Sub13 Speed Camp Video

McLean put his savvy high tech skills to work and made a video recapping the camp I hosted in Denver. He got all the footage he shot, chopped it up and made a finished product. Thanks a lot!!

Deborah Shepherd, Our Angel

Charles Shepherd, one of my best friends, my suite-mate throughout college and just an all around great guy is currently mourning the loss of his mother Deborah Shepherd. She had been sick for a while and battled long and hard, my heart hurts.

He is the father of two amazing children and married to a lovely wife who's beautiful inside and out. I can not imagine the suffering that he is going through right now. I can't think of the
pain that I'd be going through if I lost my mother.

Mrs Shepherd took care of us so well back when we were freshmen in Drew Hall. I use to destroy the care packages she would send, talk about going through boxes of Reeses Peanut butter Cups and all kinds of snacks! I was an adopted son of hers, always having Shep forward my requests for the next package.

Although I had talked to her for years, I finally got to meet her at Charles and Robina's wedding in 2005 and she was all that I expected and more.

Today, make sure you hug your mother extra tight and if you can't do that, just place a call, tell them you love them and make sure they understand how much they mean to you! If you may not be on speaking terms with them, it's time for that to end, life is too short. Without them, we have no life.

I will keep the Shepherd family in my prayers.

David Oliver/Sub 13 Ent Speed Camp

Over the weekend, I had the honor of hosting a speed and agility camp in my hometown of Denver, Colorado. I took a trip out there and brought along two of my good friends, Kenta Bell and Mclean Cromer, who agreed to volunteer to help me out for the camp.

When we all got in on Friday, you know my first stop was over to Bren's house! Had to see my favorite person in the world!
Friday evening, we hosted a meet and greet at my mom's house for all of the people who decided to volunteer to assist my efforts. I had a good time meeting some coaches in the area and listening to them share old stories about my coach Brooks. He sure is a legend in this track game.

I knew it was suppose to be kind of chilly in Denver, but I really wasn't ready for what awaited us on Saturday when I got up to get ready for the camp.
It was a blanket of snow and ice out! The rental car had no ice scraper in it, so me and McLean were outside for about 15 minutes with hotel key cards trying to scrape the ice off the windows of the car. That was pure hell! Ask me where Kenta was at during this process and the answer would be, inside the lobby drinking coffee.

I am glad that my mom and Harold were forward thinking because they reserved the football field as well as the gym in case of inclement weather. We had about 50 plus kids pre-registered for the event, but I was pretty worried about if anyone would show due to the weather!

It was great to be back at my old high school, Denver East and I am appreciative that they allowed me to use their facilities to put on my camp as well. It felt weird looking at my old dressing area in the football locker room and being back in the gym, a place I hadn't seen since 2000.

We got to the school about an hour early to set up and get everything together for when everybody started to arrive.
Even though the weather wasn't favorable, we still had about 30 kids and 12 volunteers out at the site. The kids were very attentive and really eager to learn some new stuff and listen to what it is all of us had to say to them.Harold took the kids through an informative dynamic warm up session and walked them through it step by step so that they could really understand what they were doing and why they were doing it.

After the warm up, we got right in to basic running mechanics and form. After the kids got a grasp on the technical aspects, they broke in to different groups and headed over to the stations that were set up. We had two different ladder drills, square cone drill, straight line cone drill, jump rope etc.

Legendary high school coach Don Gatewood came out and really took a hands on approach with the kids. He is in the Colorado High School Hall of Fame and in the USA Track and Field hall of fame as well. It was a great pleasure having someone of his stature come out and lend a hand to the efforts.
My best friend Kelvin Doyle, a former Michigan State football player took the kids through the cone drills working on their agility.Kenta got the kids bounding better than they ever had! After his instruction, you could see the kids really grasp the concepts he was presenting to them.You know I hopped in and got the kids working on their arm action. Once you get the arms together, then everything else falls in to place.My sister came by and lent a hand watching over the babies.After we ended, the kids all received an autographed picture, camp t-shirt and camp water bottle. Big thanks to Randy, Rich and McLean for the design and product.

I really wanted to do something for the community that helped me reach the level of accomplishment I have so far. It is really important that you give something back to the community. Hosting this camp offered me a great reflection point on my life. I really understand how the kids look up to me so much and would love to accomplish the things I have and do the things that I have done. I may take going over to Europe summer after summer for granted for instance, but it means the world to the little ones. I never really realize it until I actually got with them this weekend. Being a positive black male role model in the area is something that I look forward to. I spoke to them as a group and really let them know the importance of getting their education and going to college, which to me, is one of the most important things you can do in life.

