Woo-hoo! I had a great weekend today. Here at Harvard where I coach, we hosted out annual Harvard Open indoor meet. It's a huge meet (over 1,300 competitors this year) so it gets crazy in when everyone is stuck in our indoor track, but it's a great chance to get some low-key events in early.
I really only started event work a week or two ago as up to this point my training has been geared towards simply getting in shape and working on building the foundations for the rest of the year. Although I had really had only two hurdle workouts (including the one the day before the meet), and three shot put workouts since ending last season 4 months ago, I was feeling pretty good and decided to try those events out to see where I am at - kind of a trial by fire.
I've always been a hurdler, so it's the event I am most comfortable with and thus the event I think I have always picked to start off my competition season every year. The hurdles are tricky, however because early in the season its very tough to develop any sort of a rhythm when both your technique and speed are in their very early stages. That being said, I felt great the day before (both my first time coming out of blocks as well as my first time over high hurdles all year) and warm-ups before my prelim race felt great so I was eager to see how I'd do.
An area that usually hinders me in this event, my start was actually great coming out of the blocks and in fact may have been my best ever. I had a ton of speed coming through the first hurdle and was able to stay real crisp and clean throughout each of the 5 barriers in the 60m hurdles. I was clear of the field after the first hurdle and the race was over well before I realized what was going on - a great sign for such an early race. It felt fast, and it felt smooth.
My coach, Brenner Abbott, was there with some of his athletes from Northeastern and he was one of the first people I saw immediately after my race. "What's your PR [personal record]," he asked. Just as I was saying "I think Eight point Thir..," the results of my race came over the scoreboard and I had to correct myself: "or two-seven, I guess," as 8.27 was my official time and a new personal record. A great way to start of the year.
Here is the video from my prelim race:
I'm in lane 7, the one closest to the camera in the white singlet and black tights.
I made the finals with the top seed and therefore got to run out of lane 4. This time I was a little shaky in the blocks and was actually moving a bit when the gun fired so I was a bit caught off guard. I guess this is why you should practice more than once before a competition! Thus, I gave everyone a headstart and had to battle my way back. As a result, the hurdling was a little sloppier, but I came through with a huge lean at the tape to overtake two guys and win the meet with a 8.37 - in fact, the same time as the guy in second, but just enough faster that they were able to give me the win. Below is the video for the finals (I'm in the middle in lane 4):
As well as the hurdles, I also competed in and walk away with a big PR in the Shot Put. Just like the hurdles, I'd only had two or three days even picking up a shot since this summer. Last year I switched to the rotational style shot (spinning with the shot rather than the more traditional glide technique most decathletes use) full time. I had been a glider all throughout college, but was really kind of frustrated with the event because at my stature I should have been a much better thrower. I played around with the rotational style in 2006 when training in Berkeley under Chris Huffins but whereas there were some flashes of great potential early on and I improved my lifetime PR by a couple feet in only a few weeks, I was much too inconsistent with it and abandoned it in favor of the more consistent glide technique. Partly through last year, however, Brenner and I decided to re-visit the rotational style and we really started to figure out some things that worked. I started getting real consistent with it and my shot on the whole really began to improve significantly ended in not only a lifetime PR around 13.80 (~45'), but more importantly a lot more confidence in the event coming into this year.
Anyways, this year, due to scheduling and some added responsibilities placed upon him by his head coach (grumble...grumble...), Brenner hasn't has as much time to work with me one-on-one this year so I have begun working with Cathrine Erickson, our new throws coach here at Harvard. She has introduced some new technique points to me that had me a little worried going into the meet, as I had only had a two sessions to work on them, but it all worked out great as I had two throws of my 6 total over my old PR. I took 4th in the meet with a great new PR of 14.27m, or 46' - 10". This is a huge improvement in not only my psychy , by will alone add about 50 pts to me decathlon score if I do it in a multi.
To finish the day off (about 10 hours after starting) I also ran a leg in a 4x400m relay with some local guys to get a quarter-mile in - an event I need all the practice I can get. I wasn't super fast here, but again, it's real early in the season and my training so I was happy with how it went. All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better way to start the season and it has me very excited for the months to come.
