Howard puts best foot forward to make hay while sun shines
Enforced break has come at ‘opportune moment’ for rising Irish long-jump star
MIKE POWELL, the great American track and field star, used to say that a long jumper shouldn’t change the foot they use for take-off unless they are willing to do it and their body is willing to do it also.
Shane Howard didn’t have any choice. Now established as the best long jumper in the country, as a success-filled 2019 segued into a now barren 2020, the Corkman was faced with a dilemma.
He has osteoarthritis in his left leg. It didn’t hurt him when he jumped. It didn’t really hurt him when he ran. But it did when he took off. And if he can’t take off, he can’t jump. A simple equation but a difficult solution.
“I’d had it for a number of years,” he explains from his Rathcormac home. “It inhibited me in training, I find the pain made it hard to progress when I was training.
Stubborn
“Okay, in competitions, the adrenaline would kick in and I could put it to the back of my mind. I’d be stubborn enough not to change it because I didn’t know what I would be like. Because I knew I’d have to take a few steps back to move forward.”
It has taken a global pandemic to knock everyone back more than a stride or two; Howard decided he could adapt the measure to his sporting life, too. “This window has come along at exactly the opportune moment,” he says simply.
Ironically, as a kid, he took off using his right foot; when he was 15, he switched and the improvements were pronounced. Now he must unlearn all his old rhythms and adapt to a new flow.
His muscle memory still betrayed him but the constant repetition of drills during lockdown has erased everything in his psychological hard disk.
Trouble is, he can’t really measure how well he has adapted to his re-configured rhythm. With no competitions until August, at least, and geographical restrictions denying him access to coaching and facilities, the 26-year-old, like so many others, has had to adapt.
Being in a farm helps; space is not an issue. He has fashioned a timber takeoff board and has laid down two round straw bales; his aim is to land on them, not leap beyond them. For now, the focus is on fine-turning the process, not the finish.
“It is tough to measure how I’m doing,” he concedes, with next spring’s World Indoors a renewed ambition with this summer’s outdoors event wiped. “I’m moving the board back during my practice but there is not the same sense of marking down an improvement as would normally be the case.”
The music in his head remains the same, though. “DO-DO-DO-BOP-BOP.” The beat of the feet as he prepares to hurtle through the air, shoulders and hips as far upwards as possible; not leaning too far back in case the trajectory is too high, not leaning too far forward in case he plunges too quickly.
2019 represented the greatest of leaps forward. In February, he broached 7.44 metres to capture gold at the National Indoor Championships; his first senior title. In July, he tagged on the outdoor title with a jump of 7.54m; another maiden gold.
The titles sandwiched a PB of 7.61m in June; he ended the year helping Ireland finish seventh at the European Team Event in Norway.
And now, he must temper his stride as all have done. It might be a long wait for the next take-off.
He is in video contact with coach Liz Coomey, honing down the technique, but longs for the social contact with fellow athletes at Bandon AC when governmental decree allows.
Individual sportspeople can be a quirky species but they like being quirky together, too.