The Only Thing That Changes Is The Tail Number On The Flight

After having such a wonderful time in Denver, it was back to the day-to-day grind, being back in Orlando. I'm glad I left on the day I did because as I type, it's back to blizzard-like conditions in Denver and the airport is out of commission. It snowed pretty hard on Christmas day too. Everyone is always saying "I wish it would snow of Christmas" or "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" is crazy! I have no want nor need for snow, my blood is too thin for that now, I've been in Florida too long.

Being with family is so important to me, I got to see my brother for the first time since last Christmas. He'll be graduating this May from UNLV, with a double major. Graduation for him, oddly enough on his birthday, hopefully I'll have a chance to see him there. My nephew Khamari is getting so big too. One thing that I was so grateful for was the fact that my mom has seemed a little more happy with everything. I think that it's because she has raised up almost three college graduates and productive members of society on her own. I do believe a major part of her happiness lies with her "beau" Harold Johnson. I am so happy that she has found someone who seems to have only her best interests in mind. Every time we talked, he wanted to talk about bettering her and her life. I've known him for quite a while, his son and I ran track in high school together. I was telling my mom that I remember back in the fall of 1999 when I was a senior in high school, Harold was coaching at South H.S. and he voted me to be on the All-League team. Not even my own high school coach or athletic director did. I lead the State in interceptions with 11 and had over 70 tackles at the safety position, but my own school wouldn't even vote for me, a rival coach did, and that was the only reason I was a part of the All-League team. I don't know why I tend to remember all of the negative things that have happened far more than I remember the positive things, maybe that's what is the driving force behind me. I'm just glad that things in her life are looking good because she deserves it.

This Christmas vacation was the last break I will get for quite a while. Brooks unleashed the beast on us at practice today, which I knew he would, I am down for the count! I need to load up on my protein because I know I'm going to be hurting in the morning.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE, FROM THE GOOD PEOPLE AT DAVIDOLIVERHURDLES.BLOGSPOT.COM!!

Let's not forget the true meaning for the season. I won't be opening too many presents, but as I have gotten older, I have bought in to what people say all the time: "It's better to give, than to receive". Merry Christmas.

In Denver For Christmas Action!

I've been back in Denver for a couple of days now and I've had a wonderful time. I was in dire need of this six day break too. Practice has been very tough, I'm sure Brooks had it that way so that we could get the work in before everyone went their separate ways for the holidays.

I didn't pass go, I didn't collect $200 before I was back at the dentist the first morning I was here. We definitely don't need a repeat of last summer when it comes to these teeth. Nothing was wrong though, which is a plus. I have become a poster child in my house in Orlando of not procrastinating on seeing the dentist. Big Aub's mom hit him with the "you remember what happened to David last summer" guilt trip to get him to schedule an appointment.

I'm having a great time hanging out with my family and friends, I hadn't seen my brother since last Christmas, so we've been having a ball. Of course my nephew is getting bigger by the day it seems.

One of the highlights of my trip so far was getting to see my Nuggets in action against the Houston Rockets. K hooked us up with some great seats, it was a hell of a game too. We pulled it out by one point in double overtime. K and his brother DJ were going for the Rockets and had a whole lot to say during the game, but afterwards they had the serious "church mouth" (meaning they were quite for those that don't get it). 'Melo and A.I. are killing this year, all I hope for is that we don't catch a first round exit out of the playoffs again for the fourth straight year.

I plan on getting in two workouts while I'm here, I got one in on Friday and I was hurting. I forgot about this thin air up here. I did the treadmill workout because it was snowing and it was tap out city for me. I plan on getting another one in on Monday.

I don't have too much of anything planned, I'll probably go out tonight, it's a friend of mine from Howard's birthday, so we'll see what's up with that. I've had all my Christmas shopping done for well over a month, so I'm not worried about that either. I'm just going to sit back and enjoy some of this good home cooked food (but not too much), and rest up because it's going to get even more serious out on the track when I get back.

WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We got our first win of the season today by beating the Baltimore Ravens 22-16 in overtime! I'm doubly happy because the Ravens are Joel's favorite team and now I'm talking all kinds of trash for the rest of the week! I've been running around the house yelling and screaming and I've broken out in a all out sweat, so I'm bout to hop in the shower. GO FINS!!!!


Joel is so sick right now, he said he's about to write a personal letter to the Baltimore Raven's front office demanding the firing of Brian Billick. Everytime he comes to my room, I put on the Miami Dolphins fight song, I have also changed his ringtone on my phone to the fight song.

I Am Legend

The house went out last night and caught Will Smith's new movie "I Am Legend" and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Smith is one of my favorite actors and I like all of his previous material, but when you do a movie, basically by yourself, that's when you know you've made it as a bonafide superstar. I'll give it 5 stars, the only downside was we wanted to hit the 9:00 show, but that show was sold out, we had to wait until 10:10 and we had practice this morning at 10am. 10am is when I'm generally just waking up, I'm so tapped out right now, I thought I would just get this post up before I tapped.

Is It A Black/White Thing? The Release of the Mitchell Report

Well with Major League Baseball's release of the Mitchell Report, the shocker has to be the name of Roger Clemens being involved. Roger Clemens is "white" America's superstar in the same sense of Brett Favre in the NFL. Now I am interested to see if the media and the public will take Roger Clemens to town the same way they have Barry Bonds over all these years. Will they want to put an asterix next to Clemens' 300 wins or 4,000 strikeouts? We will see, but I think that somehow this might not get as much attention as Bonds. I say that because as I sit here and watch ESPN, it is being spoken about, but so far there hasn't been massive coverage dedicated solely to Clemens like there was for Bonds. I do firmly believe that there are double standards in American media coverage of athletes. I'm pretty sure that if it was released that it was Barry Bonds instead of Clemens, the media would be KILLING him and condemning him to jail. It is early on, so we shall see if people are asking if Clemens now belongs in the Hall Of Fame or if they try to crucify him as well.

Even Osama Don't Want It With D.O.!!

In only my third day off in the past 2 1/2 weeks of practice, Big Aub and myself decided to head out and go "bust our guns" Call of Duty 4 style. We hit a local gun range and had a fun time out there. We were using Glock 9's, and in the scoring, Aub out pointed me 173-162 in a controversial finish, I'm still protesting the score. We had a great time out there, but I see how Heratio catches those guys on CSI: Miami so easy, with all the gun shot residue and DNA you leave behind.

I'm off again tomorrow, we have a time trial on Friday, so Brooks is giving us some time off to be fully rested for that. The only thing I have planned for tomorrow is to find myself a coat for when I go back to Denver, because it's snowing and freezing out there!

"Money" Mayweather = G.O.A.T.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is my favorite boxer of all-time, and the display he put on last night was classic. It took him his standard 3 to 4 rounds to figure out what his opponent is going to try to accomplish for the night. I was calling a TKO in the 8th round but it happened two rounds later. I don't know what fight Howard Letterman was watching to have the fight scored the way he did. I definitely didn't think that Hatton's corner would ever throw in the towel, that was a shock.

Anyone who actually thought Ricky Hatton had a shot at defeating Floyd simply falls in to one of three categories: 1) You were watching too much 24/7 on HBO, 2) You're a Floyd Mayweather hater or 3) Both.

