Duke Twilight

Just got back from the meet at Duke University.

Ran pretty bad...

Woke up this morning called my boy who said he was gonna let me use his car but he didnt pick up. i was planning on leaving at noon. Around 11:20AM i talked to my boy Kevin who told me hed ask my other friend AD if he could give me a ride to the track meet.

so at 12 o'clock they show up and we leave. there is 5 of us in a Nissan Altima and we are packed like mexicans (i can say that cause im latino). i feel my right hamstring tightening up but i tell myself ill be ok and dont complain.

i got there around 230pm and immedialtely start to warm up.

The race was to be a timed final so i warmed up extra early and gave myself an hour rest. I wanted to feel as if id run a prelim because i know that my first race of the day is always my slowest and i wanted to run fast in the final.

i warmed up fine and i felt pretty good. there is no one at the meet that can run with me but i still wanted to push and run a fast time.

My goal for the meet was 13.50. it would be a pretty big chunk off my last meet of 13.72 but i felt confident i could handle it.

anyway...things did NOT go as planned. I got out of the blocks well. Over the hurdle fine my take off was off by no more than a couple inches so that was good.

hurdles 1 and 2 were good but thats where the good part of the race ends.

from 3 to the finish like i ran a big D-

I crashed 3 or 4 hurdles with my lead leg pretty good but i was still staying ahead of the pack. I did not see anyone until the finish line when a kid from App State almost caught me.

at hurdle 8 i decided i would pout about my race and had decided that i would not sprint to the finish line. so i didnt. i damn near stopped and almost ended up losing. i ran 14.24 and second place ran 14.28

i was pretty pissed. and as of right now im not quite sure exactly what went wrong.

I was crashing hurdles with my lead leg, which means i was getting too close to the hurdles so i think there must of been a tailwind even though when i was getting in the blocks i felt a head wind.

either way i figure if i hadnt crashed so many hurdles and had sprinted to the finish line, that i would have ran 13.7x. not good but at least it would not have been a big step back.

i decided to run the 200 meter dash as well. and here is how that race went.

I warmed up very little. it was 58 degrees by now 7:30pm and there was a huge headwind on the homestretch.

I got out of the blocks piss poor. (C-) My plan was to catch lane 8 (i was in lane 6 and lane 7 was empty) by 20 meters. I came out of my blocks and went from the inner side of the lane to the outter side of the lane and finally back to the inner side. I didnt break stagger on lane 8 until about 50-60 meters.

around 80-90 meters i told myself i would run as if i was running a 400 meter dash. to me that would mean not going 100%, instead running about 85%

that plan flew out the window really fast because lane 5 was on my ass and i decided that i had to do what i could to win. i stayed in the lead by MAYBE 6-7 INCHES. yea it was really close. at 150 meters i told myself that i needed to pull away because i was tired of being neck and neck.

I tried to turn-over faster but it just wouldnt happen. at 170 meters i said F-this and slowed to a jog. i damn near stopped. the winning time was 22.02 so i figure ida crossed the line in 21.99 which is pretty pathetic so it really didint matter if i had finished or not. i ended up running 23.62 or something and i just laughed about it. it was a good workout for me though so at least i got that out of it.

ive decided i will run the 200 a couple more times this summer just so i dont have that slow ass 23 on my record. i figure i can run a low 21 or maybe even a high 20 if train a little better.

the videos of my races and all the other races run today at the Duke Twilight are on www.accselect.com

as soon as they upload my videos i will upload them to this blog for my 15 viewers to watch.

all in all i guess today wasnt the worst day ever. I am still very confident that my 110 hurdle time will improve and so im pleased.

it was nice to get out of the house and run.