Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

I ran in my first meet of the season yesterday.  It wasn't a school meet but actually an open meet in Pennsylvania.  I was running against three pretty intimidating looking 20 somethings including one guy who would finish the 60m race in 6.6h!  I did well for the first half of the race, pretty much keeping up with the two guys on the side of me including the 6.6h guy and a little bit ahead of the guy on my left.  However when I saw the two guys on my right starting to move I apparently really froze up. 
They surged ahead and by probably around 40m the guy on my left had moved in front of me and ended up beating me by 3 tenths!
Furthermore, when I'm usually running this distance in practice I usually am very conscious of the last 30m, aware of where I'm breathing out and just trying to relax for top speed and then at the end can tell whether I set a PB or ran a bad race.  In this race the last half was basically a blank to me and I came away with a truly awful time.

I know that learning to put the blinders on is mainly a function of experience but are there any cues that you guys use with your athletes that might be helpful in this situation?

I just look forward no specific drills, the only way to stop this is to stop yourself. Its between you and your conscious. What I did was when I practiced I would look forward the whoel time. Then I wiould have somebdoy run beside me and I would keep forcus on a fixed object ahead of me so I would ignore the other person.

I like the fixed object once the head is up, might try that.  Thanks Fabio.

anytime pete, I hope it helps for ya, good luck!

Pete,

This issue goes right to the heart of a topic that I love: mental preparation to sprint.

Here is a cue/technique that I used while competing and continue to teach the athletes that I coach.  I call it "construct the tunnel".

I teach my athletes the following: Once you have completed your warmup and have taken your practice start(s), stand calmly and quietly behind your blocks.  Focus down the track toward the finish line. Begin to visualize that on both sides of your lane are concrete/brick walls about 7-8 ft. high and a roof connecting them, i.e. a tunnel. If you can imagine executing your race down this tunnel without any other external stimuli, I guarantee that you will experience better results.  The 100m is all about YOUR execution, not the guy in the lane next to you.  Remember, sprinting is different than football: you can't do a thing about what your opponents will do, you can only control and maximize what you can do on that given day.  Maximize your execution and then see what happens.

Hope that helps.

Awesome, thanks for the very detailed reply.  I'm looking forward to trying that in competition and will report back on its effectiveness for me.

Well my dad taught me make sure you are in front so you wont have to worry about anything being on side of you because they're behind you.