2008 Indoor
Boston Indoor Games: Welp, 2008 has finally arrived and after a long, tough fall I was eager to get back to the track and see where I was at physically. The fall training went great and I was able to string together quite a few weeks of 70 miles. My plan has been to continue training at that intensity all winter and this week was no different. Coming out here I felt extremely strong and confident. I knew that the field was going to be very strong and I hoped that it would be a fast race. However, 200m into the race it became very apparent that it was going to be tactical. Everyone seemed to be keying off of Khadevis Robinson, myself included, and he brought us through in a pedestrian 57 seconds for the 400m. My legs felt incredible given that we were essentially jogging and I was excited to see who would be able to close the fastest. Of course, I totally believed it would be me and I was content to stay on KD's shoulder well into the third of four laps. Going into this final lap another competitor, Said Ahmed, through me for a total loop. He made a move to the inside of KD and began a kick that forced the rest of us to respond to. We were on the curve and I kept telling myself to wait, wait, WAIT until we hit the backstretch, but for some reason I started to move up the bank and try to pass on the bank in lane three. OBVIOUSLY, a huge tactical error. I was unable to get around them as we were pretty much full out sprinting at this point so I settled back in and hoped to be able to push past in the final 50 meters. However, when I reached down to find another gear coming off that last turn I did not have it. KD had a meter or two on me and held me off down the homestretch. He ran the tactically correct race and certainly earned that win. The positive that I am able to take from this race is that I felt incredible. Honestly it only took me about 5 min to recover from this one and then I was out the door to run a 3 mile cool down. The negative is that I used poor race tactics and lost a race that maybe otherwise would have won. Fortunately though, it is Janurary....so now that I have that out of my system I can go home to train and then come back here to Boston at the end of February fit, hungry, and most important of all, PATIENT as I attempt to make my second world team.
USA INDOOR Championships: Well, first off I'd like to apologize for taking so long in getting this recap up. Usually, frustration and/or disappointment are what leads to my procrastination on updating my site, and though I felt a bit of both last weekend, these are not what have been keeping me. Rather, it is the amazing training that I am putting in right now on the east coast. I leave for Spain on Sunday and to make travel easier am staying and training in Fairfax, Va. (more on that in my blog at thefinalsprint.com) I'm headed to Spain to compete in the 2008 World Indoor Championships. This is my second world team and I earned my spot by finishing 2nd this past weekend in the USA Indoor Championships. The race will, perhaps, go down in my memory as one of my finest, yet most disappointing. Going into the weekend my workouts had been incredible and I knew I was ready to run well. Despite having to take a red-eye flight out of Los Angeles in order to get to the race on time, I felt amazing during the prelims. I cruised a 1:48.6 to become the fastest qualifier for the finals. I expected the finals to be a fast race and looked forward to really testing out my new speed. My plan was to glue myself to Khadevis Robinson for 750 meters and then to out kick him on the final strait away. In my mind it seemed very easy, but in when time came to kick I found KD wasn't about to go down easily. We were shoulder to shoulder down the final 50m and crossed the line in what seemed a perfectly dead heat. However, after the photo finish was analyzed it was shown that KD's shoulder crossed the finish line a mere 1/100th of a second before my chest. Though I was extremely disappointed to finish 2nd in this race, I was not upset. I ran a tactically PERFECT race; repositioning myself and covering moves when I needed to. Also, my time of 1:46.96 was a huge indoor PR and a top ten 2008 world time. I left the track a bit disheartened, but at the same time excited at the chance to represent my country on the world stage and possibly take back that 1/100th of a second!
World Indoor Championships: The 2008 World Indoor Championships has left me with mixed feelings. Though I left with a new PR and my first experience in a World Champs final I left for Spain with the intention of getting a medal. As the malcontent that I am, I simply cannot by happy without one, and probably not completely happy without the gold. With that being said, I am quite proud to have represented my country for the second time at a World Championships. I learned a lot and will hopefully use these lessons at the Olympic Games this summer. I felt absolutely incredible going through the rounds; running smart and conserving energy as much as possible. I know that I am much more fit than I was at this time last year and this makes me excited for outdoors. However, I still feel the frustration of not being able to move past my competition in that final race and I believe this feeling will motivate me to the best spring training of my life. I finished 6th in the world with a time of 1:46.48 and that was a good start to my 2008. With this meet and the rest of my indoor season I truly feel I accomplished the goals I set out for myself indoors: to break up my training and build momentum going into the outdoor season. I'm looking forward to going home, getting some great training in, and then opening up outdoors! As of now, the plan is to start with a 1500m at the Cardinal Invite. See you there!
2008 Outdoors
Penn Relays: I had originally planned on opening up at Cardinal Invite, but decided I didn't want to jump into a really elite race without first having some kind of race effort under my legs. Coach Gags and I decided that despite the long travel, the Penn Relays would be the perfect place for us to get a race in. The 1200 would be a good distance for me to run in order to find out where I was at in my training. We decided to just take it from the gun and try and run 1:54 for the first two laps and to then see what I could close in. As it would turn out, I am extremely fit right now and came through the 800 feeling great in a 1:52 and kept it going to run the 1200m in 2:51.1. I knew I was capable of running this time going into the race but wasn't sure if I could solo it. I led the entire thing and despite the windy conditions felt great doing it. This race gave me a lot of confidence going into the 1500m at Stanford as I now believe I should be able to come through 1200 in 2:54-5 and close for a potential Olympic "A" Standard. The standard is 3:36.6 and I will be looking to run just under that this weekend!
RACE RECAP NOTE
Race recaps on hold until after the Olympic Trials.
For past seasons' race recaps click here!
