I'm Sitting On Top Of The World...

It's a beautiful night to live my beautiful life!

I keep on the winning track. I mean, during my '08 season I won 18 of my 23 races, including indoors, so it's not as if winning is foreign to me, it's just the fact that every competition I go to, I treat it like a celebration. I celebrate the fact that I am in these competitions and doing what I love to do. I remember 365 days ago what I was doing and I know it is not my birthright to be doing this. I am so thankful for my talent, my health and what I have going on between my left and right earlobes (well 95% of the time because I do my share of dumb things too).

I went out tonight, probably ran the worse first couple of hurdles of the season, but was able to stay focused and come out on top with another win, this time running a stadium record of 13.01 (+1.0w)

It is very hard for me to get my usual groove in my warm-up here in Monaco. It's not a facility with an actual warm-up track, so for us hurdlers, we've got to try to get creative with our warm-up. My warm-up is a gameplan that I have been developing this entire season, tweaking a few things here and there, but I think I have found the recipe that works for me, but here, it pretty much goes out of the window.

My start is still sort of erratic, so I really try to focus on doing multiple starts over multiple hurdles when I'm getting ready. Today, I was relegated to one start over one and it showed in the race that I didn't have my stuff grooved in. I wasn't fully set to react to the gun either and my hips were not up in a good position to attack the first hurdle. I don't think any of us were really ready for that gun looking at the reaction times.

I've said on this site time and again that one of the keys to being a profession athlete is having the ability to make changes on the fly and that no one really cares how you feel, when your name is called on to perform, you perform.

Although I feel that my first few hurdles weren't up to par, I feel that in my middle set of hurdles that I ran them as well if not better than in my races where I was running under 13 seconds. Then I sort of lost it again towards the end. I was having trouble with this surface too. With it being so new, it is really responsive. If you put a lot of power in to it, it will give it back to you and I felt as if I was being thrown into the next hurdle. I really noticed it at practice yesterday. I just tried to stay focused and aggressive and get the job done and that I did.

I hit probably half the hurdles in the race in one way or the other, completely taking out about three. My saving grace is that I NEVER hit hurdles with any part of my trail leg (knee, ankle, foot etc). I always hit them with my lead foot or hamstring. It comes with the territory, when I'm trying to step down off the hurdle and get back on the ground, that happens.

There is a reason why when you look at the IAAF Biomechanical Study from our 60m hurdle final at World Indoors this year that I am the hurdler that spends the least amount of time in the air out of the best of the best. I am .32 over the first and .30 for the remaining four hurdles, while other greats like Robles and Trammell are between .02 to .04 slower than me. That isn't a great deal of time and I'm not on their level as far as indoor hurdling, but you've got to start somewhere.

Hey if a few hurdles have to pay the price, then so be it. In one of Allen's fastest races ever, he hit about nine hurdles, but you can't make up any time in the air. When you start hitting hurdles with your trail leg, then you start running in to problems. You lose balance and run a great risk of not finishing the race at all, one thing I know for sure is my trail leg knee stays clean. Now if we take it back a few years, then that wouldn't be the case for sure LOL, got a lot of war wounds on that left knee.
So I come out of the Monaco Diamond League meeting with four more points, a total of 16 for me this season, with two more 110 hurdle competitions in the League to go. I set a goal to be the champion of the Diamond League and I'm inching closer to achieving that goal.

Now I'm heading back home and I'm excited. I can get this dental procedure done so I can get rid of this painful toothache I've been dealing with since Prefontaine and I am in dire need of a haircut!! I hate walking around without a fresh cut.

I appreciate the support you guys give me, I love reading the great comments yall post, even the bad ones that I reject, it all is just fuel to my fire!