I like Mayweather because he is a polarizing figure. I like the flash and the trash talking he does, it's mainly entertainment, but most people don't and they allow that to cloud their judgment when it comes to the battle between the ropes. He said it best when he was on HBO, "I don't put my life on the line everytime I step in the ring just to drive one pickup truck, throw darts and drink beer." I don't blame him because if it were me, I would be enjoying the very finer things in life too.

His performance last night directly relates to what Brooks constantly tells us. Mayweather dominates the critical zone of his fight, the same way Brooks is coaching us to dominate the critical zone in our individual races. When it gets late in the fight, you can see that Floyd is the better conditioned boxer and he executes his game plan the best. If you watched 24/7 on HBO, you could see that Hatton seemed to have a lot of confidence, but at the end of the day, it's not about confidence, it's about competents and no one cares how you feel, it's about execution. Floyd Mayweather demonstrates that above all better than anyone in the game right now.

Brooks also tells us that the best indicatior of future behavior is past behavior. I don't know what people saw in Mayweather's past performances that led them to believe that he couldn't prevent Hatton from attacking his body the same way he neutralized De La Hoya's much ballyhooed jab. I hope that last night is his last fight because people don't want him to stop until someone knocks him out and I hope he goes out on top, that's a privilege that a lot of athletes aren't afforded.

Finally, I hope it's a very long flight home for the Hatton fans back to the England. After they came over here and booed the entire National Anthem, if you didn't have a sense of patriotism when Mayweather knocked Hatton senseless in the 10th, I don't know what's wrong.

The Life and Times of D Dot Oliver

I've been out of commission as far as the blog goes, so to all of the people that read this, the three maybe four people, I would like to issue an apology.

Things have been going great lately, training has been moving smoothly, no injuries, but I have had to tap out of practice a couple of times because my shins were bothering me, I know first hand that that's not a problem you want to have long term, so I always call it a day when they flare up. I've had a couple of 'indicator workouts' and I am a little ahead of the pace I was on at this point last season, so that's a plus.

The house has been off the hook too, a lot of comedy there. One of the more recent debates at the house was over the dishes in the kitchen and we had it last night. Let me give you the background on it. Aub and myself always wash the dishes we use as soon as we get done so they don't pile up. Snake and Joel on the other hand do them when they feel. It came to a head because it was getting out of hand and we had to call them to task on it. Snake didn't have very much to say aside from the obligatory "those aren't mine" statement, but Joel, if you know him, you know he's going to want to debate about something, so his argument was basically this, first came the "those aren't mine", then came the "those are Marisa's" (she's been gone for well over two weeks) then the "well I let them pile up because I want to run the dishwasher". Me and Aub then stated that running the dishwasher a lot will run up the utilities bill. Here's the dialog:

Joel: I don't see why we don't just put them in the dishwasher and run it, sometimes I pull out a fork and it still might be dirty.

D.O.: You get dirty stuff out of the dishwasher too.

Aub: Hey, none of us run for the paralympics, we have two hands and two strong biceps to wash the dishes when we use them. Plus I don't think we should be running up the utilities, running the dishwasher is not needed, if there were no dishwasher the dishes would still find a way to get done! (I started dying laughing when he said this)

Joel: Well Aub, you run up more electricity than everybody because your room is bigger than mine and you play Xbox 360 all the time and that is not needed.

(Here comes the funniest, most bass actwards thing I have heard in a while, part 1)

Aub: How do you figure I use more electricity?

Joel: Because your room is bigger, when you turn on the light it has to light up more square-footage in your room than mine!

(I lost it at that point, I was in the living room giving myself cramps I was laughing so hard.)

D.O.: The dishwasher runs up a lot of water as well.

(Here comes the funniest, most bass actwards thing I have heard in a while, part 2)

Joel: Well you and Aub have your own bathroom with a shower, so you guys use up more water.

D.O.: What?! I always thought that rather you take four showers in four different bathrooms or four showers in the same bathroom that it was all the same, what makes this any different?

Joel: Because I own a condo in Ohio, I know.

D.O./Aub: You got it then.

That's just a piece of our most recent conversation, but we went on to debate about when we should change the air conditioning air filter to what temperature the a/c should be on. It's always fun and I can't wait to do it again.

Today, I had a surprise waiting for me after practice, (drum roll please) USADA (U.S. Anti-Doping Agency) was sitting in my living room waiting for me as soon as I walked through the door. I was hoping it was for Aub or Joel, but I knew it was for me. When you see them coming you have already resigned yourself to the fact that you are going to be here for a while. It's sort of like those Snikers commercials, the "Not going anywhere for a while" campaign.

Anyone that knows me, knows I usually will go to the bathroom maybe three, four times an hour sometimes, so I shouldn't have any problems with this. I must have performance anxiety when they come around or something because this drew out for close to two hours.

I had already used the restroom right after leaving the weightroom. The bad thing about it was they came to the track but we had already left to go move some weights around and they neglected to come to the weightroom like they usually do. The guy told me he didn't think we would be in there so he didn't check.

I always come home and want to hop right in the shower after a workout, so as I get ready to get undressed, he came in and told me he had to watch, so I then was like, well, it ain't that type of party so I'll just have to wait. Everything went smoothly after that, add in another debated topic about Snake not having a valid excuse for missing practice today, but I need to send him a thank you card, because if he wasn't at home already, he couldn't have let the USADA people in and they wouldn't have been able to get to me, therefore they would have hit me with another missed test.

Bikram Yoga = Never Again!

This morning Aub, Snake "Fresh Out The Bing After Doing A Year And A Day" Zilla, Marisa and myself went downtown to check out this Bikram Yoga. It was cool at the time, but when we went to practice, it was tap city! It had me very loose while doing the sprints, but when it came time to hit that 400, my reserve was empty. My legs were weak about 100 meters in. Needless to say, I will NEVER do that again on a day I have practice again. In some cases, it better to find out what you DON'T want to do, than it is to find out what you do want to do. Joyce Maduka set this up last week, and she didn't even make it on time, what a pump fake because if it wasn't for her pushing it so hard last week at practice, we would have never gone.

The Past 7 Days Re-Visited

The weekend we had down in the 3-0-5 (Miami area code for the slow ones, LOL!) was great! Had a nice time out on South Beach even though I had one-to-many "Call A Cabs". We had a pretty good time at the game, even thought my Dolphins took another L on the chin (the refs were clearly cheating though!). Aub was happy with the outcome, but he had to walk back to Orlando because I wasn't about to listen to him all the way home on a three hour drive (just joking).
The week of practice isn't quite over for us hurdlers yet as Brooks called a Saturday practice for the real men (110 hurdlers if you don't know). Joel finally made his grand appearance at practice Monday and has been looking good. I tweaked my hamstring again (same one from Osaka) on Monday running some 200's, but I sat down for a couple days and made my return on a day when we were running nine 300s. Maybe I should have rested up another couple of days to get out of that workout! But I'm fine, I found a great massage therapist that I will deal with this season.

My manager Marisa came in town as well and has been hanging out with us for the past few days, it's been great, she's really in to cooking so we have all been eating well. I also want to tell Snake Zilla to keep his head up, your commissary will stay tight while you're up in the bing (inside joke). I'll get back after while.

Another One Bites The Dust!

Another one goes down.

I had a feeling all along that he was a dirty player, but I liked Bonds just for the simple fact that no one else like him. Now he joins the club with Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery et.al. People who never tested positive, but were found guilty. In my head, I'm starting to think, "What am I taking all of these USADA administered drug tests for? Obviously people have found a way to circumvent the system anyway." Now I'm starting to believe that the only way you get caught using performance enhancing drugs (PED's) is if you really didn't know you were doing them or you were just being plain stupid.