For now things get quiet around here as far as competitions go as everyone take some time off for Winter Break, but I'll be working hard. I'm going back home to California for 10 days during Christmas so I'm real excited for that, but otherwise it's time to gear up for the Dartmouth Relays in January when i'll compete in my opening Heptathlon (the indoor multi-event we do instead of the full decathlon).
If I don't post before then, everyone have a great holiday season.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
I think I might start off my blog, and therefore introduce myself a little differently: I puked today. Sorry for anybody squeamish, but I think such a fact is a graphic but actually pretty good illustration of how strange it is being an athlete.
You see, I think it's similar to the reason I find it difficult to answer the question of what I do for a "living." Well, I make money by being a coach, true. Don't get me wrong, I love coaching and I put all I have into it when it's time to coach, but coaching pays the bills so that I can then do what I consider to be my job, my occupation. I am a decathlete.
I wake up in the morning based on and for the reason of my workout for the day. My meals revolve around, my sleep is geared towards, coaching is juggled around my workout that day. 365 days in a year, 52 weeks, and 12 months, all geared towards one two-day series. Sometimes it makes me glad I'm not a sprinter: some of them work just as hard and get fewer than 10 seconds to show for it. A decathlon, however, is two days. Ten events on the track in two days. Ten chances, ten opportunities at one goal.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of the I-do-ten-events-thus-work-ten-times-harder-than-you crowd and am not attempting a tirade about my "blood, sweat, and tears," I just thinks it's an incredible thing how this has all turned out for me. Sure I fantasized like everyone else as a kid about making NBA buzzer-beaters or hitting that walk-off dinger to win the World Series, but I truly never pictured myself as professional track athlete. I was always a bit of a work-aholic who played by the rules. In fact, my plan was more along the lines of get good grades, you go to college, get a degree, you get a job, buy a Beamer and a big house. Nice car, dog, and hoping by this time I'd be good enough to have my own office with my name on the door: safe, following the path, getting it done.
After graduating, however, I decided to go out to Berkeley to train and live with my uncle in Walnut Creek, CA. To get to and from I took the BART trains in the mornings and I think it's there it really hit me for the first time. The train I took eventually went on into San Francisco and thus was a big commuter train. Everyone was in a tie and jacket with a Blackberry on the hip, coffee in one hand, and "Wall Street Journal" in the other. Then, of course, there was me: bright fleece warmup jacket, track pants, backpack, and running shoes still sandy from the previous day's long jump session. As much as I used to see myself as one of those anonymous daily grinders I loved the fact that I was different, that I was "that guy." Just like I loved being "that guy" in the back of my college physics lectures with ice on his hamstring and eating a tuna sandwich, or one of "those guys" running suicide intervals up UC Berkeley's Campanelli hill at 8am weaving in and out of sleepy-eyed students making their way to the first class of the day. Somewhere I caught a sickness that turned into a passion, that turned into a love for my sport that made me crave waking up daily to push myself as much as I could just to see where I could go with it, pushing myself, building myself, then getting to bed to do it all over again tomorrow.
Which, I guess leads me back to the beginning: I puked today. I am not normal, and I love it. I was not sick, I didn't eat anything bad, I wasn't nauseous, I ran. I ran hard. Furthermore, to tell you the truth, to make matters worse, I was actually worried that I wasn't going to puke. I was worried that I felt too good after the workout. Sure, I couldn't stand up well or walk straight, but I didn't have to puke...but then, sure enough it came. Don't get me wrong, this is far from a regular occurrence, but during the early part of the season you have to get yourself into shape and there are certain workouts that I know are going to get me. You have to work and work and work. You have to push your body where it may not want to go now so that come spring and summer during competition season, your body can go exactly where you want it to go. I had been fine all year thus far, but today was the first day of slightly faster and more intense intervals. Just 200m at a time, but with only 2:00 minutes rest in between each, they catch up to you in a hurry - and sometimes you get to "re-eat" breakfast because of it. Thus, today, just like in the bleachers at Berkeley after that plyo workout, on the infield at Davis after that set of 8 x 300m, and at the few other places that have had the privilege of hosting the workouts leading towards my initial puke-inducing workout of a season, I found myself doubled over a trash-can in the bathroom of Harvard's Gordon Indoor Track Center...and it made me happy.
