At the Sage Stomp Training Camp, we did a sprint session on the Thompson Rivers Campus. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to try using some video to analyze the runners. I only have a little point and shoot camera so the video isn't that great. Most of them didn't turn out. Either they were too far away or I missed most of it. The video of Patrick turned out not too bad though.

Patrick is the best in the country right now, so it was rather fortunate that it was a video of him that turned out okay. What are some of the things that he does well in the 20 seconds we see him?

1. He reads ahead as he enters the frame so he knows what the route for the next leg is.
2. He refolds his map so he is ready to exit the control.
3. He glances at his exit before he reaches the control.
4. He is smooth in and out of the control maintaining his speed.
5. Through the entire time we see him he is totally focused despite the other runners he encounters.

What could he do better?
1. He quickly double checks which path to take after leaving the control. That suggests that perhaps he didn't have the clearest image of what he was going to encounter.
2. He could run more quickly? He wasn't running as quickly as he is capable of in a relatively easy section. But I actually think Patrick used his time here very well. I think it is good to emphasize smoothness over raw speed. He was just coming out of a technical section and (I think) he was trying to read ahead a bit more.



# - BL - 5/29/09; 11:18:15 PM -