Back to training

So World Champs didnt go as well as id hoped. I did not make it out of the first round. I got out well and with the pack, was in the mix until hurdle 5 where i smacked my trail knee then landed off balance over 6 and was out of the race. If i had 10.1 speed i could have easily gotten back in the mix, but i dont.

I was not disappointed though. I trained on my own since early January minus the 3 weeks i trained with McGill before WCs. So there was not much to be upset about.

My teammate Javier Culson on the other hand, had a tremendous World Champs. He became the first Puerto Rican to make a World Champ Final, and then went ahead and became the first Rican to win a World Champs medal when he finished 2nd in the 400 hurdles. We all went nuts when he won the medal. I was extremely happy and proud of him. He has come a long way and it felt incredible to see his hard work finally pay off. He will now be one of the 400 hurdlers to beat in the future and i am very excited for him.

Its funny though, because last year when he didnt perform as well as the Puerto Rican Federation had hoped, they begged him to switch coaches or change events. They just didnt see him progressing with the same coach. LOL. Now his coach is claimed to be the greatest track coach in PR history and they act as if they were always there supporting him.

But we know the truth. Javier and his Coach Hector Cano achieved success on their own. They put in the work over the years, and didnt quit when the world told them to hang it up. They have come a long way and i am extremely happy for them.

I am sure we will see much more from them in the future.

AS far as myself. I start training for the 2010 season tomorrow =D

i am extremely excited. I will be learning to hurdle with a different style. I will elaborate on the new technique as we get going in the next couple weeks but it is something we feel will have me in the mix with the very best hurdlers in the world in 2010.

Expect to see a leap frog, as i drastically drop my times in 2010

Sticking with the Old

Ok so we decided i wont be "learning" to hurdle just yet. Coach and I decided that we dont have enough time before World Champs to ingrain the new stuff and so for now we will stick with the old, only make sure we do things better.

so for the rest of this year, i will still look like everyone else. which is pretty much lead leg dominant and running sideways down the track haha.

The plan now is to throw out the old way and go with the new stuff in time for World Indoors in 2010.

Things are still feeling pretty good though and i plan on big things in August. I have about 9 days left before i fly to Berlin, so i have to learn as much as possible, because once i get to Berlin ill be back on my own.

The Federation is too cheap to fly Coach McGill out to Berlin so we just gonna hope i can retain as much in these next few weeks as possible.

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 :)