To try to help them with that goal, I am starting a scholarship fund to assist in their efforts to attend college. It will start out as something small, just providing book scholarships to kids this spring/summer, but I hope to grow that as well in the future.

I had such a blast putting on this camp! It couldn't have possibly went off as smooth as it did without Harold and my mom at the forefront getting the information out to all the people that needed it.

A real big thanks to Coach Gatewood, Coach Vaden, Chris Turner, Gary, Kellen, Farley and Cameron Burl, George Crunkelton, Yolanda, Justin and Steve Johnson, Annette Tannander and Carl McKinley for coming out and helping me put on this wonderful event. I can't wait until next year to do it even digger and better!

High Definition Lasik Sugery

I had been hemming and hawing for years about undergoing this procedure, but I finally went on ahead and got it done. I am very happy that I did!

I had been exclusively wearing my glasses for a week leading up to the surgery. It was really a difference for me, I never wear my glasses and for me to have had to wear them all day everyday, it was a big deal for me. I think I had a headache everyday from wearing them!
When I was headed in to the room, I wasn't very nervous at all, they told me the procedure only lasts for about five minutes per eye. It's amazing the things we do with technology. The most uncomfortable thing I felt was when they put those clamps on my eyelids so that I couldn't blink, but after that, I didn't feel a thing. I definitely could smell it though LOL. The laser buzzed for about 30 seconds and that was it, on to the next eye.
When I got home, I crashed for almost four hours and once I woke up, I was seeing very clear already. Things were just a bit hazy on the edges, but I could comfortable sit around and watch TV and drive wherever I needed to go.

The funny thing to me is these eye shields that I have to wear when I go to sleep so that I don't rub my eyes. It's pretty ingenious on whoever invented the shields part, I would have probably rubbed my eyes out of my head! My eyes do get fairly dry during the course of the night.
I have prescriptions for about four different type of eye drops, I stay all the way on schedule when it comes to doing those drops at the specified time.

I had a post-op the day after the surgery and I was seeing 20/25, basically as well as I was seeing with my current contact prescription. They informed me that my vision is at about 70% of what the final result will be. I can't wait to see what the final product will be.

To anyone considering this procedure, I would say it is a must have! I'm glad I have rid myself of the burden of contacts or glasses! It has thrown me for a loop at night though, every night, I head to my bathroom to get ready to take my contacts out. I guess 13 years of wearing contacts won't break that habit in two/three days LOL.

Dr. Filutowski and his staff were awesome and did an incredible job!

2009 Season Review

Now that the last race has been run and everybody has made it back to their respective residences, it is time for my annual review of my season.

I can not draw from a very big sample size due to my well document calf injury a few months ago, but I will not dwell on that. Usually I will get anywhere between 25-30 races in a season (indoor and outdoor).

I feel that I have to give myself a solid B for the season. I feel that it was a little bit above average, but didn't go as well as I would have liked it to go. Even with minimal racing, I still produced top times.

Indoor, I was able to finish with the second fastest time in the world and produced a new personal best along with three of the top five fastest times I have ever run. I lost once in the eight times I stepped in the blocks (4th in Birmingham).

Outdoor, the injury bug hit, but prior to that, I put my feet in the blocks eight times and finished first all eight times (prelims and finals). I got hurt, but more importantly to me, I was able to come back briefly and race again. Although I was racing well below the standard I had come to produce prior to going down, I couldn't have been more happy just to be out doing what I do!

With all that, I still produced the second fastest time in the world and finished '09 as the fastest American in the event for the second year in a row.

Now the offseason has come. It will be a short one for me, I have had more than enough time off. Of course I will just gradually get back in to it, but I like being out at the track no matter what I'm out there doing. The calf feels great and we've taken precautions so make sure that it shouldn't be an issue for the fall.

The biggest thing for me this fall is I am hosting a camp for Denver area kids in a couple of weeks. We have been planning this for a couple of months and everything is coming together nicely, I am really getting excited! I don't have as many resources as some major athletes, but I understand that kids look up to us no matter what and it is important to give back. There will be close to 100 kids there, so we will see how it goes!

SoBeFIT Magazine

I had the pleasure of being contacted by SoBe Fit Magazine, a publication run out of Miami, expressing their interest in doing an interview/photo shoot with me.

I had a pretty lengthy phone interview with one of the writers, Sebastian del Marmol, it was pretty enlightening to him, he wasn't so aware of all the nuances that went in to the event.

