Learning to Hurdle

I finished 4th down in Cuba at the CAC games. Dayron Robles, the world record holder, was there running in front of his people and ran away in a comfortable 13.18. I ran 13.63.

I then came to Raleigh and trained with Coach McGill for a day before heading to NYC for Club Nationals. I am learning to hurdle a new way and im pretty excited. i actually didnt run very well in NY because i am trying to ingrain this new technique and ran a bit scared. Im still not comfortable with the new things ive learned and so i held back alot at the meet.

But i am officially with Coach McGill now. I have known him for 7 years now but have never been able to work with him one on one. Every time i was ready, something would come up that would prevent it from happening. But im finally here and we can FINALLY get to work.

He is one of the best hurdle coaches in the world in my eyes. He has coached 3 of the fastest high school hurdlers of all time. Johnny Dutch, Malcom Nunley, and currently Wayne Davis. All three have broken 13.50 in HS, Johnny also ran 50.xx in the 400 hurdles under coach McGill, and Wayne Davis broke Terrance Trammells indoor 60 hurdle record, Liu Xiangs 110 hurdle youth world record, and recently ran 13.16w, and 13.30 legal over the 39" barriers.

Its clear coach McGill has been doing something right down here, and now its time to show the world that he can do even more with a post-collegiate guy.

so im excited. ive been un-doing alot of bad technqiue so far with him. my trail leg lags way behind, my lead leg kicks out instead of down, i dont lean enough and i dont hold my lean coming off the hurdle.

Coach has a real eye for picking up on the little things, and ive been feeling really great training with him so far.

I have one more meet before i head off to Berlin for World Champs. I run in Bogota, Colombia in 2 weeks. I will be doing as much as i can to ingrain the knew techniques coach is teaching me, and hopefully it will be enough by August 19th to run some fast times at Worlds.

Coach feels that once i fix the minor issues in my hurdling i should be in the 13.3/13.2 range, and he feels it is still very possible to get there before Worlds.

so we'll see what happens. I'll update the blog after my meet in Colombia and before Worlds.

if you are interested in getting to know Coach McGill more check out his website at HURDLES FIRST its without a doubt the best hurdling website on the internet.

Back to Puerto Rico

Ok so i went back to NC but things werent working out as well as i wanted there. I'd go to the track and wouldnt have access to blocks and such, or i wouldnt have a ride to the track. I was supposed to by my friends car off him, but when i retured to NC with the money he acted as if he no longer wanted to sell me it and drove off with it to Fayetteville. haha

So i decided to up and visit my brother in Florida. My mom was down here so i thought it would be a nice surprise to see her, seeing as ive only seen her once (Grandmas Funeral in Jan.) in two years.

I came down to Florida and saw my mom and borhter, his fiance and their cute baby boy Adrian. Things are fine down here but there are no facilites in the area to train.

Most schools around here in Ft. Lauderdale are either private, or gated public schools. I was training at one HS around here but there are absolutely no hurdles and its tough to run faster times when i can not even get over hurdles.

This past weekened i flew down to Cali, Colombia to run in a Grand Prix. I lead from the gun until about 1 meter from the finish line. I had a very clean reace, but scrapped the 9th with my trail knee, and then smashed the 10th with my lead leg. I tried to keep my balance after smashing the tenth but couldnt and went into a front flip and just barely made the finish line. I went from winning by at least half a second to losing by 4 hundreths of a second in 1 hurdle. I finished 3rd in 14.14 to a 14.10. But that is the way it goes in the hurdles, and its a little tougher when you cant get over hurdles in practice haha.

So im heading to Puerto Rico tomorrow and i will be staying there at the Albergue Olympico in Salinas until we (Puerto Rico national team) depart for Cuba the 1st of July for the CAC games.

The Albergue Olympico is the most boring place on the planet, and its usually around 100 degrees at 9am, but there is a nice track, a million hurdles, blocks to start with, and ill finally be able to start lifting weights again. They also have a training room, and ofcourse a cafeteria with wonderful spanish food :)

So ill be living there for the next month and a half in an effort to fix this season before its too late.

My plan is to head to Raleigh NC after the CAC games and train with Coach McGill for the month before i head to World Champs in August.

Ill update the blog if anything changes.




Here I am with the Cutest boy in the world Adrian Cotto :)

Back in NC

Im back in North Carolina. I ran 13.82 at the Ponce, Grand Prix. Not as good as i wanted, but im still working out lots of kinks with the second half of my race.

I dont have anything set up right now but im sure something will come up. My next mandatory meet with Puerto Rico is the CAC championships in Cuba, the first week of July.

I will probably head to Europe withing the next couple weeks, and when i do i will update the blog.

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day to all the lovely mothers in the world, especially my beautiful mother of 43! Sadly i was not able to see my mom today but i sent her some flowers and a card and of course called to say I love you :)

I am currently in Puerto Rico and i have been here for a little over 2 weeks. Ive ran 3 times so far this season. My first meet was in Greensboro, NC about a month ago where i ran 14.05 in the prelims and 14.10 in the final. Both were Calendar PRs.

my Second meet came last weekend here in Caguas, Puerto Rico at a local track meet and i ran 14.03.

Friday and Saturday (yesterday) i ran at my national meet in Carolina, Puerto Rico and ran 13.89 (-0.8) and 13.71 (+0.8).

So far im happy with the season. I consider my season to have officially started yesterday, seeing as it was the first meet of the outdoor season that i took seriously and first meet of the season where i actually ran hard for a full 110 meters.

I have yet to run against real competition though but will get a chance to next weekend at Puerto Ricos Grand Prix. In attendance will be David Payne (Olympic Silver Medallist) and Dexter Faulk who has ran 13.30 this season already. I will be looking to improve upon yesterdays performance (where i hit 5 hurdles) and my national record of 13.61.

In other news im happy to announce that Puerto Rico has an athlete in track and field who has the fastest time in the world. Javier Culson ran 48.42 to win the 400 hurdles last week at the Jamaica Invitational and is now surely on his way to making the World Championships final in Berlin this summer. We are all very proud of him here in Puerto Rico and i am personally very happy for him. He was my roommate in Beijing last summer and ive known him for 5 years now and have seen all the hard work he has put in over the years and im glad its finally paying off. Congrats Culson! keep it up!

Anyways i am resting today and i will hit the track again tomorrow to knock out some 200s.

I will update this later this week with the meet line-up for Ponce.