Friday was suppose to be testing but very early in the morning I got an email from my coach back home telling me not to do it. I’m not a very good listener, so I did the testing anyways. Every so often we do testing to see how well training is going and to see what needs some work. The testing consists of a 40 meter sprint, standing long jump, three hop jump and over head heave. Since everyone usually takes Friday’s off I was able to meet the coach anytime I wanted. I went with 10 in the morning so I could get the workout out of the way and still have time to go to the beach. The 10 o’clock sun was SO hot! I loved it though, I could feel my skin get darker by the minute :-) The running and jumping portions of the testing didn’t go as well as I wanted and I sort of understood why my coach back home didn’t want me to test. My legs had nothing in them left to do anything and the testing showed it. I didn’t feel too bad after it all though, because I threw very well in the overhead heave. I was able to throw 13.20 meters which was 30 centimetres farther then I had ever thrown before! So even though my legs were tired and drained, I still had a little bit of explosion left in them to get in a decent throw. I spent a little time at the beach and was pretty dead for the rest of the day. I think no matter how long I stay here, the sun will always suck the life out of me.
Saturday was another resting day. My mom is now in Tobago with me so we spent the day catching up, then we went to visit some friends.
Today, Sunday, was another kind of testing day with time trials. ‘Intercol’ is this week, so the secondary school athletes are taking it a little easy so they are prepared for their meet. We still had time trials, but nothing longer then a 150 meter was run, to keep everyone fresh. Once again I was super early and ready to go even before the coach had shown up. I was ok with it though because this gave me some time to get some critic from some of the other athletes who had seen me run. My biggest problem has been relaxing my shoulders, and the other athletes just re-emphasized it for me. All I was going to focus on today was going to be my shoulders and just let everything else fall into place.
For the start of the 150 I wasn’t quiet ready, so bad habits kicked in right away. The other girls took off without me and with the first three steps my shoulders were right up by my ears. For the first 50 meters I was just trying hard to catch up, but then I reminded my self of what my goal of the day was. Coming off the corner I relaxed my shoulders and tried not to worry about the others. As I started to relax I could feel myself reel the others in. I just pumped my arms and didn’t even worry about my legs and with 50 meters left I had caught everyone and had an easy finish to the race. I ended up running 18.74 which was a little slower then the last 150, but with a little polishing up of the beginning I’ll be able to bring that down in no time. Next they ran 60s and usually I just sit back and watch these because I’ve never really been good at shorter distances. I still felt like I had a little left in my legs though, so I decided to strap up and join in. I set up my blocks in my new starting position and told myself that I would just focus on getting the right arm up on ‘GO’, then worry about the rest of the race as it comes. As I settled into the blocks and awaited the ‘SET’ command I felt myself go into a zone I haven’t been in in a while. I focused on the voice of the starter and nothing else. I’m not really sure what happened next, but I heard the ‘CLAP’ and I was off. I could hear myself exhale, and it seemed like after one blink I was crossing the finish line. It was the most effortless run I had ran in a while and I thought for sure it was going to be super slow. I walked back not really expecting anything, I was just happy that I got the right arm up when I came out of the blocks. I got back over to the timer and he asks, ‘how fas you rundis before’, I laugh and say ‘8.09, was it that bad?’. He doesn’t say anything and shows me to the watches and I can’t believe what I see…7.86? I automatically assume it must be wrong, but he assures me its correct. I finally put a decent run together and it felt so easy! Now if I can just remember how to do it again, I’ll be good to go!
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