Duke Invitational

I ran at 2 different meets this past weekend. On Friday i headed to NC A&T to compete at the Aggie Relays. I headed up there with a training partner Carrington Queen. He ran in the first heat and in the prelim he crossed the finish line in 14.9x seconds, and the first thing that crossed my mind was "thats wrong". I brushed it off though and figured theyd quickly fix it as im sure they knew we werent running that slow. My prelim went off after his, I ran a decent race felt good technically wise but stopped the clock in 14.73 seconds. I knew immediately something was truly wrong with the timing system. I know what a slow time feels like, and despite the -2.5 wind i knew i wasnt capable of running so slow without making some serious errors. Last year in Colombia i did a complete front flip and ran half a second faster than 14.7 so i knew something was off. I thought about speaking with someone at the meet about it but decided not too. I knew not much would come from it so i just left it alone. The final was supposed to be run on Saturday at Noon but we decided to not run as we didnt wanna take a chance with another faulty system.

On Saturday i got the opportunity to race 2 more times, this time at the Duke Invitational. Im not a big fan of this track as it is very "spongy" and not suited for the sprints, but i figured they would at least have their timing system in check.

I ran a decent prelim in 13.87 seconds. I hit hurdle 6 nearly stumbled but was able to keep it together across the finish line. Hurdle 6 has been causing me problems lately but we are taking the proper steps towards fixing that. In the final i ran 13.62 for the win but felt it was a very bad race. My technique was not what it was in Raleigh last week and my last 2 hurdles in particular were just extremely slow. The only good thing i did in the race was compete, as i was neck and neck with Jamaican hurdler Eric Keddo over the 8th hurdle, but was able to keep my cool coming off the 10th to secure the win, as Eric pressed, hit the hurdle and crashed.

I actually learned from last weeks race not to rush. I knew it was gonna come down to the last 2 hurdles and the sprint to the finish line, so i just kept my cool over the second half and allowed that to keep me from making mistakes. Overall it was a pretty ugly race, but coach and I are pleased with how things are shaping up. We know i have a lot of room for improvement and whats even better is that we are certain most of my improvements will come within the next couple months.

I race again this weekend at NC A&T. I hope this time around the timing system is fixed.