This meeting felt really early though I suspect it’s not, probably just a factor of the strange season we’ve had post-lockdown. Looking back we’ve been able to compete a lot. As Omicron surges we don’t know what the upcoming seasons (indoor and outdoor) will look like.
However, back to Lee Valley. Marcus was unable to make it up from Cardiff so I made the solo journey to Lee Valley, though plenty of club mates and other people I know so a good outing from that perspective.
I’d decided to try my hand at 60m hurdles. I don’t have what it takes to be a sprint hurdler, but I’m hoping to do more 400m hurdles in the future so need to work on my technique, improving this and getting more economical over the barriers. Short hurdles are a notch higher so that presents a challenge now, but an opportunity later as the lower height should look less daunting. At least that’s the theory.
The other main target for me was to build confidence in leading with either leg. I’m not up to 3 strides between the hurdles so 4 strides is much better and likely to force me to change.
First-round didn’t go according to plan, I was too slow to the first barrier and then bottled the left leg option and used 5 strides all the way. 12.42 for that round so could’ve been worse.
Second round I decided that I needed to attack that first hurdle from the gun and the left leg would follow, I felt more confident on the left warming up. That start plan worked, but I clipped the first hurdle and that threw me off my stride completely putting me naturally onto the right again, I did manage one left leg clearance and a slight improvement at 12.32, good enough. With hindsight I’ve just done a training session at my 400 height and felt so much better – so success on that count.
For the 600m there were only two heats and I was drawn in the fastest one against a number of very speedy club mates. I was way off the pace and an initial error on the board suggested I’d done something like 1:57 though my time wasn’t shown. It turns out there was a glitch with timing and I was given 1:47.9 – a decent indoor PB though not my best overall. The race felt okay but it never really flowed and the video backs up the fact, strides looking a bit off, probably too little power and a bit “reachy”. Happy overall though.
