Coaching and Care of Athletes

THE MILE AND rsoo METRES pictures and go into matters relating to their graphs and body– weight charts, and, when possible, should get them out into the open for a light limbering up; or, if'no work is to be done that day, a sun-bath should be taken, and life generally should be ·made as pleasant as possible for them. Work should also be done at this period with the stop-watch, to see that' the men are holding to level-pace running and really have a sense of pace judgment. For the rest, it will be advisable for the coach to try out with his athletes the schedule for the final two weeks of training which I have already given for the individual athlete pointing for a par– ticular peak performance. I suggest this, as we are now through the tapering-off period, and the coach will, of course, be consider– ing the requirem~nts in training ofeach individual among his pupils. Now we can consider some of the middle-distance runners' common faults, which I promised to deal with at the end of this chapter. In the course of training the coach will have taught his middle– distance runners style, pace variation, pace judgment, and tactics, by means of training in striding, and pace variation and burst running at a sustained speed to pass an opponent quickly and fight off his subsequent challenge. He will also have taught them the proper method of breathing, resting while running, running to time schedules, and the use of strategy. Among the common faults he will have to watch for are that the athlete does not spend a sufficiently long preliminary period on building up his stamina and learning: the technique of his event; that he does not pay sufficient attention to his limbering up, or, for that matter, to limbering down after his run; that he is an indifferent judge of pace, relying too much on strategy and tactics in his races; and that he does not stick closely enough to his time schedule. In this connection the stop-watch will be a sure guide. Common faults in technique may be found in the athlete's body carriage. He may run with his body too upright, or, on the other hand, he m~y ·run too far forward. He does not watch that ima– ginary spot on the track ahead and reach for it with his foot, thereby lengthening his stride; he does not use the method of foot-planting at the end of the stride which suits him best, and, by making hard initial contact of his heel with the track, jars himself in his running; he does not lift his knees sufficiently high, and so gets a wasteful kick-up of the heel behind; and he does not pass his opponents 253