I had a pretty good time with the shoot, it was inclimate weather out at Disney with the rain, so we had to move to another location.

The final pics that made the magazine are here:
Clearly I didn't need any type of photoshop work like most of these people you see gracing magazines do! LOL.

You can check out the entire article via their website by clicking HERE

I need to find my way into GQ Magazine some how, then my life will be complete!

Not So Serious Afterall...

The road to recovery will not be as long as I thought it might be going in to the doctors office this morning.

After getting all the scans and imaging done, I am relieved in the fact that there is no structural damage to the calf and tendon that I tore earlier. The issue was the dreaded scar tissue.

The doctor said that I am lucky that I decided to stop out in Brussels instead of seeing if I could push through because I would have been right back at square one with a new injury.

The scar tissue flared up because it was not getting broken down properly with the massages over here in Europe. The cold conditions out in Brussels didn't help either. He believes that that also caused the muscle to remain in a constant state of contraction. I had been given that warning back in July about the problems that scar tissue can cause.

The doc said that I could resume racing next week if I wanted to with prolonged treatment here, but that doesn't make very much sense to me. I'm not running the risk of putting my 2010 behind schedule to run a few more meaningless times this year. Gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

I am glad that it is not as serious as I thought and I have a massage specialist that will easily be able to break the scar tissue up, sometimes feel like she's breaking my bones as well!

Right now, I'm walking around in a soft cast that the doctor has formulated with some sort of medicine. I can't wait to take this thing off in the morning! The bad part is, I can't take a shower until tomorrow, that is some poor hygiene, I'm going to be walking around here smelling all "European" LMAO!

I will hang around Munich and get treatment for now. Beautiful place, maybe I can get somebody to roll over here with me next time to alleviate some of this boredom. Not very many athletes here this time of year.

Memorial Vann.....Damn!!!

A had a first in my career last night, a DNS. Did. Not. Start. The reason being, I popped my calf again. Same calf, same place.

With that said, my 2009 season will come to an unceremonious end.

It happened it the warm-up, doing my third start to the first hurdle before heading to the call room to go to the stadium. I felt great too. Once again, there was no warning signal or anything. On my third step driving out of the blocks I felt it.

Same feeling as I had when it first happened, but not as bad. The first time, I couldn't walk for three or four days, this time, I can walk, it just hurts a little bit.

I couldn't sleep at all last night, probably from a combination of the pain and my mind going a million miles a minute.

Well now it is on to the recovery phase once again. Man this is going to be hell, but I am going all in. At least I have months to make sure I am perfectly fine again instead of trying to comeback mid-season.

I am very thankful that I got to get back out on the track for the three races I was able to compete in. I just get this feeling like this is what I am suppose to be doing. I did all the due diligence I could do on my part and things didn't work out. Such is life.

In the game of life, I'm winning anyway. The sport has afforded me a lot of opportunities and if I have to take this step back to move forward a couple more, then so be it. This is just a minor setback, I will be ok. As long as I continue to inhale and exhale, I'll keep fighting.

Next step for me will be heading back to Munich tomorrow afternoon to spend more time getting treatment. I have already formulated a gameplan in my head about the next steps I will take to make sure I can come back stronger. Hopefully the injury is not as bad this time, I will find out for sure on Monday.

For now, I will sit back and enjoy this opening weekend of college football! I'm excited.

By the way, you see the Oregon kid cold clock that Boise State player?!?! Wow, it must really be real in the streets! But how come he did that with all those Boise St teammates around and they didn't jump on the guy after he did it?!?! Wouldn't have happened back in my playing days at Howard, that's for sure.

Memorial Van Damme

The Memorial Van Damme Golden League meeting in Brussels, Belgium is considered the second most prestigious competition on the circuit, behind the Zurich competition.

While Zurich is a sprint based meet, Brussels focus is mainly the distance events.

This is the only competition I have never been to as far as the major meets go. They usually don't host the hurdles unless we are a Golden League event, so I've really only had one previous opportunity.

I went to training yesterday and the facility is top notch! They have placed the same track surface down as we raced on in Beijing. 50,000 fans will be packed in there jamming tonight!

I am racing some the same familiar faces from my last two competitions. I don't have a time goal, I will just try my best to execute better than I have in my previous races. I feel like things get just a tad bit better each and everytime. We will see how the finished product looks in a few hours.

I am competing at 8:05pm local, 2:05 eastern. Universal Sports is having a live webcast of the event, so check it out.