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