Post
by DX » Tue May 13, 2008 2:26 pm
Alright, for starters...
You are not as weak as me. I would bet a 2000 on that. My upper body strength does not exist at 5'9" 125. I am skinny, weak, and light enough that even you could probably throw me. And yet, I sprint for my collegiate track team. In addition to the 55, 100, and 200, next year I'll have a permanent spot on the 4x100, 4x200, and 4x400.
Basically, since I sense that your body works quite similar to mine, I think that you need to un-couple the correlation between strength and speed/agility. You need to find an alternate source that can drive your natural ability. In my case, I use energy to supplement what I lack in strength [at least for water wars]. Energy makes me powerful, when I am flowing with it there is no more dangerous person on the field of battle. It is difficult to defend against and virtually impossible to hit a player who is running with a Warriors' High.
This is a second level of energy. The first is the normal everyday variant of energy, like adrenaline. It is short-lived, and normal energy only pumps you up so far. A Warriors' High can last quite a while and you can push your limits more than normally possible. You are more alert, looser, faster, and have blazing reaction time. However, it needs two things: a source, and a trigger. In track, I run my best times when I've become tired, but then something triggers an explosion of energy resulting in a strong late push, an effect most noticed in the 400.
In water wars, the easiest way to trigger a Warriors' High is to do something that fires up your reflexes. Sometimes I play fast songs on the piano or play a card game like Egyptian Ratscrew before a war. These activities get my fingers going and that effect spreads through the whole body.
Now as far as backpacks go, I am able to wear a normal one with some limited supplies in it. But that's all. I don't have the upper body strength to support a water pack and maintain my usual level of agility. I am most effective with a compact, mid-size gun with long range, fast stream speed, and good capacity, such as a 12K. The biggest thing I'd field would be a 2500 or 2000. They normally would have a negative impact on my ability to move, but I am very comfortable with using a 2500, having fielded them in many wars over the years. However, all I need is a 12K. The capacity lasts more than half the battle sometimes. I don't play soakfests so I tap-pump 95% of the time.
I sprinted in the State Sectional last year on a bad stress fracture, and again this year in the NESCAC Championship on a milder one. It's a risk, but if I came away fine after the two rather destructive races [nothing is worse than the 100 for something like that], fighting a water war is not going to kill ya.
If you do train, go for sprinters' endurance as opposed to distance endurance, unless you fight in a big area. In Ridgewood, we needed both. I had plenty of huffing and puffing moments, but if I survived wars when the total mileage was 12-25, you can too. In some cases, you simply have to reserve your best speed for when you really need it.
But in any case, don't just give up on it, that's silly. If you run into a problem, invent a solution, never just give up.
marauder wrote:You have to explain things in terms that kids will understand, like videogames^ That's how I got Sam to stop using piston pumpers
I got a real dilemma here
