LEFORD Green’s hurdling career appears to be in a holding pattern the last few years, but he is hoping the addition of ‘motivational coach’ Bertland Cameron and new training techniques will get him back on track, and at least to the level where he made the final of the 400m hurdles at the London Olympics in 2012.

Green ran a season’s best 49.22 seconds at Saturday’s Jamaica International Invitational, an IAAF World Challenge meet and placed second behind American Bershawn Jackson. A week earlier he had run 50.7 seconds at a meeting in Guadeloupe.

He told reporters on Saturday that his race tactics and form were all coming together and promised things will “be amazing”.

“We are still working on some things; this is a joint effort between myself, Bert Cameron and Lennox Graham,” he said.

Green said Cameron, who has a stable of quality 400m runners in his Cameron Blazers outfit, has been a positive influence on his running.

“He has been there for me, motivating me, pushing me; we all know he is good at that, so we [are] working on some stuff and it shows that what we are working on is working,” noted Green.

He said while he is working to improve all aspects of his game, the training has been focussed on “strength endurance, coming home, and running with the [buildup of] lactic [acid]”.

For example on Saturday, he said, he did something he had not done in years, which was to shift into another gear at the 200m mark and then being able to execute the final three hurdles of his race better.

“I did something new, or at least not in a long time,” he said. “I made a move at 200m. I used to do that when I ran the 400m, but not lately; and today (Saturday) I challenged myself and said you are going to go and I did it.”

Physically, Green said he was in good shape. “I am feeling really good… I feel like old wine, just getting better. I was a late bloomer in high school and this could be the same thing again in my professional career,” he noted.

Green ran his personal best 48.47 seconds in 2010 and then came close at the Olympics when he placed seventh in the final in 48.61 seconds, but has struggled over the past few seasons, managing a season’s best 48.84 seconds in Brussels in 2013 and failing to get past the semi-finals at the IAAF World Champion-ships in Moscow after running 48.88 seconds in the second round.

His confidence remains high, however, and he has painted a positive outlook for this season. “We know Lennox is one of the best hurdles coach in Jamaica, [at least] in my eyes, so he handles the technical stuff and it is going to be amazing,” Green predicted.

“I just need to put in the work, lots of hard work, and the results will come.”