Hopefully some type of revelation will come about and everyone using will be caught. At the end of the day, we are professional athletes and we do this to get paid, and it's a shame when someone steals your shine because they are a dirty athlete. I mean, imagine you are an athlete that finished #11 in the World Rankings and you miss out on that top 10 funding from the U.S. Olympic Committee or you finished fourth in the World Championship trails or Olympic trials, only to find out that someone ahead of you has been found to be on PED's! That's money from sponsorships, USOC, etc that you will never be able to recuperate, now you are still eating Hamburger Helper when you could possibly be eating fillet mignon.

I don't think Bonds will serve any jail time, but I hope that he is never allowed to don another MLB uniform again. Although I think the justice system needs to take Major League Baseball to town rather than individual athletes because I have a feeling they knew about the steroid problem going on in baseball the whole time.

Got The Work Done, Now It's Time To Chill!

Another hard week of training was put in the books, now it's time for me to enjoy my weekend! My homeboy K came in to town and he along with Jacoby, Aub and myself are going down to Miami to hang out. BUT there is something FAR more important going on in Miami. My favorite NFL team is the Miami Dolphins and Aubrey's favorite team is the Buffalo Bills and they just happen to be playing, so we are going to Dolphin Stadium to watch the game. We scored endzone seats with a great view of the action, I'm pretty sure we'll pick up our first win of the season.


Speaking of Aub, he's been on his XBOX 360 pretty hard of late. A new game I guess he's been waiting for called "Call Of Duty 4" came out this week and it's been non-stop action. He pre-ordered the game and was counting down the minutes until he could pick it up. I think there are about 50 track athletes that play it with him too. I don't play video games, but I have hopped on it a couple of times and it seems to be pretty cool. But here's a picture of what he looks like in his room with his XBOX headsets on:

I will get back to you guys later on, hopefully with some good news about us picking up our first win of the season and letting it snowball in to some more second half success!

THE EXCUSE OF THE YEAR!!

I'm sure by now all of you have heard about the racial tirade that "Dog The Bounty Hunter" went on last week. Now here is his reasoning behind why he did it. And I quote:

“I thought that I was cool enough in the black world to be able to use that word as a brother to a brother. I’m not. I didn’t really know until three or four days ago what that meant to black people. There’s a special connection that I thought I had between me and black America. And I used to say, ‘I’m black, too.’

“In other words, my whole life I’ve been called a half-breed, a convict, king of the trailer trash, this and that…so when I stood there and said, ‘I kind of know what you feel like, because I’ve been there, too,’ that I felt that I could embrace and like, as brothers…say the word. I now learned I’m not black at all, and I never did it out of hate. This sounds so stupid. I always did it out of love. Other white guys would be like, ‘Boy, who does Dog think he is? Dog can say that.’ And black guys would be with me and walk with me and respect me. So, I went too far with that.”

He also went on to say: "All black people in America I owe an apology to, Whether, how dark I think I am, I cannot say that word."

He then decided to take it a little too far by stating he is making a deal to be buried at a historic slave burial ground near first U.S. President George Washington's Mount Vernon home.

"I want to be buried right where they're at because I will never be forgiven as long as I'm alive," Chapman said.

I personally am waiting to hear tomorrow, that he now wants to go and get his skin blackened or he has a rare case of vitiligo after that last statement.

This excuse is far worse than the standard athlete's positive test rebuttal of "I used my teammates vitamin B12 shot" or "I thought it flax seed oil".

He might be selling this as a valid excuse, but I'm not buying it. How in the hell did he think he was black? If you can answer that please feel free to e-mail me with the reasoning. He needs to fire his publicist and get with Michael Richards and Don Imus' image rehabilitators.

He had over five days to formulate his thoughts on what he was going to say and this was the best he could come up with? I could have made something up better than that on the fly.

Great Time In St. Lucia, But Gotta Get Back On The Grind!

I've been back for a few days now from my wonderful vacation in St. Lucia. The wedding was great too, I'm very happy for the two newlyweds. The only downside was when I was on the plane ride home and realizing that I had to get back on the practice grind later on that evening. The first week of practice went well though, but Brooks hit me with the nine 300's to finish off the week. I'm sore in every muscle in my body. My fingers are even sore as I type this up now! I'll post a few pics up soon, so check back for those.

I'm Back Like Jordan Wearin' The 4-5

I've been away from the blog for a minute, but I'm back. A lot has been going on, found a place to live and spent the last week moving. Here's a pic of the outside:
It's a nice 4 bedroom 3 1/2 bath house. Big Aub, Snake Zilla, Dollars & Cents and The King now have a cool spot and its less than 10 minutes to practice too. It's in a new development that was established in late 2006 and it's fully furnished so that was cool.

We have been running in to several problems trying to get things connected wether it is wireless internet, direct tv or utilities. Even going to the local Super Target to get an entertainment center turned in to a fiasco. It took Brighthouse Networks around eight hours to hook up our internet and it took three days for them to hook up our cable, but now everything is all good.

I'm glad that chapter of the off season is closed, but I'm kind of disappointed because I was suppose to go to Cancun this weekend but I had to miss. It's okay, I'm going on vacation this week to St. Lucia. When I get back, I'm hitting on the track for training the next day, off season over, better enjoy this last week.

Kanye West Explains His Outburst

This is one of the funniest things I have seen on the internet in a very long time! Especially when he starts talking about he would be in the Bible if they re-wrote it. Watch and enjoy!

2007 Season Review

Well I've been at home for a bit, just relaxing and still doing some light training. I was suppose to run in the meets over in Asia, but Brooks pulled the plug on the season and I was pretty much in favor of the move as well. I want to give a big shout out to Dayron Robles on finally getting a sub 13 second race in at World Athletic Final. I saw it coming first hand, seeing I raced him three times after Worlds.

If I had to grade my overall 2007 season, I would rate it at a B+. The minuses of the season were: 1) My body started to fail me soon after arriving to Europe for the summer season, teeth, hamstring twice and 2) I didn't run 13.0 something, I thought that I had displayed the form early that indicated I should be in that range. Other than that the season was filled with pluses, from running 7.5 three times indoor, finishing third at USA Indoor and Outdoor Championships to making the World Championship team to running past my '06 PB three times. To think that at my first USA Trials I attended in 2004, I was the last qualifier at number 32 out of 32 entrants and three years later finish 3rd out of 32 entrants, I must say that I have come a long way.

I am excited for the 2008 season. I probably won't start any real training for at least a few weeks. I will have some well established training partners coming down to train with me in the likes of Aubrey Herring and Joel Brown as well as my pre-existing training partner Jacoby Dubose. Practices will be very competitive next season and I can't wait, I love competition.

I don't have much planned for my time off, just finding a new place to live and I'm going on vacation! I will definitly continue updating my blog throughout the fall just like I've been doing, it just won't be filled with much track stuff. I'll talk to you later.

World Athletic Final, AKA: The Pump Fake Of The Year!

World Athletic Final in Stuttgart, Germany will be a no go for me this year. I came here under the impression that I would be competing in the meet. I finished #9 in the point standings, and as we all know the rules, that put me out of the running for an automatic bid and I initially had to wait for a "wild card" spot. I was obviously not good enough to run the Brussles or Berlin races to help improve my positioning at the end of the year, so I had to play the waiting game.

