Come back deca. Was ugly enough that I thought about disappearing from the site 🙂 Will give you all a blow by blow.
I live in Chicago, meet starts at 2:15 PM. My boss calls me in for a meeting at 12:30, and I literally cannot get out of the office till 1:20 – meet is 15 minutes away. Get to my car, am on the way, and get stuff in a traffic jam (big accident in front of me). I did not get to the track and parked until 1:57 or 1:58. get changed, and probably got a maximum 7-8 minute warm-up. Not ideal for a comp. Especially given my quad troubles. So, I run the 100 as hard as I feel safe doing. Being honest, I’d say it was 95% effort. 1.6mps headwind. Kinda sucked.
Oh, and there were only 3 decathletes!!! Deca is always a lonely event, but 3??? Come on!
12.46 – SHIT. On the positive side, my quad was fine – but the last time I ran that slowly was as a 15 year old!
Onto the LJ. 5.87. This is right where I expected to be, and an encouraging sign that my switched take-off foot is working. 1.7mps headwind here, too. I left a fair bit on the board (4″ back), and definitely left a good bit on the landing. But all in all, I’ve got to say I was please with LJ> Got a chance to warm-up too, and watching the video, can see that my run looks a LOT better than the 100.
SP – 11.32 or 11.42 – something like that. Real annoying. I did some OHB past 16.0 in warm-up and BLF at 14.0, so I thought I’d nail it. Foot fouled first throw at 12.xx, and just couldn’t stick the next 2.
HJ – 1.63 – Opening height. I turned my ankle on my first attempt at 1.69 – a weird inward sprain or something. Hurt like hell. I have done almost no practice at this event (2 sessions since 2000!) but that is pretty pathetic. I scissored over 1.60 in warm-ups which is a good sign though. In old days, I generally jumped 20cm higher than my scissors. I suspect this is all about repetitions and it will pick up.
Didn’t run the 400. The ankle was swelling up, so I iced and took off so that I’d have a good chance to run today.
Between days — As we’ve all discussed, diet is super important. What did I do for dinner?? Friends in from out of town and a colleague’s going away party led to an evening that included only bar snacks and a lot of beer. The plus side of being an old guy who only runs for himself is that nobody is counting on me, and I can do that kind of thing. (Friends are only in town once in awhile, so that takes priority!).
The downside?? I woke up this morning feeling a bit as though I had just crossed a desert without food or water, only to reach the other side and proceed to get beat up with baseball bats. That was a bad hangover. Drinks, no food, probably mildly dehydrated to begin with…. Not a good combo!
Hurdles at 10:00 AM – another thing – Meet organizers: Please do not ever start day 2 decs at 10. That is ridiculous. 12 or 1 lets us get a lot more recovery time and sleep.
Ran a 17.38. This is pretty bad, but I actually wasn’t that bothered by this one. Was just glad to finish the race. Ankle bothered me in warm-ups and I felt it during the race, but not terribly. I clobbered the 8th hurdle and nearly went down – 5 steps to hurdle 9, but fought back and 3 stepped to hurdle 10 and finished strong. Even though it is slow, I’m OK with it considering it is my first 110 race in 9 years. I’d rate this event somewhere between my LJ and SP. Maybe even better considering last night’s activities.
Discus – Had huge warm-ups – 3 stand throws past 35m line, and 3 full throws right at 40. Not even fully getting after it. Was really windy – left to right, which I actually like for discus. First throw was a monster, but 3 feet right of sector. We measured it for kicks – 42.27. Shit that would have been nice. Ankle really starting to seize up on my now… Second throw – bogus foot foul (I don’t think I fouled) at 38 or 39. Had to stand throw the third – 34.86.
Pole Vault – I don’t have poles, so was borrowing another guys’.. All he had was a 15′ series of 185, 190, 195 and 15’6″ at 180, 185, 190. These are smaller than what I use to vault with, but there’s something about it being first comp in 9 years that made me nervous. I warmed up – swing ups + 1 plant, but my ankle was like a rusty hinge, and I simply did not want to risk hurting myself – given the need I had to jump perfectly to even get on a pole.
Javelin – 48.4x. – Warmed up pretty well. Felt good, although unable to be aggressive with getting my left foot down – which is where the big throws come. Hence, my throws were short run-up and all arm. I got a little pop, followed by funny bone type sensation on first throw, and shut it down.
Didn’t run 1500m. Sitting out the 400 and 1500 means I can get back on my new training cycle Monday, as I don’t have the usual 3 day soreness period from a Dec. Based on my other marks, if I were to hypothesize on my other events, I suspect I would have run a 54.x a 3.70 vault, and a 4:40 or 4:45 1500m. Which would have added 1800+ to my score
390x for 7 events. Figure a 5700 or so, if I’d done whole thing. This is worse than I was hoping for, but not awful. I now know where I actually am. (I think I may have been practicing the art of deceiving myself with my self timed runs in practice)…
I think 6000 is imminently doable this year, maybe even 6300+ – but I have work to do.
Monday begins a new 2-3 month cycle – emphasizing physical condition over technique. Will focus heavily on lifting strength (Squats, Cleans, Incline), jumping strength (SLJ, Vertical), explosive (OHB and BLF) and speed (combo maxV and 200/400). Will probably not do a lot of meets, but instead very regular time trials and testing.
Stay tuned.
Im sorry about your first DEC troubles…ive got to say though, your a great story teller…i was laughing so hard at it all…
