My trip to Belgium involved two meetings in two different places, on Saturday and Sunday. The first meet was on a track I hadn’t been to before in Kortrijk, not too far from the French border. The second was at the big stadium in Brussels, where I have ran at the Brussels Golden League twice in the past. This provided a good opportunity to test myself on back-to-back days. It’s not too often you get a chance to do this on the circuit, and we wanted to see how I would react. It was getting into July now and time to kick off my season in earnest.
The race in Kortrijk was a small one but I had a couple of decent Jamaicans to test me out. This is a nice town with a cool square and nice architecture in places. The hotel we were staying at is over six centuries old. I had some Irish company in my event for once, as Irish 400m runner Brian Murphy was doing the 200m B race as a warm-up for his 400m the next day. It was really relaxed and we could get ready down on the back straight, with no call room.
The race itself was a disaster, pure and simple! When I came out of the blocks I stumbled and practically fell. It all happened so fast I’m still not sure what exactly went wrong. All I remember is that on my second step or so I almost went down and even put my left hand on the ground to save myself. Of course, I lost a load of ground. The guy inside made up the stagger straight away. I kept going, thankfully, and came off the bend around 4m down on the Jamaican guy I guess. I kept reeling him in and reeling him in but ran out of track and came 2nd in 21.15. I think I ran pretty well once I got going. There was a ferocious cross wind against us on the bend that caused all the times to be way down, plus I must have lost another 0.4 with my near-fall. In hindsight, I’m really thankful that conditions were poor because it would have been harder to take if I knew I missed out on a fast time! These things happen I guess and it’s better that it happened in such a minor meet than in a bigger race.
I stayed in Kortrijk that night and headed to Brussels for the race on Sunday morning. In my opinion the best one-day meeting I’ve ever run at is the Memorial Van Damme so I was looking forward to running at the same stadium, even if there wasn’t going to be any spectators! I had a slightly stiffer test here, in the form of Kenroy Anderson, who was 5th in the Jamaican Trials and had run quicker than me this year. I was in good lane for once, with Anderson just outside me, so it was the perfect opportunity to put in a good run. The race itself had some good points and bad points. The good points – winning, my transition to the straight, my finish. The bad point – my first 50m. I’m not sure if it was because of what had happened the day before but my start and particularly the drive phase was just very poor. I lost 2m to both Anderson and the South African in the lane inside me. Then, about 50m into the race I just seemed to take off. The next 50m was great and I transitioned to the straight really well, which is good to see. I took back the 2m I had lost to the others and then went away from them up the straight. I think I was quite tidy technically. You can see the video below to see what you think! Unfortunately the time was not amazing but we had a bit of a headwind and all the times were down. This, combined with my bad start, meant 20.81 was just about ok. When I put it all together, in the right conditions, I will take a few decent scalps.
Since Belgium, I’ve put in some nice work. Monday was travel. Tuesday was a solid weights session with some 30s after. Wednesday was a nice blow out session (split runs) with Allan, but still managed to keep the quality up. Thursday was more of a recovery day and yesterday was a technical session out of the blocks. This was an important session, mentally, for me after what had happened in my last two races. Thankfully, it went great. Training-wise I’m in much better shape than a month ago so now it’s just a matter of keeping the faith and looking forward to Luzern next week. Walter Dix is running I hear so it will, no doubt, be a real test for me. Today I have a rest day so am enjoying one of the biggest stages in the Tour de France. Looking forward to the big climb at the end of the day. Sometimes I thank my lucky stars I’m a sprinter!
The race in Kortrijk was a small one but I had a couple of decent Jamaicans to test me out. This is a nice town with a cool square and nice architecture in places. The hotel we were staying at is over six centuries old. I had some Irish company in my event for once, as Irish 400m runner Brian Murphy was doing the 200m B race as a warm-up for his 400m the next day. It was really relaxed and we could get ready down on the back straight, with no call room.
The race itself was a disaster, pure and simple! When I came out of the blocks I stumbled and practically fell. It all happened so fast I’m still not sure what exactly went wrong. All I remember is that on my second step or so I almost went down and even put my left hand on the ground to save myself. Of course, I lost a load of ground. The guy inside made up the stagger straight away. I kept going, thankfully, and came off the bend around 4m down on the Jamaican guy I guess. I kept reeling him in and reeling him in but ran out of track and came 2nd in 21.15. I think I ran pretty well once I got going. There was a ferocious cross wind against us on the bend that caused all the times to be way down, plus I must have lost another 0.4 with my near-fall. In hindsight, I’m really thankful that conditions were poor because it would have been harder to take if I knew I missed out on a fast time! These things happen I guess and it’s better that it happened in such a minor meet than in a bigger race.
I stayed in Kortrijk that night and headed to Brussels for the race on Sunday morning. In my opinion the best one-day meeting I’ve ever run at is the Memorial Van Damme so I was looking forward to running at the same stadium, even if there wasn’t going to be any spectators! I had a slightly stiffer test here, in the form of Kenroy Anderson, who was 5th in the Jamaican Trials and had run quicker than me this year. I was in good lane for once, with Anderson just outside me, so it was the perfect opportunity to put in a good run. The race itself had some good points and bad points. The good points – winning, my transition to the straight, my finish. The bad point – my first 50m. I’m not sure if it was because of what had happened the day before but my start and particularly the drive phase was just very poor. I lost 2m to both Anderson and the South African in the lane inside me. Then, about 50m into the race I just seemed to take off. The next 50m was great and I transitioned to the straight really well, which is good to see. I took back the 2m I had lost to the others and then went away from them up the straight. I think I was quite tidy technically. You can see the video below to see what you think! Unfortunately the time was not amazing but we had a bit of a headwind and all the times were down. This, combined with my bad start, meant 20.81 was just about ok. When I put it all together, in the right conditions, I will take a few decent scalps.
Since Belgium, I’ve put in some nice work. Monday was travel. Tuesday was a solid weights session with some 30s after. Wednesday was a nice blow out session (split runs) with Allan, but still managed to keep the quality up. Thursday was more of a recovery day and yesterday was a technical session out of the blocks. This was an important session, mentally, for me after what had happened in my last two races. Thankfully, it went great. Training-wise I’m in much better shape than a month ago so now it’s just a matter of keeping the faith and looking forward to Luzern next week. Walter Dix is running I hear so it will, no doubt, be a real test for me. Today I have a rest day so am enjoying one of the biggest stages in the Tour de France. Looking forward to the big climb at the end of the day. Sometimes I thank my lucky stars I’m a sprinter!