Justice Served

After a long and arduous process, the two individuals who murdered my friend Bilal Russel last year in Arizona were found guilty on all charges. Those charges included burglary, attempted robbery and first degree murder.

About the time when the trial was beginning, I had finally gathered the courage to contact his mother and pledged my support as well as send my regrets and condolences. I have a hard time wrapping my head around why people put themselves in positions to find themselves behind bars.

People need to wake up. I'm glad the justice system did their job and although nothing will bring him back to his family, the perpetrators got what they deserve.

April is a joyous month for me, outdoor season's popping off, my birthday etc, but it's also filled with a lot a heartache.

Gone But Never Forgotten....

My first personal experience with a close friend/relative passing away happened nine years ago today. Although many things in life have changed and I've matured, I will never forget what I was doing or where I was at when my mom delivered me the news. I was in a very celebratory mood, just finished running my first time under 14 seconds as a freshman at Howard.

I always say that life is a roller coaster, you've got to just hold on and ride the ups and downs, well this day went from the pinnacle and spiraled into the pits faster than it took me to start and finish the race that day.

I do not know the exact day he passed, but I remember this date because it was Saturday, Easter Sunday eve in 2001 and I was in the basement at my mothers house really trying to understand what the real meaning of life was and trying to understand why God would want a family such as the Cobb's, who are great, god-fearing individuals to have to grieve the loss of a child. I came to the conclusion that those are answers no one will ever know and it's best to just live your life to the fullest because you never really know.

I have an 8x10 photo of him along with a Christmas card his mom and dad gave to me in a picture frame prominently displayed in my room, so never a day goes by that he doesn't cross my mind. Rest in peace Andrew Charles Cobb II...god's angel


Photo of Mr and Mrs Cobb and myself

Opener @ Florida Relays

This year, just like every other year I've been living in Florida, I went up to Gainesville for the Florida Relays.

This is one of my favorite meets, mainly because I'm so popular there lol. From the judges and referees to the high school and collegiate athletes. Even in this day and age of the internet and almost every race being on youtube, it's still funny to me the conversations I have with some of these high school kids about hurdling. They know all the results and they watch every race, they even give me grief about how I need to work on my start more. It's hilarious to me.

I ran the open 110 hurdle race on Friday. I produced a time of 13.32 (0.4 wind), which is actually the slowest time I had every run at this meet. I won the race though for the fifth year in a row. Generally coming into this race, I've had a couple of runs at Disney or last year I had opened up in Austrailia.

As far as opening times, 13.32 is about on par with what I normal drop. In '07 I ran a 13.26, '08 13.48, '09 13.29.

The last three hurdles seemed like they were set at 45'' I tell you, it feels like this every year. I don't know what it is about that first time competitively over ten hurdles that's so difficult.

RACE VIDEO



Saturday, I popped off the opening leg of the shuttle hurdle relay. None of my other training partners ran, so I was picked up by a team that trains across town with Dennis Mitchell. Of course we ended up winning the race in fashion! It felt great to go out and get another run over ten in. It doesn't take me too long to get into my race rhythm, so by the time I get ready to run the finals out at North Carolina A&T in a couple of weeks, I will be ready for sure.

I'll post up some pics as soon as Eric Mitchum forwards the ones he took to me.