The Hurdles First site

While working on the Moses "13 steps" article I happened upon a site I haven't seen before. It's called "Hurdles First". 

It has been created in 2004 by S. McGill a hurdles' coach who wished to share his hurdles passion with a larger audience. The site was revamped in 2013, and found a way to monetisation through the publication of a monthly magazine "The Hurdles Mag". The site gives a very detailed description of the contents of each issue of the Magazine, which includes five full-length articles, one workout and one instructional video. Here is a typical breakdown of the articles 

• A full-length biographical profile of a well-known collegiate or professional hurdler or hurdle coach that discusses the entirety of his or her career and includes many insightful quotes.

• An article that provides advice regarding training, injury prevention, weight training, or diet. This article will always include insights from a professional in the appropriate field.

• An article that provides a hurdler-specific viewpoint on a debatable issue or thought-provoking topic in Track & Field.

• A personal hurdling-related story, written by a hurdler for hurdlers.

• An article discussing one or more high-level hurdle races that occurred within the past month. In months when there are no big meets, we will double up on one of the above categories.

Perusing the contents of the recent issues I found them really interesting. I liked the quote from R. Nehemiah. The first man under 13 seconds in the 110 hurdles said that "if you want to excel in the hurdles, you have to learn how to hurdle”. For those who do not remember, Nehemiah had two careers in the hurdles interrupted by a foray in american football from 1982 to 1985. His annus mirabilis was 1979, when he won the Pan American Games and the IAAF World Cup, broke twice the world record with 13.16 and 13.00 s and ran a wind-aided 12.91 s. He missed out on an olympic medal in 1980 due to Carter's stupid boycott of the Moscow Olympics. He improved the world record under regular conditions with 12.93 s in 1981. Timed 19.4 on a 4x200 m relay split and 44.3 on a 4x400 m relay anchor, Nehemiah could have gone after the 400 m hurdles world record as well. He missed out on the olympic US team in 1988, finishing fourth in the Trials but he made the team for the 1991 Worlds'. Unfortunately, an injury kept him from competing. But I liked even more the quote from A. Campbell (bronze medalist in Seoul, 1988, and world indoor champion in 1987): “The first thing a hurdler learns is how to fall”. How true!

I urge you to visit the site and have a look at the content of the recent Hurdles Mags. But (yes, there is always a "but"), there is a downside. The yearly subscription to the magazine is a hefty 90 dollars. So, unless someone is a hurdles aficionado I don't think that anybody would put that kind of money in an, all things considered, amateur publication. (But then it's perhaps my poor-man european vision of things, and people in the US, who are paying of the order of 100 dollars per month for a broadband internet connection, could think otherwise). 

And if you decide to have a go at the free articles of the site where one can find top-ten lists and lists of "all-time greats", you are in for a time travel to the past. There is nothing more recent than 2013. Probably the content was carried over from the then existing site, during the 2013 overhaul, and nobody cared to update it. But overall the site is interesting and I thought that I should share its existence with you.