Some call it super dedicated, I call it crazy Part II - Christophe Lemaitre Fixates Too Much On His Sleep

I think the difference here is that Lemaitre seems to have realized he was being kind of obsessive and is trying to learn from it. He is still relatively young and can take the lesson he learned here and apply it to the next few years of his career, whereas Webb is 10 years into his pro career and still fixating on minor details.

Lemaitre's problems stem from lack of strength and lack of ability to start decently, costing him at least .1-.2 in his 100m races, and .1 in his 200m.

His legs are so long that fixation is probably a good thing, although he should reach a point where this fixation is secondary in nature and the sprint is a learned 'response' to the gun.

The fastest sprinters don't even think about it, their form work becomes second nature and its just the way they 'do it'.

I think this is what Lemaitre is saying its just being translated oddly. He can get a lot faster but not at the rate he's going the past 2 years. Fast enough to win a WC/OG or two and challenge Blake in Rio and beyond as obviously Bolt will be getting old at that point. This assuming Lemaitre improves up his full ability which he doesn't have to do to still get paid large sums for the track world.

By being an oddity people will want him in races regardless if he's running 10.00 basic or 9.85 basic.

It all depends on the athlete...

certain guys thrive on the single minded focus...they can eat, sleep, and breathe running and still show up to the track on race day with fire and run fearlessly

other guys (myself included), suffer when we get too worked up over the sport and excel more with a laid back perspective

For my first 2 years in college I was in bed by 10 every night, agonized over my diet, kept a detailed training log and stressed over every aspect of my life worrying over how it was going to make me faster

I was tanking on race day and miserable because thats all i was, which in turn made me run worse...sort of a vicious cycle

Junior and senior year I made sure to hit all my miles, showed up to hard workouts feeling good and ready to go...but went out on weekends, didnt freak out over junk food, started to care about other things and ran a lot better for it

not saying that approach is better for everyone but it was with me...the only problem Ive seen is the single focus guys tend to look down on those who need a laid back approach, despite race results (ok not the only problem, some guys definitly go too far with the laid back approach to the point is affects training)