Good news started happening for your boy though. The German hurdler Blaschek, who got the wild card last year based soley on the fact he was German, was not running, and Aries and Liu Xiang pulled out of the race. They were both ahead of me, so I was lead to believe that that in fact elevated me from #9 to the #7 spot and the all important automatic berth.

So I'm feeling good, getting my mind in competition mode and maping out what my plans are going to be for the next couple of days as far as training and warm-up routine etc., then I get on the internet and saw that the IAAF has produced start lists without me in the meet, instead they invited Demedyuk from the Ukraine and Ladji Doucoure from France.

I'm HOT when I see this because according to their selection procedures, they clearly state that the IAAF reserves the right to invite a MAXIMUM of one athlete per event.
http://www.iaaf.org/WAF07/news/Kind=512/newsId=41519.html
Obviously that wasn't the case as TWO were invited by the IAAF, Darold Williamson is experiencing the same confusion right now that I am.

I can't argue the selection of Demedyuk for the meet, he did something I didn't do, made the finals at Worlds and he's run a decent PR this season. Their explanation for Doucoure's selection was he got in because he was the '05 World Champion. That's great and all, but this is 2007 and his credintials THIS season are a little lower than mine. I've beaten him more times this season, my season's best is a tenth of a second faster and I scored more points on the tour than he did. They want us to do all the meets to score points but at the end that wasn't really the deciding factor. What it basically boiled down to was that there were already five Americans in the race and they didn't want another.

I did have the ball in my court to not even have it come to this. I was in four Golden Leagues and like I stated back at Oslo, if I didn't make it to WAF, falling there would be the reason why, and it was. If I would have settled for 3rd place, I would have boosted my score to 66 points and would have been in automatically, but settling for 3rd isn't even a thought to a real athlete.

This is another case of confusion that needs to be clerified to all of the parties involved. I really wanted to run here and it sucks because it always seems like in situations like this, I always get the short end of the stick dating back to high school. To work so hard all season to build up a nice body of work and to have everything nullified by one person is crazy. Needless to say I'm getting out of here first thing in the morning.

Pedro's Cup, Warsaw, Poland

This was my first time ever coming to Poland. I don't even have to tell you what the weather was like up here, all you have to do is read the weather report in all my updates post-Osaka. My warm-up stunk and I proceeded to run the slowest final I've run all season, 13.61 and ended up second. Demidyuk won the race in 13.49 and Robby was third with 13.71. I was happy I came out un-injured in the process. I had never in my life ran a meet on a 10 lane track before, this was a first, that straightaway looked about 150 meters instead of 110. I'm off next to Stuttgart, I still don't know anything yet on the race, but we'll see what happens.

Right Back Like I Left Something!

It's been a little while since I have been on my site, but everything is still everything. I have been in Slovakia since the Linz meeting. This is the same meet that I set my personal best in 2006 with a time of 13.20. Ron Bramlett, Robby Hughes, Miguel Pate, Rickey Harris and myself had all been here for about four days, so it wasn't too bad of a trip, we've just been kicking it around the city and hotel. Young Hughes was my roommate and he had the Slingbox set up, so I spent most of the time catching up with what was on ESPN and watching college football and the NFL games last night.

For a while I was here hoping that maybe I would be able to get in to either the Brussels or Berlin Golden League meets at the last minute, but the more I was here, the more happy I was to be competing here. It feels good to be at a meet that is excited to have you come more than anything else. The meeting director Alphons made sure that we were taken care of very well. I did a "Training With The Stars" program with Jamie Nieto, Resse Hoffa, Pate, Bramlett, Koji Murofushi and others for local kids in town the day before comptition and it was a blast. The kids were so happy to see us and be around us, they had a great time and that was the most important thing, so my mission was accomplished.

Now to the race. It didn't go as well as it did for me last year. I ended up running 13.37 and coming second to Robles who killed us with a time of 13.07! It was very cold out too, not like in Linz, but more like Lausanne from earlier this seaason. Andy Turner, my part-time training partner this spring from Great Britian was third in 13.42. Robles time was impressive, but listen to what he did: He didn't get to the track until we were about to run! We all thought he had scratched out of the race. The announcer was conducting lane introductions and was on Robles' lane as he walked out on the track. He still had pillow marks and cold in his eyes! That really messed me up. I looked at Hughes and he was dying laughing! In my head I was thinking "I know he's not about to get out here and run without a warm-up", but yes he did and he smoked the field. He didn't set his blocks he just hopped in the settings that the last person to use the blocks left them in. After the race, he told me he overslept for the race. Maybe I am going about these races the wrong way. But now that performance moves into my #1 spot just ahead of Robles' Linz performance and Allen's 2006 GP Final race.

I'm off to Poland next, I'm still in the running to make it to GP Final this year, I missed out on a lot of points in the past month and a half, missing London and Stockholm because of the tooth issue and not running Brussles or Berlin, but lets just hope that it still works out positive for me in the end.

Linz Post-Race

Ran 13.40 and got third. It was pouring down rain on us out there, but Robles was able to put together the most impressive performance I've seen. He ran 13.05 in the rain and cold, into a -1.2 wind!! That would have easily been 12.90 something. He passed Allen's performance from Grand Prix Final last season and moved in to the #1 slot on my list. I was two lanes over from him and saw his back going in to the first hurdle. I got out pretty slow, Demyiduk and Wignall were on my left and right, they floored me out of the blocks. I ran a clean race and closed the gap down all the while trying to keep the wood splinters that were being kicked up from the other runners out of my eyes. It was a pretty tough race out there. The top five results were:

1: Robles 13.05
2: Demyiduk 13.32
3: D.O. 13.40
4: Payne 13.51
5: Wignall 13.54

I don't know where I am off to next, but when I know, you'll know.

Post Zurich/ Linz Intersport Gugl-Meeting

Well Zurich didnt go as good as I would have liked it to go. I was doing well until I came off the last hurdle, took my second step and started to stumble from that point thru the finish line. I ran an okay time but Im mainly happy about the fact that I made it thru the race with very few symptoms involving my hamstring. The Weltklasse Zurich meeting was already one of the best meets on the circuit, now with all of the changes they have made, it has elevated to arguably the best.

I have now been in Linz, Austria for a few days now for one of my favorite meets. Its a smaller meet, but the people here treat you like royalty. This meet and Zurich are the two places I have been ever since I turned pro in 2005. The hotel is very nice and the meet is great. We run tonight at 7:45pm, the lane draws areÖ

1: Damian Zlatnar (SLO)
2: Elmar Litnegger (AUT)
3: Dayron Robles (CUB)
4: David Payne (USA)
5: Serghi Demyduk (UKR)
6: D.O.
7: Maurice Wignall (JAM)
8: Ron Bramlett (USA)

This might be the first meet I have been to all season that has had this few Americans in the field. It is raining pretty heavy right now and its pretty cold as well, but I still think it will be a great race.

Media Take-Out Website "New Couple Alert" + Zurich Update

I was on the internet and I was sent this link:

http://mediatakeout.com/11241/new_couple_alert_eva_pigford_and_house_of_payne_actor_lance_gross.html

It's of one of my bestfriends and current "House Of Pain" tv star Lance Gross who seems to now be dating former "Top Model" Eva Pigford. Talk about an upgrade! I gotta call him and catch up, I guess I've been gone from the house for a long time. Way to go homeboy! It's funny because we use to talk about her while she was on the show all the time at Howard. Who knows it may be true it may be not.

