available? I guess this is a good substitute.

I think the highlights of the video are numerous, but look at the videos of Javier Sotomayor from Cuba. Sotomayor is the world record holder in the high jump, and I believe the record has stood for around 16 years now. You can see a really good example of his jumps beginning at the 4:11 part of the video. Do what you can to watch his steps, his rhythm, his distinct phases, his speed, his arms, his bar clearance...all of it. He is the world record holder for a reason. His approach is much different than ours, but you can see some of the same principles in that we use imbedded in this much different approach. The number one thing I would like to point at is the "figure 4" running motion he gets on each step. He is on his toes. He lands with his foot directly under his center of gravity, and he is running tall. We talk about this alot, but rarely is it seen in as fine of form as it is here.

Also watch the part with Sotomayor at the 6:40 mark. Yet, another reason to not give up on a jump! He stretches that bar to the very limits, but because he is well-practiced and maintains his technique the bar stays on. (There is another video of him right after this one that I also love, because not only is it a beautiful jump, but he totally snubs the little kid that comes out to give him a high-five right afterwards. So awesome.) And then beginning at around the 8:30 mark is the world record jump. It speaks for itself.

9th and 10th Championships

Congratulations are in order for the 9th and 10th grade girls. For the first time in school histor they pulled down a first place.

Awesome performances were seen by Anna N. in the 800m, Tessa M. in shot and Discus, Olivia E and Rudy S. in the 100m dash and 100m hurdles, Janey H. in the 3200, and a slew of other good female performances. And though she didn't want to do, Katrina B ran an AWESOME 200m open to pull another first place, to go along with her first place finish in the high jump. Atta girl Katrina!

The boys should not also go without mention, because some athletes had some great performances despite all the wind. Shane C. destroyed the competition in the shot and disc, our boys 800m runners had strong runs, along with the 1600m kids. Some of the sprints crew posted new best times I believe, and most importantly (to me) our boys HJers got back on track with some good jumps in pretty crappy conditions.

Coach Nack

Practice Tomorrow

If you check Coach Sep's blog you see that the distance kids are going to practice at 4pm. I think they waiting until the afternoon for all of this awful weather (????) and all this snow (????) to disappear. Because we are a team, I think it would be good for as many groups of us to be there at the same time.

So practice is on the track at 4pm for all jumpers and sprinters. I'm sure you want to keep it short and so do I, so be on time.

High jumpers, below is a video of what we'll be doing in practice:

So, I will need everyone to bring their camels, and wear their best jumping sarongs.

Just kidding (I know I had a couple of you going...I'm looking at you Paige, and Colin)

Seriously, tomorrow's practice will be no joke. It will be intense. Intense in a way that lets me define intensity. You see, workouts can typically be defined by the amount of volume or intensity they possess.

• Volume is the amount of work which you do in a workout. So a workout with high volume would be running eight 1000m intervals like our stud distance crew does. This is a lot of volume as defined by the number of meters they run, and the number of footfalls it takes to do those runs. Rest time is usually low (compared to intensity) in this workout domain.
• Intensity is the amount of energy put into a short effort. A workout with high intensity would be doing 5-8 thirty meter starts with a great concentration on the production of force over the short period of time that it would take to run 30 meters. Rest is usually high in this workout domain.

Tomorrow's workout will be intense in that we will not do a ton of jumps, but will do few at very high quality. In fact, we are going for near PR/PR heights. Tomorrow's practice will be a meet simulation. It will be a competition, but competition against only yourself. Focus is a must.

See you tomorrow at 4pm.

Coach Nack

High Jump: For the Ladies

So I was going to have my first follow up post about nutrition and protein tonight, but that is bound to take a while and I must do grad school work. However, I did want to post something, and maaaann did I find a good one.

I did not think I was going to watch the following video all the way through, but once started I could not stop early. I love this video. I love it for different reasons: I'm a sucker for the piano (I wish more than anything for a team state championship, secondly I wish I could play the piano), I love the different techniques you see, I love the history, and I love the progression. Enjoy:

To my jumpers:

• Notice the speed that is gained (for example, the very first jumper--Chaunte Howard Lowe...find some more of her on you tube. You will not be disappointed.)
• Notice the lean in the curve (see all)
• Notice how close these ladies are to knocking the bar off on each jump. (example: the still frame in the video above--looking at that would you guess she makes that jump) Ridiculous! The thing is, they know where it is, and they know they are close, but they do not let that deter them. They do not give up. And in the end they help us redefine what we think is possible.

Hope you enjoyed and learned a little,

Coach Nack

Two awesome jumps from PF at the Nike Valor meet

Once again, Paige at 5'4" hitting her personal best, and doing it beautifully (not to mention less than ideal conditions):


(What do you think of my Lil'Jon imitation at the end of the video?)

And though this is not her highest jump, I think this jump is amazing. One of the best I have ever seen from her. I knew she was gonna get this jump, because of one thing: Miley Cyrus.



Coach Nack

Collection of jumps to this point in the season

Forgive the shaky camera work in spots. I tend to not look at the camera, but at the athlete so the focus is not always where it should be, but I get most of the good stuff.

A lot to be happy about so far, but a lot of season left to get better.

Thought of the day: what would you be like if for the next 7 weeks/year/lifetime you committed to getting 1% better in some regard each day?

Combined Emphasis Workout

Below is a workout from Flotrack.com featuring Carolina Kluft. In this one workout she works on the high jump, power (with hurdle jumping--these are our plyos), and a little endurance work (600m run x1).

You may consider this a long video, and you may be wanting to get to your homework, so I'll boil it down to the essentials for you.

1. From 2:15-3:25 point of the video. You see her take a good number of jumps, but what I would like to highlight is her running form. This is what I picture when we discuss approach runs (minus her skip/ stutter steps), instead of the bounding type approaches we use.
2. From around the 4:00-5:35 point of the video. Kluft performs hurdle hops. I like the jumping itself, but I love her explanation of it afterwards. You can see the value she holds for her training.

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

We all cannot do what this world-class athlete can do as far as times, heights, and distances. However, we can simulate her efforts with dedication to the work, and scaling of the training to fit our needs.

Nack

Runner's Roost invite @ RMHS summary

A great showing today at the make up meet in Ft Collins.

As a team, it seemed like everyone got off to a sluggish start, but I guess judgment should be in how the meet is finished.

Girls finished in first with a team score of 84 points, with the next closest team at 55.

Boys had an awesome day finishing in sixth, but were only out of first by 9 points. This was with trying some new things, while also missing some key pieces of the team--the future I think looks awesome for the boys.

Great job to both squads. For full results click here. (Results not posted at the time of this post being generated, but hopefully Ft Collins HS will be on that in the next 24)

On the high jump front, the highlight has to be with our new Freshman jumper--we'll call her "KayBee". KayBee went 5'0" in her first varsity competition, a new personal best, and which also got her a second place finish. Nice job KayBee. Look for video in the next few days.

Coach Nack going Multimedia

Awesome Interview on the High Jump with Gwen Wentland-Mikinski from NPR.



Link to the story is here.

I love the explanation of how she feels when she is given a few feet to run and jump in. What great confidence to have--probably attained through ability and practice!