Randomness, If That's Even A Word, I'm Not Sure

First and foremost, did anyone catch how my Nuggets down right destroyed the Hornets in the first round of the playoffs? That was the first time we had won a playoff series since I was in the sixth grade I think. Thanks to another Denver hometown hero Chauncey Billups, Carmelo Anthony has really grown as a ball player. I'm calling us for a title run, even though that series was probably the least competitive playoff series in the history of the NBA. Next up, the Dallas Mavericks, a team we swept 4-0 during the regular season.


I meant to comment on the Penn Relays earlier in the week. My training partners who ran at the meet really handled their business. Xavier Carter split 44 seconds on his leg of the distance medley, the fastest 400 leg out of all the DMR 400 runners, which included world indoor champion Tyler Christopher from Canada and X's former LSU teammate, Kellie Willie. He's looking to be right on track.

Kenia Sinclair totally dominated the field in the 800 on Jamaica's sprint medley relay, splitting 1:57 and putting METERS on the competition. The competition included Olympians Maria Savinova from Russia and Hazel Clark from the USA, they just couldn't keep up with Kenia as she led her team to a new World Record in the event.

Novelene Williams-Mills, split 50.2 on the third leg of the 4x4 for her Jamaican team. She put together a great effort, but too bad that effort came up against Allyson Felix, who put down an impressive 49.6. Nov's had a very solid effort, but I don't think anyone could have hung with Felix on that day.

My biggest gripe, if you want to call it that, was with everyone from the announcers to the athletes acting like the Penn Relays was Beijing reincarnated. I'm sorry but winning the 4x1's at Penn Relays in April will not erase the dibacles from Beijing. They are not going to hand out any gold medals for this competition. It's time to move on from Beijing and look forward to getting the job done in the relays in Berlin this summer. 37.92 is far off from 37.10, which I'm sure it will take at least that to get the gold in Berlin. I hope we have a team that will win and take the World Record back.

It looks like some more of these drug cheats have been exposed in our sport. A gold medalist from Beijing in the 1500 meter even got popped. I'm glad they are making strides in getting these people fronted out. They are ruining not only the sport but people's lives. Now the silver medalist who will get elevated to gold, will do so unceremoniously. I'm sure that's not the way he wanted it. I know there are several more people who need to be busted, that will never be caught, but progress is a slow process.

Other than that, nothing much has be going on, just the same old same old. Training is going better than it has since I came back from Australia. I guess since all that off the track stress is finally done with and I can get back to my normal routine of doing absolutely nothing.

Reaching "Over The Hill" Status

Whew!!! Another year in the bank! I am getting old....no wonder I can't recover from these workouts like I used too! LOL But with age comes wisdom, I can certainly say that I am getting wiser! Thanks for all of the birthday wishes!

IFFG Results

The competition in Greensboro went pretty good to me. We had two races, about 45 minutes apart, the first round went off at 11, I ran a fairly decent 13.56 into a 1.6 headwind. I got out there and tried to technique my way through the race and use it as a warm-up. I ended up with the fastest prelim time. The final race went off and I was pretty clear of the field at the second hurdle and went on to the win in 13.30. Richard Phillips, a Beijing finalist, was second in 13.70.

It wasn't the most impressive race on my end, but Brooks' only complaint was that I need to start racing with some adrenaline instead of just going through the motions. I am happy that I came out of the races with zero symptoms in my quad area or any other injury for that matter.

The meet was enjoyable off the track as well. I got to catch up with my old sports information director from Howard Ro Noble (who unfortunately traded us in for S.C. State). Coaches from the high schools that attended the meet also approached me on several occasions thanking me for coming and talking to them during the coaches clinic I came up for earlier in the year.
Our flight left to come back to the house at 7am, I've been up between 4:30-6:30am for the past three days, I'm going to tap out super hard tonight, I might not wake up until practice time tomorrow!

International Friendship Freedom Games Year 3

I will be flying out tomorrow in route to Greensboro, NC for the third installment of the International Friendship Freedom Games, a meet put on by my coach Brooks Johnson and his team of people.

I have won the previous two titles here in 2007 with 13.22 and in 2008 with 13.08. I am looking to improve upon my performances this year. This has been one of my favorite meets to attend. This is the last tune up race before I start to get it on for real this season.

