I was watching the Milrose Games Track Meet on television this past week and was amazed at some of the performances from the athletes. I was wondering how one of the runners in a long distance race felt after breaking the world’s record and still came in second. Watching any athletic performance in any sport that is at a level of perfection is enjoyable to watch.
Running indoor at the Milrose Games was on a track that was designed for good performance. I have judged other indoor meets and the quality of the track has a lot to do with how well an athlete will do in their event. The distance of one lap around the track must vary in different buildings. A shorter track means a tighter curve that is hard to achieve any real speed. I was a judge at one meet in New Mexico where the curve was banked high on the outside lane. One runner on the outside lane was trying to build up speed from the straight away and momentum carried him over the edge of the track. The drop off the top of the track had to be eight feet or so. He didn’t lean into the curve far enough to counter the centrifugal force pulling him outward. Think of a motorcycle leaning almost on its side when they go around a tight curve. The same rules apply to any object, human or bike, when it comes to momentum and curves.
Another part of the program was the postrace interviews of the winning athletes. The one part that caught my attention was during the interview how hard the athlete was breathing. It seemed that the sprinters were breathing as hard, or harder, than the long distance winning athletes. The winner of the 60-yard dash ran for less than 7 seconds and his feet probably touched the ground for less than 2 seconds and he was still breathing hard from this effort. When you analyze how much muscle effort went into those 7 seconds almost every muscle in the body was used to its maximum. I would guess the athlete’s breath was held the entire race. The legs were moving at a very fast rate and the arms were being moved with every step the athlete took. The trunk muscles from the abdomen to the chest and shoulders were involved. Sprinters will tell you to relax the body as much as possible and let the legs do the work. A 60-yard dash has the athlete accelerating the entire race from coming out of the blocks to crossing the ribbon at the finish. One 100-meter champion had his race divided into 10 segments. He said the key wasn’t so much that he was accelerating at the finish as the other runners were slowing down near the end. It seems that maximum effort from a body is very short lived unless the start is less effort.
