As a leader of the LSU men’s track and field team, senior pole vaulter Marcus McGehee will provide his insight into the LSU Track & Field program throughout the 2011 season as the Tigers and Lady Tigers join the national championship chase once again. Check back each week as McGehee provides a behind-the-scenes look into the program from an athlete’s perspective in competition, in the classroom and in the community.
Preparing for the SEC Indoor Championships
After speaking with a friend and getting an outsider’s perspective on this project that I have been doing, I have decided to go in a different direction with this week’s blog post.
She told me that it was a good thing to show what goes into the different aspects of track and field, but also pointed out that a lot of my readers already have some knowledge about the world of track and field. So I’m going to give you a glimpse of what actually goes on in the preparation of the week before a meet.
This Friday will be our sixth meet of the 2011 indoor season and our second meet at home at the Carl Maddox Field House. The former doesn’t really mean much, other than that the time window to qualify for the NCAA Championships is getting smaller. But the latter means that we get to come home and compete where we live. What I mean by where we live is that we compete on the same surface, runway, and ring that we practice on day in and day out.
So, what does a home meet mean in terms of performance? Well, for myself personally and I’m sure a lot of my teammates, it means that we get to stay at home and compete in front of our families, friends and peers. That in itself is enough of an adrenaline booster, but if you factor in the in-state rivals and the drive to make it to the NCAA meet, it should make for a night of intense action.
Since they are in different cycles of their training, I can’t speak for each of the different event groups on the team. But for the jumpers, this has been a week more on the recovery side rather than the actual training side. One of the main factors for starting to taper down in our training is that we have this year’s SEC Indoor Championships next week, a time that we want to be as fresh as possible.
That being said, practice this week has been on the light side for the jumpers. We did some easy buildup runs followed by a times weight circuit on Monday, general strength or body weight exercises on Tuesday and getting on the runway to work on the technical aspects of our respective events on Wednesday. And to cap off the week, we had our pre-competition shake out Thursday, which consists of stretching, a few progressive runs and some shot throws.
Please stay tuned for next week’s edition of “On Your Mark” as I will be posting a motivational video for both our team and for our supporters to get everyone in the right competitive mindset for the conference meet. Also, please be sure to check back with LSU Track & Field’s social networking pages for up-to-the-minute coverage on the events at the LSU Twilight starting Friday at 12:30 p.m. CT.
Geaux Tigers!!