Anyway, I'm running at 8:45 tonight. I drew lane 2 which is fine, I won the Berlin Golden League last season out of lane 2, so I just need another repeat performance. The lanes are

1: Andreas Kundert (SUI)
2: D.O.T.K.
3: Anwar Moore (USA)
4: Dayron Robles (CUB)
5: Terrrence Trammell (USA)
6: David Payne (USA)
7: Allen Johnson (USA)
8: Aries Merritt (USA)
9: Ryan Wilson (USA)

Hot race right? What else is new.

Weltklasse Zurich Golden League

I arrived in Zurich the night of the 3rd, it was a pretty long flight from Osaka, but not unbearable. I had a good training session yesterday and I will go out later today for another one. The leg is doing good, I'm feeling more confident in it as well. It's freezing out here, at least a 50 degree drop-off from the temperature in Osaka. We were all complaining that it was way too hot and humid, but I know we'd much rather take that now.

World Champs Semi-Final

Ran 13.42, didn't make it to the final. I didn't fully trust my leg and paid for it. I came out slow and by the time I realized I was going to be okay, we were at hurdle 4. I brought it in as strong as I could, but it wasn't good enough. I wish I could go back and get the start that I would have wanted to get, but much like in the game of life, our races don't come with a rear-view mirror, you just have to suck it up and move on.

I'm very disappointed, leading up to the prelim race, I was having some wonderful practices and feeling very prepared, but to have anything distract you, especially at this level, you will get beat.

I am glad that my hamstring is fine, the medical staff are saying that there is nothing structurally wrong with it, there is some inflammation that was causing the discomfort. My range of motion was normal when I was getting worked on before the race. I just lacked the confidence in it I needed to succeed.

Well my World Championships are over, now I will turn my focus to cheering like hell for Terrence and Payne in the final tomorrow night, I hope they take the top two spots in whatever order. I'll continue to get treatment while I'm here to get rid of any symptoms and you will see me run in Zurich!

World Champs First Round

Damn, that's all I can say. I tweaked my hamstring practicing about a week ago, took a few days off and came back feeling good. I had a great warm-up, but going in to hurdle #5, it kind of grabbed on me. I ran 13.66, good enough to be the dead last qualifier. I'll be in heat 3, lane 8 in the semi's with Liu Xiang and Robles in my heat. They are taking top 2 and next 2 fastest to the final. My hamstring is feeling okay now, I'll be treating it for the next 24+ hours and see how warm-ups go tomorrow night, I don't have any other option but push to it to the limit tomorrow.

Denver Post Article

John Meyer of The Denver Post ran a nice article on me that was published this morning. I particularly like it for the fact that it included my mom. Without her where would I be? Thanks John and talk to you soon. You can check it out here:

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_6703469

Osaka Update #2

It's been a few days, but nothing has changed here, still training and hanging out. I haven't gone anywhere around town to do any sightseeing, the only sight I have seen is the track, and it is pretty impressive, the warm-up track looks like it can host a track meet it's self. I finished up my second training cycle so I was off yesterday and I'm off today. I went to the mall yesterday with Melissa Beasley and Ross from USA Track & Field and it was pretty funny. Everywhere we went people were stopping me to take pictures and shake my hand, people were actually feeling my biceps muscles seeing how strong they felt!! I guess it doesn't take much to impress them. Osaka has been very welcoming and cordial to all of us. The only downside is that the rooms we are staying in are very small, our luggage barely fits in here and the food they continue to serve is always hit or miss. Our only saving grace is there is an Outback Steakhouse, McDonalds and Pizza place within a two block radius. I might start going to the other athlete hotels to see what they are eating because I've had enough of this. Good thing NIKE hospitality suite opens up today, they always seem to have good food. I don't run my first round for another five days, Kenta has his first round tomorrow night, he's looking great in practice, I hope he takes home the Gold.

On another note, I can't believe the IAAF cancelled the use of the World Rankings! Now what am I suppose to look at on Tuesdays? Not only that but I now wonder what the powers that be are going to use for our US Olympic Comittee Insurance, The Olympic Jobs Program and our World Rankings Check. But I guess it is what it is.

I'm a big fantasy football fanatic. This season, I'm lining up against 11 of my friends from high school and college, I have no idea how I became a fan of this, but it's addictive. This is my third year playing and I won the first two, so I plan on running my streak to three in a row. My draft is the 25th at noon eastern which means 1am Osaka time. I'm ready too, I've made my draft board up and everything, hopefully I have a top three pick!

Osaka Update #1

It's Sunday night, I'm just finishing up my second day off from training. I finished my first three day cycle a couple days ago and man it was tough. Training went well, the first three days consisted of a lot of race modeling and conditioning. It was tough because I was doing things I haven't done since before USA Championships, but I felt great doing it. I couldn't wait to get out here to get back to training with Brooks, he has me poised to make some real noise here, I am feeling just as confident now as I was back at USA's, I knew he would get me back right mentally as well as physically. We are at training camp now, we're right by the airport but about 45 minutes from Central Osaka where the Athlete's Village is. We will be moving there on the 21st. I haven't been doing much aside from training, hanging with the other athletes and getting worked on. The food isn't great, so me and Kenta have been going to this mall they have, eating authentic food but finishing it off with an American twist with our Starbucks runs.

The people here are great, they had a welcome party for us last night where they had cheerleaders and a band perform for us. When we go to do our workouts, there are hundreds of people out there watching us and they have to pay the facility to get in! I had never heard of anything like that before. This has been a great experience thus far and I am very thankful that I was able to perform at USA Championships to make it here, we all know how hard making the team as a 110 hurdler is in the States.

On IAAF they have a fantasy contest for the World Championships at osaka.fantasyathletics.iaaf.org, where you have to choose 10 men and 10 women from 20 different countries. It's pretty hard, but I was able to manage and I made myself a team that's looking pretty unstopable if I must say. It's not final yet but my team consists of:

Women: Isinbeyava (PV), Halkia (400h), Vlasic (HJ), Gomes (TJ), Felicien (100h), Hellebaut (HJ), Obergfoll (JAV), Ostapchuk (SP), Mutola (800) with Veronica Campbell (100,200) the captain of my team.

Men: Murofushi (Hammer), Atkins (100), Liu (110h), Bekele (10,000), Hooker (PV), Pitkamaki (JAV), Saladino (LJ), Alekna (Disc), Kemboi (3,000 Steeple) and you know who's captain of this ship, D.O. (110h)!

Go to the website and sign up, it's something fun to do. Until next time.......

Made It In

It was a pretty long 27 hours of travel time to get from point A to point B, but it was well worth it. If you ever fly to Asia, Korean Air is the way to go, getting extra pillows and seatback love! Big thanks go out to Sandy Snow at USA Track and Field for booking me on that airline! I was in economy but I still had about an extra foot of leg room and my own tv screen. They had about 50 movies you could choose to watch at your own leisure, I watch four, Shrek the third, Fracture, Reign On Me and Shooter plus I watched the recap of the 2006 IAAF Golden League season, it was a 30 minute production and it was cool seeing a show devoted soley to track and field.