In other news, I received my shipment of uniforms from Nike today, the FedEx guy has been trying to find me for four days, I guess I didn't send my updated address in soon enough. The uniforms are predominately orange, a color that I have rarely if ever seen myself in. I don't know how I feel about it right now. I really got worried for a second because I thought that they had only sent me bodysuits, as you know, I'm a singlet and shorts kind of guy. I can't remember the last time I raced in a bodysuit. After sifting through six boxes, I found a singlet and short combination, so I'm pretty relieved. You all will have to be the judge if you think orange is a new color I should add to the wardrobe.
We have a real early flight in the morning, good thing the only thing left for me to do is to give myself a fresh cut, then I can kick my feet up for the rest of the day.

Been Gone Eight Long Years.....

And not one day passes where you don't cross my mind.

R. Kelly's I Wish song came on while on my way home from practice, that song always has a special meaning to me. The first time I had heard it was on my way from the airport back to my dorm after returning to D.C. from his funeral.

I know you're in a better place
Even though I can't see your face
I know you're smiling down on me
Saying everything's okay

Project Update

Your boy has been getting his Bob Villa on at the new spot! I have put up curtain rods, shelving and cut and hemmed some curtains. Nobody is riding with the fact that I was actually making those curtains like that. Bren, Joyce, nobody. The woman at Bank of America even started laughing at me when I said that. I just chalk it up to hating. I'm shocked too, my own mom and gramma! LOL.



It definitely hasn't been without any hiccups. I have drilled several holes in the wrong spot, but you know, it's trial and error, plus I have some much paint left over from the paint job that I can easily make a repair or two. You can't really tell that anything is messed up.


Hanging those shelves were the hardest part, laser leveling all those screw points and holding the heavy things up to screw in, but it's all in a days work.

I think the last and probably the hardest project I have left will be project clean up, I know that's going to be hell.

Project TV Stand

I set out on a task for today to put together this TV stand I bought from Best Buy. I had a feeling that this wouldn't be an easy task, but it had to get done at some point and time.

I started this project around 11am. I was hoping that I wouldn't mess anything up and that it would turn out exactly how it looked in the picture and at the store. I don't have a good track record with this type of stuff, I'd much rather just pay somebody to do it properly. I figured this is my first house, so I'm going to do all the projects on my own.

I finally completed this thing at 6:30pm.

I wasn't working on it the entire time, I made a run to Home Depot to get a ladder, the smoke detector batteries were dead and they kept making this annoying loud beeping sound that was driving me insane. The ceilings are really high so I had to pick up a ladder. I think I have been going to the Home Depot at least three times a week. I also made a run to Wal-Mart and to Burger King and I had a meeting at my house as well.

I think I put in five man hours of labor on this thing. If it falls apart I am going to be sick!!

Florida Relays: 13.19 Action

The trip up to Gainesville didn't last as long as it was expected to.

I had a good run in the open 110 race, winning in a World Leading time of 13.19 (+1.0w). Unfortunately, going in to hurdle seven, my quad cramped up. It's definitely nothing major, I was really worried once I finished competing. When I felt the cramp, it really broke my focus. I'm still happy with the performance but even happier that nothing major is wrong with your boy.

I broke my old meet/stadium record in the process and won a nice plaque. I've won this event the past four years

Brooks went on ahead and tapped me out of the shuttle hurdle race for precautionary reasons, no reason to potentially make a mountain out of a mole hill. So I hopped in the Jag and shot back down the Turnpike back to Orlando.

Maybe it's a blessing in disguise, I have a lot of loose ends I need to tie up, so I should be able to knock most of it out with this unexpected extra day at home.

"Train Gang" On Track Again

We've got action starting tomorrow morning up in Gainesville for the Florida Relays. We drove up the Turnpike and I-75 this afternoon.

Here I will be running the open 110s and I will run the pop off leg of the shuttle hurdle relay with Joel, Aub and Eric Mitchum. We're aiming to run faster than 53.31, which is the world record time we ran last year at Penn Relays.

I'm pretty excited for the opportunity to run the shuttles which is a very fun event to run. As far as the open race goes, I'm looking to run fast and win. We are all in the first heat, lanes 6 (D.O.), 7 (Yo-El) and 8 (Hearns). Last year I ran 13.10 wind aided and I have the meet record at 13.26 from 2007.

This is the meet that generally kicks the season off in to full gear, so I will make the best of it, plus last time I was here, I was hit with a felonious false start. Payback.