Sarah Lavin targets world final and national record as she fine-tunes crucial first hurdle
A two-time 100m hurdles finalist in the European Championships,
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Sarah Lavin of Ireland has plenty of targets ahead as she aims for World Championship glory
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The Irish star revealed that she's working with top bio-mechanic to shave milliseconds off her times in a hope to break through the global ceiling
But she knows she has work to do, with this weekend's 123.ie National Championships an important part of her build-up.
The 31-year-old has identified that the biggest scope for improvement is how she tackles the first hurdle as she looks to lower her personal best of 12.62secs.
That mainly revolves around her work with a bio-mechanic Paul Bryce in conjunction with her coach Noelle Morrissey, with Lavin happy how that is going after initially confounding him.
She said: 'Paul has worked a lot with Jessica Ennis and Colin Jackson and he works with Nadine Visser also.
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"So he's probably one of the best in the world. It was funny, Paul kind of thought, 'You'll never run faster than 12.7' and I was looking at Noelle and said, 'I've run 12.6 three times'.
'But obviously my data isn't giving him that, it's just been out of pure determination, speed endurance or not fatiguing.
'When we look at the data, my flight time over hurdle one being 0.33 when other girls can do that in 0.2, 0.229, that's massive and you carry that acceleration into the next hurdle and the next hurdle.
'From a hurdle data perspective, unless I change that part of the race, it cannot give me more at the other end.
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'I know if I want to go to the next level we need to do the technical changes in training or I'm at my ceiling with regards to my speed, strength, speed endurance.
'We've really gone down all of those avenues so that they're no lower than anyone else globally, and in some aspects I'm probably faster on the flat.
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'The biggest thing was I was getting too close to the first hurdle and then skying it so my angle of projection was off.
'But we've pulled me back a little bit so the difference of me taking off at one metre 87 versus two metres is massive with regards to flight time.
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"It's 0.15 on just one hurdle so it's just being able to do that consistently.'
If it sounds easy, well, of course, it is not but Lavin is determined to stick with the process to ensure it yields results.
She said: 'We do our warm-up, which takes, what, like 70, 80 minutes. And then you have maybe a half-an-hour window where you're really primed for a couple of efforts that you can get technically really accurate.
"Then fatigue starts to set in. And if you haven't nailed it in those first initial runs, it's very hard to turn the session around because fatigue is starting to set in, things aren't hitting, you're getting frustrated.
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'You're thinking, 'Is this really going to be worth it?'
'It's a challenge. It's not comfortable but I'm not going to get better feeling comfortable.
'I have work to do because I'm going to need to run a 12.5 to make the world final and break the national record again which, let's face it, isn't an easy national record so, yeah, we're working hard.
'It's really, really wonderful when it's working well and incredibly frustrating when you don't do it right.
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'The first few races, you're trying to find confidence in that also and faith and trust in the change. I went out in a race in Finland in 13.1 and a week later I was down to 12.7.
'Of course that required massive mental strength, that I didn't throw all of the toys out of the pram in that moment.
'It was a challenging week but I kind of thought to myself, 'You have to buy in on this'.
'I was like, 'You have to commit to this for another month' and then it turned out I didn't need to commit to it for another month. Another week did it.'
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GO TEAM
While Lavin is taking part in the nationals, Kate O'Connor,
Heptathlete O'Connor, who claimed gold at the World University Games in Germany last month while also earning a personal best, is taking a break to recover.
Sprint star Adeleke posted online about 'an injury I had earlier this season [that] has transcended into additional lingering setbacks' so she will not be taking part either.
And similarly, O'Sullivan is 'playing it safe to sort out a pesky niggle' and will not be involved in the middle-distance events at Morton Stadium in Santry.
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