The training camp hotel is very nice, from the room you have a view of practically the whole city. But of course the TV action sucks, only CNN in english as usual. I got caught slipping, I knew I should have gotten the Slingbox hooked up while I was at home. I hung out with Brooks for about an hour as well. I only slept for four hours last night but I'm feeling pretty good, Brooks isn't cutting me any slack either, I have practice later on this afternoon.

Finally Time To Get Outta Here!!

My plane's taking off in the morning heading to Osaka for the World Championships and I can't wait. I've been down here training and doing much of nothing. I can't wait to get out of Orlando and to a change of scenery. It's going to be a long flight, 15 plus hours of flight time from Atlanta to Osaka, but it's worth it and well deserved. Next time you here from me, I'll be in Japan, 13 hours ahead of eastern time, until then sayonara.

:

I'm very bored, don't have too much of anything to post about. I wish I was racing or something. Can't wait until August 29th. Just watched Barry Bonds hit home run #755, he's a beast. I think I like him because everyone else hates him. I got back to the O early Friday morning (2:30am), more delayed flights, the theme of my travels. I'm still tired from the time trial 400 I had to run yesterday. Check out the new pics I posted.

Everything's Everything

I've been getting hit up with a lot of questions asking how I'm doing, so I have to hit them with the customary response: "I'm doing like I look, I'm doing good!" The surgery went good, had to get two root canals on the same tooth, it was painful at first, but I started to get use to it after a while. I woke the next morning feeling great, my body felt great, I hadn't felt that good in a while. It's probably because I rid my body of those toxins coursing through it. I haven't done much, just hanging out with family and friends, did an interview with John Meyer of the Denver Post at my old high school, wow how things have changed, and now I moved up a spot on the IAAF World Rankings from number 6 to number 5. I've been getting bad news as well, worse of which is the news of Kenta Bell, a guy who took me under his wing when I started running professionally in '05, taught me the ropes and who I would hope to of modeled my career after, being suspended for three months for what I think is some B.S. I know he'll be okay. But other than that, nothing of great significance has been going on in the life of D.O., I'll be heading back to Orlando after my follow up with the dentist on Thursday.

Back At The House AKA Crib Action 2007

Just arrived home from a long trip that took me from Monaco to London and London directly to Denver. The race in Monaco last night went about as well as it was going to go, not happy with time or placing (13.30, 4th) but really, what more could I have asked for. A lot of things have changed at home for me personally since the last time I was here (two days for Christmas), some good, some bad. I am scheduled for my surgery at 10am local time tomorrow morning, let's pray that everything goes as planned, a quick in and out with no complications down the line. With that, in the infamous words of Eddie Meeks, "I'll Holla!!"

Monaco Action

I made it out to Monaco, it is by far one of the most beautiful places I have ever traveled to. This is my second time in Monaco and it seems to be even more impressive than the first. The picture above is an overhead shot of the stadium we will be running at. I got in last night after some horrible travels from Madrid, original flight was delayed an hour and almost missed my connection. My manager, Marisa Reich, set it up for a doctor to be at the hotel by the time I made it in, and I was very happy to see him. He hooked me up with some serious pain killers and some antibiotics. I'm experiencing the same problems with fatigue that I had when I was taking the other pain killer, but at least this stuff knocks the pain out for a while. I have to stay on the antibiotics for six days to get these toxins out of my system. It's also official that I have to cancel the rest of my meets in Europe after Monaco so that I can go back to Denver and have this oral surgery. I'm pissed because I really wanted to compete in London and Stockholm, but I have to take care of this before it becomes a more serious problem.

I had a great day of working out today, got some pop back in my legs. The race is going to be good, I know that Terrence, Ron, Aries and myself are here, but I'm not quite sure who else is running. We have another off day tomorrow before we run Wednesday night, so I'll probably go off in to town early on and hop back in the Mediterreanean at night. THE SOUTH OF FRANCE IS MY LAND, THE EARTH IS MY TURF! HOLLA AT YA BOY!

Madrid Recap: More Downs Than Ups

I was feeling pretty good in my last post, then soon after, one of my molars started killing me. I could barely eat from that point on. I went to the pharmacist and was given some dental spray and pills for the pain, but neither worked that well and all the pills did was make me drowsy. I didn't want to use the pills the day of the meet, but I had no other option because the pain is too excrutiating, so needless to say, the meet didn't go well from my standpoint.

For the first round, I was in the second heat, lane 4. I wasn't really firing in the warm-up and was very sluggish. This track has to have the worse lane 4 in the world! It has a serious dip one step into the race. I stumbled out of the hole and ended up kneeing myself in the jaw going over the first hurdle. Aries Merritt was in lane 3, and I always hate it when he's on my immediate left side. For about 5-6 hurdles he was catching my lead arm on my upswing with his lead arm on it's downswing. I ended up winning the heat just barely ahead of him, we ran slow as hell, 13.74-13.75.

Here's where it got crazy. The pain reliever stuff wore off, and with me kneeing myself in the first round, my mouth felt like somebody hit me in the jaw with a pole! I tried to do a little jogging but I was hurting too bad, my plan was to just laid down and put my feet up on a hurdle until they called us to go to the track, but I did a start to the first hurdle that I shouldn't have done. Clenching my teeth coming out caused excrutiating pain, so at this point I couldn't wait for this race to end. I got out to the track, set my blocks and watched everyone else do starts. The final was okay, I got out slow, killed the 7th hurdle and sat on number 10 and ended up coming second place with a time of 13.45, Ron Bramlett won with a 13.44. I didn't warm down, I hopped right on the 10pm shuttle back to the hotel, I was hurting too bad.

I finished eating and went to the room and double-dosed on the medication. All my boys went out to eat at Friday's, but I couldn't make it. I told my mom what was going on and she called my dentist at home in Denver. He got back with her and with all my symptoms, he unleashed the bad news that I need a root canal! I'm going to Monaco later on today, so I will see how the pressure on the airplane is because I can't just hop on an eight plus hour flight, feeeling on the verge of death. I am suppose to get some antibiotics when I get to Monaco to help the pain and the toxins that are in my system. I think I am going to have to go home after the Monaco meet even though I still have a few more competitions left. I have to take care of this problem before World Championships and I have no idea what the recovery time is. I will keep you posted.

Meeting De Madrid Up Next!

Been out here in Madrid, getting ready for the competition that I'm running in tomorrow. Haven't been doing too much of anything of importance since you last heard from me, just chilling. Today me and Big Aub had to hit the U.S. Embassy so we could add some pages to our passports. I was running on empty with my pages, your boy might have been living like Tom Hanks was in the movie "Terminal" out here in Madrid.

As far as the competition goes, we are running a prelim and final here, which is great as far as I'm concerned. I always feel I run better my second race of the day. I'm not sure who's all running here but my boys are here, R.B. Paperstacks (Bramlett), Big Aub (Herring) and Roberto Hugez (Robby), so it'll be a competitive race for sure. I think the time off I have had will bode well for me tomorrow, stay tuned.

Golden Gala: I've Seen Better Days

Let me start off by saying that I couldn't really take anything bad from this race that involved my performance. I say that because when you sit and see a guy get speered by a javelin in the back, all of the things that you think went wrong for you seem to take a back seat. I don't know either Tero (JAV) or Salim (LJ) personally, but my prayers still go out to both of them, I can't even begin to imagine what they are feeling.

