Season's Recap II

HELLO Bloggers! As I stated in Recap I the season has come to an end. Needless to say this will probably be the last post for a little bit, but who knows I may throw a few off season posts in to keep you caught up on my happenings. Recap II is about the struggle this year.

A few weeks ago I was thinking about this past season as a rookie in the professional realm of track and field. How did it go you ask? Well, I can honestly say that it wasnt something I will run through the streets jumping for joy about. I had a lot of awesome experiences that made for a great learning season, but there were a few hickups that caused my season to be less than expected too. For starters I had to learn how my new coach operates, and the type of workouts he prescribes, lol. Its not easy leaving one program only to start a totally different training philosophy. It took almost the entire year to understand how to run his practices well. Next issue was the unexplained injury during the middle of indoor season. I had a huge problem with my knees for about 2 months during a CRITICAL period of training! I tried almost everything to get better. Went to doctors and specialists, chiropractors, and even an acupuncturists and NO ONE could tell me why I was experiencing this excrutiating pains in my knees. After many bills and evaluations later with yet no answer we "called it" tendonitis. During that time training was supposed to be focused on the first half of my hurdle race, working on block starts, and increasing speed in workouts for quickness and getting faster. Well, unfortunately I wasn't able to get those aspects of my race tuned up, and as a result it showed in my competitions throughout the season. So after the injury subsided I came back only to start where we left off: at the tail end of basework. We had to go back to longer slower workouts and weren't able to train for the speed factor like we were scheduled to. I believe this is the SOLE reason I didn't PR this year because our goal was to break 50 seconds over the hurdles, and prior to, all signs pointed to surpassing the goal.

I would say that I came into the program fairly prepared for everything coach had for me on the track. Prior to the injury I was showing excellent fitness and was able to focus on other things like form, stride length, and frequency. With Coach D there is a definite system for training the body to succeed at each phase of a race. If you miss one of those phases you will be missing an element which will alter your progression or results on the track. There are usually 3 general phases (starting, top speed, and maintaining or finishing), but with a more technical race like hurdles you add at least a few more (hurdle approach, front side hurdle, backside, and hurdle-ground transition). After the injury I was a mental wreck unaware. I started to doubt a lot of my training, and my confidence on the track was pretty low. I was just nervous about getting back out and pushing my body on account of the injury especially since we never found out what it was. It ended up playing a serious role in my races and practices hindering me from getting what I needed out of them. It made coach's job about 3 times harder because he had to train me physically and also mentally.

Dispite the sob story, Im taking it as a learning experience and can only focus on the future now. I learned a lot about the sport, my race, and myself as an athlete. I was mentally weak, but my body has always been in shape to run fast. My coach and I know that the ability is there, I just need to get out of my own head on the track and stay healthy off the track. I allowed my body to dictate the success of my race when I should have been pushing my mind to MAKE the body perform. When it comes down to your race, in front of either ten or ten thousand people, it doesn't matter what you feel like. Your mind will can get your body through nearly anything. Once you can allow your body to just go, do, or react without any connection to your emotions only then will you become an elite athlete. I've only recently discovered that so I have to keep it in mind and at heart. As for now, Im looking for some ideas for cross-training. Even though Im not practicing I need to find something to keep me active. I was thinking about joining a dance class or maybe martial arts? If you have any ideas drop a comment. As always thanks for checking me out yall! This is the life of...an athlete - Keep your focus