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Vince Anderson on Coaching and Season Planning post-meet - Texas AandM Aggie Invitational 2015

Published by
DyeStatCOLLEGE.com   Feb 11th 2015, 7:52pm
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Last year Pat Henry's Texas A&M Women won another outdoor NCAA title.  Many of the points were scored by Vince Anderson's (primary coach or shared duties with Coach Henry) sprinters, men's and women's hurdlers and relay runners.  Coach Anderson has won a few national assistant-of-the-year awards due to the success of his runners and has a 30-year coaching career.  

 

You can’t always get what you want

But if you try sometime

You’ll find

You get what you need…”

--

-Jagger/Richards

 

 

 

Ah yes, February! It is the dog days of track & field. It is eighteen days until the conference meet and it is thirty two days until NCAA indoors and thirty nine days until start of the 2015 outdoor season.

 

During this critical time, it is always easy for me to lose focus on what I am doing with my training and what my athletes need for precise finishing in the upcoming meets of judgment. I have never had two athletes that are exactly at the same stage of readiness at this juncture, when the range of training effects seem to be at its widest from the top to the bottom of my group. Each and every year, some in my group are behind the development schedule and need work, still others who are behind need even more work, while others yet are poised for performance and need only small, precise adjustments.

Practically, this means I have to watch athletes carefully as they go through their training paces. Especially at this time of year, I sometimes make on-the-spot adjustments in the training I scripted. Usually, that means lessening the load from what was planned.   

 

I try to remind myself that I am almost never pleased with the state of my group, so that I can make rational training decisions, and not hasty ones. If I make a mistake at this time of year, my ill judgment  derails the indoor championship season and carries over into the outdoor season, which is a mere five weeks in the future. Alas, timing is everything, so I must watch myself. I greatly dislike that unsteady feeling of wanting to make rash decisions. I have to remind myself to proceed patiently, as it is not possible to have every answer now.  “… You get what you need”.   

 

As my tenor sax-playing friend is fond of saying, “Accuracy creates speed”. That is not only true for musicians and for sprinters. It is equally true of my ability to accurately prescribe training in a timely and effective dose. So, this week was devoted two training objectives: Monday we finished macro-preparation for the conference meet and today we installed micro-preparation for the Tyson Meet. Because of a short week (travel Thursday morning) we could devote one day to each of those objectives. Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be devoted to mobility training, 4x400 exchanges and any loose ends we did not attend to in the first two training days of the week.

 

This weekend we travel to Arkansas for indoor meet number 6. We expect the worthiest of opposition there, which will afford us the opportunity to focus bravely on the points of execution which have eluded our squad thus far.  

 

To each and every athlete and coach, have a great week and remember: only boxers have the courage track athletes do. Without question, track athletes are the toughest, bravest athletes on every campus. When a track athlete lines up, it is one athlete against many. It is not one against one. That is daunting odds that only the most courageous can face, YET TRACK ATHLETES DO IT WEEK IN AND WEEK OUT, YEAR AFTER YEAR!

Go on wicha’ bad selves.   

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