Now on to my racing performance. I drew lane 9, alongside Allen Johnson in 8. Like I posted in my recount of Lausanne, I can't seem to catch a break these last couple of meets as far as lane draws go. I guess it really doesn't matter because there's a race in late August where there is no need for politicking for lanes, because you draw what you earn, but anyway back to the race. I ran 13.36 and ended up third. I crashed a few hurdles, but cleaned my technique up from hurdle 5 to the finish. I had no idea what was going on in the race, I just came across the finish line and hoped what I had done was good enough. The only thing I knew for certain was that I finished before two people (lanes 8 and 7). I'm not pleased with the time, but I picked up some all important points for Grand Prix Final at the end of the season. I guess any time you get some podium action at a Golden League it didn't go totally wrong. I'm now off until the Super Grand Prix in Madrid, Spain which will be held on July 21st. If anything of interests happens, I'll keep you up to date.

Lausanne Recap, Plus LUGGAAGE HAS BEEN FOUND!!

The race at Luasanne went pretty good, it was one of the cleanest races I have run all season. I finished in a disappointing 13.34 in winning the B section of the meet. It was only good enough for 8th overall, the guys in the A heat rolled out, which was expected. Big shout outs to my boy Anwar for equalling his PR in coming second, his past couple of races have been very impressive.

Now to the good news. My flight landed in Rome, where my next competition will be, and they had my luggage ready for me!! I felt like it was Christmas. It felt good to shower up and put on a fresh pair of underwear straight out of the washer from the house! But the airlines lost the bag I flew in with from Lausanne, what is going on with these airlines these days?!?! It should be here in the morning though, no harm.

I'm running in the Golden Gala in Rome, the third stop on the IAAF Golden League Circuit. The entrants in the hurdles so far are: Dominique Arnold, Ladji Doucoure, Aries Merritt, Anwar Moore, David Payne, Stanislav Olijars, Anselmo De Silva and myself. It looks hot as usual, I'll keep you posted.

Lausanne Super Grand Prix Preview

The internet action has been sketchy again. I paid about 20 U.S. Dollars for what I thought was 24 hours of wireless the other day, come to find out it was 24 hours continuous as long as you stayed logged on and I shut my computer down when I went to sleep. They got me. But anyway, I drew lane 6 in the B race here in Lausanne. I guess a couple of 13.14s and making the World team does not get you much these days. The others in my heat are Robby Hughes, Thomas Blaschek, Robert Kronberg and a guy from Switzerland. I cant sit and dwell on the fact that I feel I should be in the A race because there are plenty of 110 hurdlers that I personally know that would love to switch places with me. I still have to go out and execute my gameplan to the fullest to have a good result. We run at 7 and right now its cold and sprinkling outside. We will see how it goes.

2007 Paris Golden League 110 Hurdles

1. Robles 13.13
2. Moore 13.13
3. Liu 13.15
4. Wilson 13.17
5. Oliver 13.27
6. Doucoure 13.27
7. Arnold 13.31
8. Merritt 13.37
9. Dongpeng 13.39

Right Back Like I Left Something

Let me give you the run-down of the last 6 days, getting internet action at the last couple of stops has been like trying to get ice water to people in hell. It's been a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs for your boy, here's the rundown:

July 3rd: Didn't get an ounce of sleep after the meet in Athens because our shuttle to the airport was leaving at 3am, flight was cool, hotel was very nice and the meet director really made sure I was taken care of given his prior knowledge of my luggage situation. This was classified as an uneventful day, which is good.

July 4th: Zagreb meet day. Was raining and cold from the time we went to lunch until after we finished running. The warm-up consisted of basically nothing, couldn't do much given the circumstances. I ran 13.61 for fourth with a very helpful wind of +3. something, damn near fell twice, just didn't go very well, but came out unscathed and healthy, but I'm soak and wet and don't have time to let the clothes dry before I'm off to Paris. Classify this as a down day.

July 5th: Woke up feeling a great burst of energy, I'm going back to Paris where my bags should be! Got to Charles-De Gaulle and of course, no luggage. Now I'm pissed again and very, very mad, I thought tears of frustration were going to start rolling, my hopes were SO up that my bag would be there. The rest of the day was very uneventful, but thanks so much for the people at NIKE for bringing me a couple of bags full of clothes and shoes so I could change becaue you know I gotta stay fresh.

July 6th: Paris race day. Felt flat as a board during warm-up. Ran 13.27, got my ass scraped up once again, got fifth. I wasn't too concerned, just techniqued my way through the race. I didn't get out the greatest and I felt like I couldn't switch my gears like normal and make up any ground. The meet was very nice and the crowd was off the hook! I've never heard a crowd get so loud as it did when they called Doucoure's name out, it was electric. Another down day.

July 7th: Woke up and went back to the airport for one last ditch effort at getting some closure on the bag situation. I went back in the luggage area and searched through ALL of the bags to no evail. Then it got worse. Me and a lot of other athletes and managers were catching the train from Paris to Lausanne, so after I spent two hours at the airport, I had to rush back to the hotel and get my stuff so I wouldn't miss the shuttle to the train station. So now we are on the train and I'm having a conversation with Perdita about world travelling, then it dawns on me, I DON'T HAVE MY PASSPORT!!! IT'S UNDER THE WELCOME PACKET ON THE DESK!!! This is easily the dumbest thing I have done in quite some time. Luckily I was with Paul Doyle AKA The Lifesaver of the trip and he called the hotel, found my passport and will have it to me tommorrow afternoon. Dodged a serious bullett. Everything is nice here in Lausanne and I am expecting to run far better here than I did in Paris. I'll keep you posted.

Athens Grand Prix: Two Thumbs Up!

Went out to the track at Athens with a lot of things on my mind, wondering if I'll ever see my bags plus I had people worrying me about the next meet when I haven't even competed at this one, but I was able to block out all of that background noise and run a good race, equalling my personal best of 13.14. Robles got out on the field and had the win in the bag from the start but we started to catch up when he started hitting hurdles. He took the win in 13.11 with David Payne coming in third with 13.19. Payne and myself are putting together some solid seasons respectively, our names are all over the IAAF top marks list this season. The starters gun was SO fast here, when we watched the replay, Arnold wasn't even in the set position before the gun went off. I got in to the blocks thinking to myself "when he calls SET, get set quick!" because I saw how fast the gun went off in the previous race. The meet was great, a lot of fast times and the crowd was outstanding! Hopefully Athens will have the hurdles next season so that I can come back and experience this again. Next meet will be Zagreb, stay posted.

Athens Story: http://www.iaaf.org/GP07/news/Kind=2/newsId=39370.html

p.s. still no word on where my bags are at, it's Day 3

Athens Grand Prix On Deck

I just arrived in Athens, Greece after a VERY long 24 hours full of travel. Once again all my flights were delayed plus they lost my bag in Paris, but me being me, I had another carry-on packed with all my race/practice gear and toiletries. I stay two steps ahead of cats if not thirty! Young Hughes (Robby) is my roommate up here, so it'll be pretty cool. I don't know who is all running here, but I know it'll be hot. I'm looking forward to running pretty fast up here.

US National Championships 2007

1 Terrence Trammell 13.08
2 Dominique Arnold 13.17
3 David Oliver 13.18
4 David Payne 13.22
5 Anwar Moore 13.23
6 Aries Merritt 13.24
7 Allen Johnson 13.60
-- Ryan Wilson DNF

Ostrava: No Go

My coach told me in these exact words before catching his flight tonight, "You better not get your ass on that plane tommorow! You made World Championships, so plans have changed!" I wanted to do the meet, but when the head man speaks, it's spoken. Sorry.

