Well, it’s been a while. I have been through so much since I’ve last written in the blog. For starters, my computer crashed at the beginning of March. Talk about a tragedy, especially since I didn’t have anything backed up so yes, I lost it all — music, files, everything. You only have to find out once, though. I have an external hard drive with all of my information up there now. So let’s talk…
When I last wrote, I was dealing heavily with initial workouts such as those hated bike workouts. They’re really good for athletes, but they’re painful to finish, but no pain, no gain. Is that how it goes? Hope so…
It’s now the beginning of July and the season is in full effect. I’ve been in three meets and have another coming up on July 17. My first meet landed us in Walnut, CA for the Mount Sac Relays. It’s definitely one of the biggest meets in the United States for track and field. I ran the 100m there and finished third with a time of 11.91. I can remember being a little disappointed after that race because I hadn’t ran like I did in practice, and my coach let me know that as soon as I was done. After regrouping, we traveled to Pennsylvania for the Penn relays where I ran the 100m again. I finished third once more, but ran an 11.88 this time. That was a little faster, but still, I felt as though I didn’t run as if I was in practice. I feel so much faster in practice and I’m very relaxed. As soon as we line up for the gun, everything speeds up and my thoughts begin to race. It’s just something I’ll have to continue to work on. It’s normal for me to be a little nervous before competing but I’m usually focused on the task at hand. Then again, this is my first year of really running the 100m with technical coaching. But hey, I’ll get it together; it just means I have to work a little harder. After Penn relays, I had to do a little traveling for track and field including a speech in Chicago, IL and an appearance in Atlanta, GA. Then, I returned home for one of my best friend’s wedding. That equaled five weekends in a row where I was on the road competing and handling business for track and field.
Once I made it back to San Diego, I came down with pneumonia. I’ve never been so sick in my life. If you don’t know about it, don’t find out because it had me out of training for two and a half weeks, and then I still had to stay out of training for a few more days. Thank God I made it through because I was actually getting kinda worried. Yes, I got worried about something, LOL. Some people think I don’t get worried for nothing, but that issue warranted some worrying.
So I made it through pneumonia, and then geared up for a jumpers meet here at the Olympic training center. I only jumped from a short approach meaning I took about ten steps instead of my usual sixteen. My furthest off of this approach was 6.20m which is about 20 ft, 4 in. For a first jump of the year, I was pretty happy but still thought I could have done better that day. I did accomplish my goal of getting my A standard for the year. As an athlete, you have standards that you must meet in order to gain or maintain certain privileges such as staying on the national team. You have an A standard, a B standard, and an emerging elite standard. Athletes with an A standard receive the highest level of support. National team members have a lot of benefits, one being able to train at the Olympic training center. So that was a plus for me, I retained my national team status for the end of this year and the upcoming year.
Since then I have been training hard for the upcoming meet in Colorado, but I’m focused and excited for 2010 because things are going to pick up tremendously. We have our national trials for the IPC World Championships that will be held in New Zealand in January of 2011. That’s what I want to be a part of and that’s what I plan to achieve.
There’s definitely more I have to share with you, but I’m going to get out of here and try to get some more updating done on the site. But that has been my life in a nutshell.