Season's Recap I

Looking back on the season Im pretty satisfied. Not with everything, but for a lot. For example, I had enough guts to take a leap of faith, literally, and pursue a dream of mine with no excuses. I ended up learning a whole bunch from my new coach as well as the seasoned veterans in the sport that I run with.

Even though I look at the results from all of my meets and don't see all of the times I was shooting for, I can say that on this journey I've started to realize what it is that I want to accomplish. Upon discovering what you want you just have to put life in motion to get that goal done. This year I've learned about my coach and his training techniques, myself as an athlete (what things help me or discourage me), and the sport of Athletics (as the Europeans call it) from a technical and professional side. One thing I would have never imagined is how small the sport of Track & Field is. I've seen and met A LOT of big names that have stood out for years in the collegiate enviornment. These athletes are just regular people, some have attitudes, some are really nice, others you probably don't want to try to make eye contact with, lol. All in all I've started to take the fan out of myself as a runner and start to put strictly comptetion down on the track. After the meet, if I have a chance to chat or hang out with someone new thats cool, but if not I still have to handle my business at work (since my actual JOB is to RUN).

I've had an opportunity to find out that there is, like everything else, politics in the sport, and that a lot of times you are chosen to enter meets based on who you know or who your agent is. Some agents get together to try to blacklist athletes they don't like, and others just want to see some good races. I personally don't have an agent yet, but when the time comes I'll make sure I choose wisely.

Another thing I've noticed is that Track athletes don't get half as much, heck...a quarter, hype and press as other sports do. We are kind of on the "starving artist" employment. I've had my struggles this year financially, but I kept my eyes on God and watched his grace fill my life, which is pretty exciting. When the only thing you can do is to REALLY trust God, you see "miracles" all the time and your faith grows because of it. All in all, I've met some really interesting people like Tyson Gay, Natasha Hastings, Veronica Campbell, etc. Some really wonderful people Rodney Greene, Shalonda Solomon, Damu Cherry, Debbie Ferguson-Makenzie, etc. And have hung out with some big names too: Dave Oliver, Bershawn 'Batman' Jackson, Dwight Thomas, and Dennis Mitchell.

Taking this year as a learning experience will only help me explode into the realm of greatness next season. I know how to train, how to take care of my body, what to expect this next year of training, and I have a great support team of people in and out of my training camp. Everything is great because things could ALWAYS be worse. I'll delve a bit deaper into the ups and downs next post, SO stay tuned in! The life of...a rookie; DK