World Championships Here I Come!!!!!

I finished third in the finals with a time of 13.18 to punch my ticket for the World Championships in Osaka, Japan in August. The semi-finals went as planned earlier in the day, finishing second in my heat with 13.29 behing Terrence Trammell's 13.26. The weather was pretty gloomy all day until after the meet, now it's sunny and warm. I am so excited, my mom and best friends were in attendance at the meet. As those who are faithful readers of my blog know, the last month of the season wasn't going as well as I would have hoped for, but this race erased all of that. It was a hot race top to bottom with Trammell running 13.08 for the win and Arnold taking the silver with 13.17. I am now scheduled to leave in the morning to head over to Europe for the meet in Ostrava, I will post this race as soon as I find it and thanks for your support!

USA's: First Round Down, Two To Go

The prelims were crazy, the wind was ridiculous and it started raining right after the first round was over, those guys caught a break with that and the light wind. For the rest of us, it was crazy with the winds in excesses of -3.2. I ran 13.56 to take the win in my heat. The race went well, I hit the sixth hurdle and shut it down a little just making sure I clear the rest of the hurdles cleanly, we didn't want a repeat of Oslo. I felt very good so I need to carry it over to tomorrow. For tomorrow I'm in heat 2, lane 4 with the likes of Terrance Trammell (lane 2), Ryan Wilson (lane 3) and Anwar Moore (lane 5) in there. They are taking top four to the final, I have to make sure I'm in there somewhere.

Indy Shower, Had To Post This!

I had to post this situation that I found myself in at my hotel (a hotel that shall remain nameless because I don't want to bombard their reservations department with cancellations, a clue is it's heiress was in jail recently). I came back from the track and wanted to hop in the shower before laying down, so I go to the shower and turn it on and no water comes out. My friend Andrew (the guy in the pic I posted a month ago on the blog that looks like Shawn Crawford), calls downstairs and they say that something happend with some construction going on and knocked a water pipe out, but they said they can help. So I was like 'cool'. I sit around, then I hear a knock on my door, and to my surprise it's a lady from registration carrying about 15 bottles of water with her that I am to use to shower with!!!!! I was like "what?!?!?" I took the water and stood in the shower pouring cold bottled water on myself and on my wash cloth so I could wash my stank behind. I tried to get a night for free, but all we got was free breakfast, I can't complain because four nights only cost us $130 each double room. If this has happend to you, please post a comment so that I may laugh at you like you are probably doing right now. Wish me luck for the prelims tomorrow!

USA Championships On Deck

I just arrived in Indianapolis today for the USA World Championships Team Trials. I'm feeling good, coming off of a few good days of practice. I can't wait to run the prelim race, I've got to get something good on the board to erase the bad taste in my mouth from my last race. The preliminary heat sheets have me in the last heat (4) in lane 7. Some of the competitors in my heat right now are Terrance Trammell, Aubrey Herring and my ex-training partner Linnie Yarbrough. My boy Jacoby has a pretty crucial heat with Anwar Moore, Ryan Wilson, Ron Bramlett, Robby Hughes and Josh Walker in his prelim line-up. I'm pretty happy right now, two of my best friends came in town and my mom is coming on Saturday morning to watch the competition, I think things will go pretty good for me at this meet.

Pics From The Oslo Tumble

BE GLAD IT ISN'T YOU!! TAKING SHOWERS HAVE ALMOST BROUGHT ME TO TEARS!! NOTHING IS INJURED EXCEPT MY PRIDE MAYBE, SO THATS A BLESSING.

Oslo: Shoulda Stayed My @$$ At Home!!

I fell on the last hurdle. I haven't fallen since my senior year in college at conference championships. I had a great warm-up and was feeling good. In the race I was step-for-step with Payne, but we know how it ended. Nothing has gone right for me for this meet, whether it was trying to arrive in Oslo, to my nose starting to bleed right in the middle of my warm-up, which took almost a half hour to make it stop, to falling in the race, and now I seem to have lost one of my diamond earrings. I can't wait to go home tomorrow. It was a nice meet and the crowd was great as well, but now its on to U.S. Championships next week. The pendulum has been swing against me hard the past few weeks, but that doesn't last forever.

Oslo Golden League: Finally Here!

After sitting on the plane again trying to get to Newark yesterday for another hour and some change, I finally made it out there. We sat on the plane for two hours before we got airborn on our way to Oslo as well, but it was better this time because I was up in first class, eating lobster and tilapia. I arrived a little after noon local time (6am eastern) and felt pretty good. They took me to some sort of training camp where I guess I'm staying for tonight, I wasn't feeling it until I ran in to Anwar, Payne and Joel, and they had been staying there for a couple days, so I don't feel that bad. We all went to the track and did a light workout to knock a little of that flight off my legs. We rolled back to the actual meet hotel with Robby Hughes so we could eat because they didn't have any water or really edible food at our place, and to get a massage. I figure the fastest way to take care of all your problems is to drop that 12.87, then you can stay wherever you want. It looks like a pretty hot field for the race tomorrow night, but it is cold as I don't know what out here now and we run at 9:05pm so I can only imagine what it will feel like, but I'm just happy to be able to be a part of the meet. We'll see what happens.

Oslo Travel=Disaster! (So Far Anyway)... Here We Go Again

Needless to say, your boy was suppose to be on his way to Oslo as we speak, but do to some unforeseen circumstances in Newark, NJ (where my connecting flight was leaving from), I am back at home in Orlando. Here's the time frame rundown of my airport fiasco:

2pm: Leave the house for the airport, my original flight is at 3:54pm placing me in Newark at around 6:30 pm for my Oslo flight that leaves at 8:15 local time.

2:45pm: Arrive at my original gate, where it says Delayed until. I was like "Delayed Until? What the hell?" So I ask the women at the gate "How long are we delayed?, I have a short connection for an international flight." She says "Oh no problem, go down to gate 9, they are taking off at 3:30." So she places me on that flight and I head down there thinking I'm straight, so I get on the plane and start talking to a passenger and she says they have been on the plane since around 1:30, I was like 1:30! That's some straight b.s., but the pilot got on the mic and said that they are going to release us at 4pm, so I'm feeling good. Obviously that didn't happen.

3pm-7pm: We sit on the plane, half the time at the gate and the other half on the runway, and as a surprise to myself, I am actually remaining pretty calm. I guess it was reading this good book I found called "2nd Chance" by James Patterson. We taxi back off the runway to the gate and de-plane. As I'm walking to get re booked, they make an announcement saying all flight have been released, but that does me no good because there is only one flight per day leaving to Oslo from Newark, so I missed the connection anyway.

7:30pm: Got re-booked for the flight tomorrow, the woman at the gate tells me the flight to Oslo from Newark is booked full. I tell her "I run track professionally and I have a meet in Oslo and I have to be there immediately. Not making it there could cost me upwards of $16,000!" She then was like "Oh my goodness, we have to get you there!" So she upgraded me to first class for the flight tomorrow. Finally a perk from using running track! I guess all things won't end up so bad, even though I'd rather be there in the morning then on Thursday morning, but you have to play the cards you are dealt. My flight tomorrow is at 1pm, so we'll see what happens.