Track and Field Blogs - Trey Hardee

well, the weekend is coming to a close. i hope every has enjoyed a lovely easter weekend. it was sunny, hot, and fun here in austin.

the meet yesterday went well. it was my first real competition in about a year. i vaulted, hurdled, threw discus, and ran a leg on a 4x400.

vault: warm-ups the winds were weird. kinda swirly and mainly a nice head/cross. but as the comp worn on (40 vaulters), i managed a first attempt clearance at my opening bar 4.75m on a pretty big stick for me from 5 lefts. the next bar meant i would need to move to bigger ones and raise the grip a little to try and slow the poles down and obviously jump higher. i end up blowing through my 15.0, 14.6, and then "gas"-ed it on the 13.9 and couldn't get close the bar (standards were at 75, but should have been at 55 or 60) en route to a XXX at 4.90m! it was a good day of vaulting though, i'm psyched to get my new series of 5m Spirits from UCS.

110h's: lining up against a decent field considering it was first race of the season. aries merrit, jermaine cooper, and jerome miller among others, it was hard to relax and not just try and beat people to the first hurdle. and man, 110 meters is a long way! the first race is always a shock, but this was crazy. i was worn out after 2 hurdles and i struggled with a lazy/tired trail leg all the way home. ran 14.34, which is fine by me.

Disc: i was really ready to PR in the discus saturday. the weeks previous i had pr-ed in practice multiple times. well, when the women's disc took like 4 hours, it pushed the men's to the same time as the 4x4. i was slated to throw in the 3rd flight, but as the 2nd flight was warming up i asked to be moved into it so i could at least have one or two throws before i had to lace up the sprint spikes. i rushed my first throw and tried pretty hard to put it out there and it didn't make it very far. i then heard the call for the first of two heats of the women's 4x4. i asked the officials if i could skip some people and throw earlier in the 2nd round which they kindly granted me. the second throw was surprisingly more relaxed considering how crunched for time i was. but still not as technically sound as i had been practicing. so then, two throwers later, i got my 3rd throw. i would barely even call it a throw, so i scratched it... on to the lead off leg of the 4x4...

4x4: i slammed on my spikes and did two build ups on the back stretch and quickly realized that i was going to hurt for signing up for this. my legs felt empty. no pop. plenty of adrenaline, but no spark. so about 7 minutes after my last discus throw, i push out of the blocks at the crack of the gun with baton in hand. 150m in i am usually thinking about when to kick it in gear and drive home, but i was hurting bad and decided to see if i could just power through at my slower than expected pace. i came through the 300 around 35, which is about 1.5- 2 seconds slower than i was planning and rigged down the homestretch handing off in 48.8- 48.9 according to my coach.

in a decathlon, my marks this weekend would be alright with me. we'll have to see how sharp i get in the weeks to come... my next meet... THE TEXAS RELAYS!!!