Track and Field Blogs - Leonel Manzano

8/13/08

Wow, today was crazy hectic for me. As usual I wake up and think about all the things that I have to do today. There were was a lot on my mind. Either way the day started off by getting up and heading over to Normal University to do small workout.

Actually it’s more like a test run making sure all the burners are functional and ready to go. As is tomorrow will be the day that I go off and we normally do something that gets the legs going and the heart beating. I started off the workout as usual with a small warm up and some drills, then went into my 15 min run for a good warm up. This made the legs loosen up but they were still a little tight. Knowing that I had 4 by 200 I knew that the legs needed to be nice and loose and ready to go so I did some short strides to loosen them up a little more.

Vig my coach has a philosophy of feeling good when running. So he says to me, “Just feel good”; “you’re in the best shape of your life and I know you’re ready to run”.

I took out the first 200m in 29sec keep in mind this is just to feel good and since it is the first one you always feel a little sluggish. I walked 200m and got ready for my second one. As I took off, I would remember the time that I ran a 200m work out with Jacob Hernandez (my roommate and teammate back in Austin) and how he took it to me. I think it was 12 by 200m or so trying to hit 26sec. I was trying to hit 26 sec in that workout and couldn’t do any better than 27sec. Jacob of course was hitting 26sec or 25sec. It was a frustrating workout but as I looked back on it, at that point in time it was still early during the season and there was a lot of work still to be done. Either way Jacob is a really talented guy and still took it to me.

As I crossed the line I hit 27sec high but keep in mind this time around 27 felt easy. My legs felt great and I still felt as though I was warming up. Oh yea I forgot to mention that I was also trying out these new sweet spikes that are probably as light as a feather.

Again I walked 200m and took off again for my third 200m this time running 27sec low. Again I walked the 200m. Vig kept telling me to stay smooth especially on the last one. On the last 200m I took off and just kept telling myself stay smooth.. I came around the curve toward the home stretch and I thought to my self, “should I bring out the chops?”.

The “chops” the chops go way back. For those of you who don’t know what the chops are, it is usually one of my signature moves at the end of the race…. No not the kick. But a hand motion that goes back to my days in the Austin Striders when I use to run and work out with a lot of the sprinters and tried to copy their running style more specifically their hand motion. The hand movement could resemble an actual karate chop or even a knife slicing through air as though a real chop. So I guess that’s where it gets its name the “chops”.

I decided not to since again this was just to get the legs going. I crossed the line. That didn’t feel too bad I thought to myself. I looked at my watch and it said 25sec low and it felt good.

To finish the workout up I did 12min cool down and some hurdle drills.

When I was done Vig and I headed out because I had to meet with the Mechanic..

Well sort of. His name is Dr. Whitaker. For sometime now one of my hamstrings had been a little tight. And I wanted to see him to get worked on. I believe he was one of the guys that was responsible for my Olympic birth.

Going into the past Eugene Oregon 7/6/08

Round one had gone ok. I remember that I just wanted to qualify to the second round with the least possible effort. Throughout the day I had been kind of worried about a tight hamstring and hurting knee. Either way when I was running the race as I started my kick, I clicked it into the 8^th gear. With 50m to go I tried to hit the 9^th gear but it felt like a gasket blew up on the right hamstring. The hamstring tightened up and I had to ease off just making sure that I gained a spot to go on to the second round.

I got a lot of work done with the trainers and some people really trying to loosen it up. It still felt a little off. So I made sure to Ice bath which I never do. Btw I hate ice baths so anytime you see me in one it’s almost a miracle. We did the best that we could but the hamstring still felt a little off.

Either way we still ran the second round. This time the hamstring felt a little better but the knee was still a little tight. I had done a lot of stretching to make sure it would be ok. The purpose again of the second round was just to make it to the final. I got into what I thought was good position. And with 200m again I started my kick. I passed a couple people and then came right up right on someone. Again with 50m left to go I started to feel the same little straining feeling and before I could hit that 9^th gear I had to back off again. This time it felt like I had hit a bump and one of my wheels had been sent spinning off. haha

That night we talked about what we were going to do with the hamstring. I had a day to recover and rest. On my rest day Vig was trying to figure out what to do. Some how Vig got connected with Dr. Whitaker aka the mechanic. This guy is amazing. I saw him on that off with a really tight knee and the messed up hamstring. He worked on me for about 40mins and within 5min the tightness in my knee had almost vanished and the hammy felt a whole lot better. It was amazing by the next day of my race my legs felt really good and it felt like I had knew tires and like I had gotten a tune up.

And as most people know the rest is history.

Back in Beijing:

I took a cab to meet Dr. Whitaker, as I got into the cab I got nervous because it started raining. Info on the driving style in Beijing: Buses have the right away, next big trucks, then cars then humans. The way they drive can be a little crazy when you have big buses trying to come on the same lane and cars honking. It is actually really crazy especially when you’re in a car with a guy that doesn’t know English and you don’t know how to tell him to slow down. Either way I finally got to where he was meeting us. I saw Dr. Whitaker he worked on me and when I got out I felt like million bucks.

After I had seen him came the hard part “getting back to the Olympic village”. Long story short…Lets just say that some how somewhere someone is watching over me and I finally got back.