You see, I think it's similar to the reason I find it difficult to answer the question of what I do for a "living." Well, I make money by being a coach, true. Don't get me wrong, I love coaching and I put all I have into it when it's time to coach, but coaching pays the bills so that I can then do what I consider to be my job, my occupation. I am a decathlete.
I wake up in the morning based on and for the reason of my workout for the day. My meals revolve around, my sleep is geared towards, coaching is juggled around my workout that day. 365 days in a year, 52 weeks, and 12 months, all geared towards one two-day series. Sometimes it makes me glad I'm not a sprinter: some of them work just as hard and get fewer than 10 seconds to show for it. A decathlon, however, is two days. Ten events on the track in two days. Ten chances, ten opportunities at one goal.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of the I-do-ten-events-thus-work-ten-times-harder-than-you crowd and am not attempting a tirade about my "blood, sweat, and tears," I just thinks it's an incredible thing how this has all turned out for me. Sure I fantasized like everyone else as a kid about making NBA buzzer-beaters or hitting that walk-off dinger to win the World Series, but I truly never pictured myself as professional track athlete. I was always a bit of a work-aholic who played by the rules. In fact, my plan was more along the lines of get good grades, you go to college, get a degree, you get a job, buy a Beamer and a big house. Nice car, dog, and hoping by this time I'd be good enough to have my own office with my name on the door: safe, following the path, getting it done.
After graduating, however, I decided to go out to Berkeley to train and live with my uncle in Walnut Creek, CA. To get to and from I took the BART trains in the mornings and I think it's there it really hit me for the first time. The train I took eventually went on into San Francisco and thus was a big commuter train. Everyone was in a tie and jacket with a Blackberry on the hip, coffee in one hand, and "Wall Street Journal" in the other. Then, of course, there was me: bright fleece warmup jacket, track pants, backpack, and running shoes still sandy from the previous day's long jump session. As much as I used to see myself as one of those anonymous daily grinders I loved the fact that I was different, that I was "that guy." Just like I loved being "that guy" in the back of my college physics lectures with ice on his hamstring and eating a tuna sandwich, or one of "those guys" running suicide intervals up UC Berkeley's Campanelli hill at 8am weaving in and out of sleepy-eyed students making their way to the first class of the day. Somewhere I caught a sickness that turned into a passion, that turned into a love for my sport that made me crave waking up daily to push myself as much as I could just to see where I could go with it, pushing myself, building myself, then getting to bed to do it all over again tomorrow.
Which, I guess leads me back to the beginning: I puked today. I am not normal, and I love it. I was not sick, I didn't eat anything bad, I wasn't nauseous, I ran. I ran hard. Furthermore, to tell you the truth, to make matters worse, I was actually worried that I wasn't going to puke. I was worried that I felt too good after the workout. Sure, I couldn't stand up well or walk straight, but I didn't have to puke...but then, sure enough it came. Don't get me wrong, this is far from a regular occurrence, but during the early part of the season you have to get yourself into shape and there are certain workouts that I know are going to get me. You have to work and work and work. You have to push your body where it may not want to go now so that come spring and summer during competition season, your body can go exactly where you want it to go. I had been fine all year thus far, but today was the first day of slightly faster and more intense intervals. Just 200m at a time, but with only 2:00 minutes rest in between each, they catch up to you in a hurry - and sometimes you get to "re-eat" breakfast because of it. Thus, today, just like in the bleachers at Berkeley after that plyo workout, on the infield at Davis after that set of 8 x 300m, and at the few other places that have had the privilege of hosting the workouts leading towards my initial puke-inducing workout of a season, I found myself doubled over a trash-can in the bathroom of Harvard's Gordon Indoor Track Center...and it made me happy.
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