Meet Report: 2022 Bobcat Preview

Track season’s back!

I opened my indoor season with a 60 and 200 on Wednesday at the Bobcat Preview in Bozeman, Montana (full results).

My preseason training this year has been really great. Besides some inflammation in my quadratus femoris which set me back about a week, I’ve been healthy and available. Now, in December, I’m starting to reap the benefits: I’ve never been more physically fit and my start is much improved from last year.

This meet almost didn’t happen due to a bleacher malfunction—fortunately, it was delayed by six days instead of cancelled outright. For me, it was an opportunity to gauge my fitness level, get my first-race jitters out of the way, and meet the local athletes and coaches. As such, I trained straight through meet day, so I wasn’t feeling particularly race-ready the day of the meet.

The MSU indoor track is an excellent flat 200 meter track. Importantly for me, it seems relatively open to the public. I’ll be putting that to the test this season now that I live in a state with real winters.

60m: 6.91

• I won the 60m outright in 6.91—an indoor PR and just off my all-conditions 60m PR of 6.88 (+1.3) from last year.
• A mark this quick and this early in the season is a really exciting indicator of what’s in store this season.
• I had a really good reaction time and start, and led the race from start to finish.
• That said, I left some time on the table. My transition to upright running was abrupt and early, probably around the 20 meter mark. That quick posture change created some hamstring tightness, so my first couple upright strides were tentative.
• At that point, I started feeling the competition a bit. But I was able to (barely) fend them off as I got rolling—the second and third place marks were 6.94 and 6.96.

200m: 22.38

• 22.38 is a big indoor PR for me—my previous indoor best was 22.56 on a banked track, which converts to a 22.96 on a flat indoor track.
• I won my heat handily but took second place overall in the meet by two-thousandths of a second.
• I had about 45 minutes between races. I felt pretty fatigued after the 60, all the way up to stepping in the blocks: my heart rate was around 150 at that point.
• Because of that, I executed a conservative race plan: instead of gunning it all the way, I floated down the back stretch and reaccelerated through the second curve.
• I’m really not used to how sharp indoor curves are. I had major issues staying coordinated on both curves; I had more than one step where my right (ouside) foot landed way to the inside of my center of balance.

This was as good of an opener as I could have hoped for: two heat wins, two indoor PRs, and a clean bill of health. My next meet won’t be until next year—likely back in Bozeman for the Bobcat Challenge on 1/13/23.