A Windy Track Meet

We had the USA Track and Field Minnesota Open and Masters Championships today and boy was it windy. The meet was in St. Paul which is about a two hour drive for me. Since it was forecast to be in the 90s we decided to have the rest of the family stay home so I went up by myself.

For anyone who knows me, there is one thing that I really dislike and that is wind. I guess it's all those years up in the flatlands of the Fargo/Moorhead area. It's also an issue I have with losing my breath when I run into the wind. I don't know if it's the way that I breath while I am running, but it is very difficult for me to catch my breath when running into a strong wind. Today's wind up in the Twin Cities was between 20 and 30 miles per hour.

For the 400 meter race there was a cross wind where it really hit me at the final turn. The worst part was there were a bunch of small buds on a couple of trees that were blowing right into our faces. They were going into my mouth and eyes while I was making the turn so I had to put my head down and take short breaths. Very frustrating going into the final 100 meters. My time was a little over a second slower than my time at the Indoor National Championships. World Champion Antwon Dussett was also in the race and it didnt' seem to affect him, so I need to find a way to do better despite the conditions.

The 200 meters wasn't any better. The wind shifted to being in our faces for the entire home stretch with a big gust hitting us with about 30 meters remaining. I ended up running over 25 seconds for the first time in a long time, so that was disappointing. I still came home with two gold medals, but it's the clock that's my main opponent right now.

In the end, considering that I have only been to the track for one workout so far this year I guess I can't be too hard on myself. It is an eye-opener that I have some work to do before the National Championships in August. The good thing is that there is enough time. I have another meet in two weeks so I will shoot for some better times. I've got a good plan for the next two weeks which will include 3-4 track workouts, P90X2, and the Asylum.

Time to focus and stay on track, no pun intended. As someone once told me, "Don't be defined by the past and don't underestimate the potential that you have." I've got a new goal to run under 53.5 seconds for the 400 in two weeks and under 24.5 for the 200.