Tales of a coach Oh, it all went wrong but at least the sun was shining

​This bright beautiful sunny Bank Holiday Monday, I was literally full of the joys of spring. I headed to the track with a bounce in my stride and a session planned in my head…
 
Then it all un ravelled … perhaps the athletes had too many Easter eggs, perhaps it was the sun and we all delirious! I had lined up low hurdles (wickets) as they are called in the US (wonder what they call cricket stumps then?). They were spaced around 9 steps apart and there was a strong following wind. They had ran across the hurdles spaced at 8 steps the previous week – but could anyone do it? Nope. I moved the hurdles in and it was still a failure. In the end maybe one of the six athletes got in a relatively smooth effort. Okay if you have males and females and different sprint speeds and only 10 hurdles, it can be difficult to achieve a one-size-fits-all distance but I usually manage it – even if for some of the group it becomes more of a cadence sessions.
 
Okay, I was feeling the heat metaphorically and in real terms, next up in my planned session was the use of a low step (approx. 15cm) for placement on the third step out from the board for both the long and triple jumpers – as a device to work on take-off. You’ll have seen this drill being used by squad members many times in the videos on the YouTube channel. But did this go to plan? Nope, nope, nope! Spatial awareness was not our friend on this Bank Holiday!
 
It took too many attempts for the guys to get the correct foot on the platform – one even tried to leap off the platform into the pit – luckily the platform was on the long jump run-up and was about 5m from the pit’s edge…
 
I was getting tired…
 
So, I suggested we do some short approach jumping to hopefully make the most of a bad job… should be okay, not too demanding on the group… well, it was, we had people asking what leg should they take-off with (OMG), forgetting penultimate step mechanics and pfaffing around trying to hit the board. Okay, it got better, but by then I was thinking of heading home to the garden, the deck-chair and a cool drink. Not everything goes to plan!