By JULIANE FRUEH/Contributor
Editor’s Note: Juliane Frueh is on the track team.
Ashton Turner is the university’s record holder in the 60-meters hurdles. He ran 7.88 in Albuquerque, N.M., on Feb. 22. He placed second place in the Lone Star Conference championships.
Turner recently discussed his track career and what helped him set the record.
Q: How long have you been doing hurdle races?
It feels like forever, but I would say since I was 13 years old. So, I have been going for almost 10 years.
Q: How long have you been competing in that event on a collegiate level?
I have been doing that for the past four years.
Q: What differences could you make out between the practice in high school and practice in college?
A: In high school I did not really have a hurdle coach. My hurdle coach was a 60-years old man that did hurdles in the dirt back in the ’70s. So, he did not know some things. He can do a lot things when it came to hurdling. But for technicality and speed, I really had to learn that on my own and just have that natural ability to do that.
It was definitely different getting to college because my current hurdle coach, he is not specifically a hurdle coach, but he knew way more than my high school coach and was way younger. He is more inclined to learn more about it as well. We are competing collegiately, and he is our designated coach for the hurdles regardless if it is his specialty or not. Just taking his feedback, and constructive criticism I definitely got better.
Q: What changes helped you breaking the eight seconds barrier in the 60-meters hurdle race?
I feel like specifically just how I practice and how I did my warmup. I was not very consistently going quick over the hurdles. I was going through the motions, but I realized by doing that I was going through the motions of my race. I was replicating the drills from practicing and warming up to how I executed my race. I wondered if I changed up the intensity of my practice and the drills will have an effect on my race.
And it was not only for me but for my teammates as well. I wanted them to feel the intensity so they can feel it in their race. It worked. We got the results that we wanted. Everyone got a new PR (personal record) in our hurdle group. It was simply the way we executed our warm-ups and our drills. We did not change much about the specific drills. We just did the drills quicker, we focused on the speed and how we were doing it.
Q: Would you say that changes in the weight room or in your nutrition would help your further progress?
Definitely. In my nutrition I implemented a lot of protein, more than I ever had. Also, I have been taking creatine. It helps me build my muscle and retaining my muscle. Usually, I can build muscle very fast but I can lose it very quick as well.
Creatine has been helping me maintain the muscle mass that I have and making me feel stronger. That is something I did not do consistently last year. In the years prior to that I did not do it at all. That is something that I changed as far as nutrition goes. I like the results and I am going to continue that. I am not over boarding it but just staying on a consistent schedule.
In the weight room I have not been really pushing or overexerted myself. I am just kind of staying consistent and my weight range of what I usually do when it comes to the actual exercises are given by Coach Blind. I think they are really helpful and making my legs stronger because we do not really focus on arm strength at all.
We focus on our legs a lot and making sure our legs are in a good position to run fast. I do like the types of exercises that we do in there, like pinpoint squads and hang cleans. That does play a factor into how you run and how strong you are running. I do not think that I am going to change anything as far as weights or nutrition goes when going into outdoor season.
I feel like I am on a really good consistent schedule so I am trying to maintain that and keep doing what I do.
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