Sewanee Mtn Laurel Twilight meet report

Fun meet, but no break throughs.   No gains on season PRs.  But, I ran both the 400m and 200m and felt no strains or injury.  That counts for a lot.  I even managed to beat a few Sewanee boys.

400m - 56.88
200m - 25.30

Not too bad considering the quality track and a few weeks of sickness and injury.   Hopefully, I'll get into a few more meets and be able to improve.  Now that I'm apparently healthy, maybe I can build toward a meaningful peak.

As I was coming in with Roya, I saw Randal (USATF official and masters 200m man), he reminded me that it is a gift to participate and do it as long as I can.  So I had fun.  I saw several athletes that remembered me from prior meets.  I've become sort of well known, as an oddity.

400m
There were just 5 of us, one heat.  I had the outside lane of the group, lane 6.   Played it a bit conservative, didn't really go after it aggressively.   That strategy didn't seem to help since I suffered in the end as usual, really tightening up in the last 40m.  Maybe a little tentative since it was my first time out since the hamstring tweek 2 weeks ago.   I had both thighs wrapped for protection.  It was a ridiculous race.  The winner coming in at 49, while the 3rd place guy was 53, me in 56 and a guy behind me in 58... probably 70m between first and last.

200m
I was hoping they'd put me in the slow heat, but I wound up slow man in the second fastest heat, a full heat - lane 8.  When they put lights in this stadium, they didn't think about the track.  By this time, it was almost dark and the turns were in almost complete darkness.  It was kinda cool, starting in the dark and sprinting into the lights.  I had very little time in between races, about an hour, not enough.   I got out well and coming into the straight, I was shoulder to shoulder with a couple of tall guys who beat me down the stretch.   I finished last in the heat but not by much, a few tenths.   I was faster than 2 Sewanee guys in the first heat so... heh, I didn't finish last.   That photo below of the 200m is of course before they made up the stagger, about 35m into the race, but I did get out well.  Just a bit too fatigued from the short rest to really stretch it out.

Still haven't been confirmed for Bellarmine meet next weekend, it's a pretty good track.  Hope to get in, we're coming down to the end of the college season.  I'll need to bust butt with some tempo runs if I ever hope to get into the 55s again.

Finish of the 400m, at least I didn't finish last

After the 200m under the lights

Near the start of the 200m