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.

Nike Spike Action

I love wearing NIKE's and hopefully it'll be the only shoe sponsor I have during my career. I got some love with these fresh pair of personalized spikes, I was super crunk when I was opening up the boxes! We got "Oliver" on the left spike and "Sub13" on the right, pretty cool. I'll break out a pair in my outdoor season opener at Florida Relays this weekend in Gainesville. I'll have an update on that later on this week.

Enjoyed My Downtime!

I am coming off a much needed one week break, fully away from the sport of track and field! I thoroughly enjoy the chances I get to get away from the sport. Everyone needs a break, no matter what your profession is.

While I was over in Doha competing, one of my good friends Lance Gross had a movie come out titled Our Family Wedding (how appropriate a title, seeing he'll be in this exact position in real life in a few months!). I couldn't wait to go and check it out and it was well worth the few dollars I dropped on tickets. I haven't laughed that hard in a movie in who knows how long. Although I was interrupted by USADA while trying to enjoy the movie, had me rushing home from the theater to take a blood test, I finished watching it later on.

I am happy for him and the successes he's seeing in his career, it's funny when I think back to our days up in Drew Hall at Howard, now we can all tell our mothers "mama I made it!!", but then again, our University breeds successful people across all fields, so it's not really a shock, but I'm glad that I am able to put my name up there on that list as well as someone I'm close with personally.

Everybody should go and support my boy and get your laugh on!

I had a cool little feature in the April issue of Essence Magazine too, you know I'm in to being in stuff, so I was happy LOL. I been catching a little flack from my training partners and friends, but that comes with the territory, I'll take it, I got broad shoulders

My off time climaxed when I went to check out three of my all time favorite artists, Jay-Z, Young Jeezy and Trey Songz during a stop on the Blueprint Three Tour! I was super crunk, I copped tickets in December I think. They shut it down! I love going to Jigga concerts, I've been to four I believe and I'm on my feet the entire time, leaving the venue horse too from shouting lyrics all night!

Now my off time is over and my first few practices back have been killer, but it's cool, gotta get ready to drop these bombs during the outdoor season!!

Video: World Champs 2010 60m Hurdles Final

OFFICIAL RESULTS

1 Dayron ROBLES CUB 7.34 CR
2 Terrence TRAMMELL USA 7.36 NR
3 David OLIVER USA 7.44 PB
4 Evgeniy BORISOV RUS 7.51 SB
5 Petr SVOBODA CZE 7.58
6 Maurice WIGNALL JAM 7.60 SB
7 Xiang LIU CHN 7.65 SB
8 Dániel KISS HUN 7.81

Bronze Medal, Personal Best, All In A Day's Work!

I went out in the final of the World Indoor Championships and ran 60 meters worth of hurdles faster than I had ever run before! I stopped the clock at 7.44, good enough for the bronze medal, behind a new championship record from Dayron Robles who ran 7.34 for gold and Terrence Trammel, who finished in silver with an American record of 7.36.

To backtrack, I did not run very well in my semi final heat, finishing second in 7.61. I made a few mistakes, especially at the start. I wasn't too upset or anything because the bottom line is you have to survive and advance through the rounds. By finishing second, I grabbed an automatic spot to the final.

After going back to the warm up area, Brooks and I had the chance to work out a few things that went wrong with my trigger hand out of the blocks. It was sweeping back aggressively, but I wouldn't bring it back through, so that was the point of emphasis in the 45 minutes I had before the final. Having your coach or at least another set of well trained eyes is so priceless at major competitions like this.

So due to my lackluster semi final performance, I drew lane eight. Going in to the final I was so relaxed. My focus was to try to beat Liu to the first hurdle and just run like hell for the final four because I would be out there racing by myself. I feel like I had a good start and I ended up running a clean race. I can't wait to re watch the race.


One thing that I knew I had on my side was the fact that my second race is ALWAYS better than my first of the day. I knew only a few others in the race have displayed that ability in the past and the comparison of our times from the semi final to the final display just that. Robles dropped .22 (7.56-7.34), Terrence .15 (7.51-7.36) and myself .17 (7.61-7.44). Everyone else in the field so minor improvement.

Winning this medal was so sweet! Coming off the devastating injury last year, not doing block starts or heavy hurdling until two weeks before my race in Glasgow to coming out and winning an indoor medal and running a personal best. I couldn't have asked for more.

We have a saying that all indoors can do is show you where outdoors is at, and I'm feeling majorly confident that this will be a GREAT outdoor season! People who know the event of hurdling, know that what I do indoor definitely reflects well on what I am capable of doing outdoor because I am a last five hurdle guy, not a starter.

I'm so ready to get outdoor season poppin'!!

Video World Championship 60m Hurdle Heats

First round action from all five preliminary heats

Opening Round Down, Two More To Go!

The first round went as me and Brooks planned. The objective for this round was to attack the first two hurdles and then just take it easy after that. My start was much better than it has been lately and I led from start to finish and stopped the clock at 7.60, equal fastest time of all runners today, Terrance Trammel also ran 7.60 in his heat.

I felt very good, the warm up was great and I felt so much more relaxed and loose here as opposed to when I ran in New Mexico, I think I was kind of tight for that competition. Ron Forbes was in my heat, he lived and trained with me for the '08-'09 season before moving back to Miami, it's good seeing him still competing, he also made it to the next round.

People seem to be counting me out in this competition, as they seem to believe it is just a three man race between Trammel, Robles and Liu Xiang, rightfully so, but I guess that's why we run the races and I hope to have a say in it before it all is said and done. I know I am a much better outdoor hurdler than an indoor one, but as long as we aren't doing starts to the first hurdle to decide the medals, I feel I have as good a chance as anyone to claim one of them!

I am off until the semi-finals on Sunday afternoon, the finals will be two hours after the semis. I am in the third and final heat. Until then, I will keep my eyes on the prize!!!
My training partner Novlene Williams-Mills made it to the final of the 400 which will be tomorrow afternoon. The schedule called for them to run prelims and semi-finals today! She ran 51.7 and has the second fastest time going to the finals, she'll definitely do well tomorrow!