Meet Report: 2022 Mountain Laurel Invitational

Since I’m in Tennessee for a couple of weeks with Emily’s parents, I competed this weekend in the 100m and 200m at Sewanee’s Mountain Laurel Invitational, a small D3 meet just a half hour drive away.

This meet came in the middle of a training cycle, so I came into it without strong expectations—I was focusing on getting my raceday tactics right and getting a really good start off the turn in the 200.

The weather was beautiful—my first warm meet of the year—but marred by a nasty headwind that approached -3m/s at times.

100m: 10.88 (-1.2)

• Video/slow-motion

• Two weeks ago, I ran 10.82 then 10.71 just an hour later. To try to mimic that second-race effect, I intentionally finished my warmup earlier than normal and incorporated a couple extra flies before the race. I think I didn’t take it far enough, but I’ll keep playing with this in the next couple meets.

• My heat was originally scheduled for 8 people, but I ended up racing just one person on the third gun of the day:

  • Only 5 showed up to the line.
  • Lane 4, with the fastest seed time, false-started, and the starter didn’t or couldn’t call the race back, so lanes 7 and 8 finished the race.
  • After some confusion, the officials decided to let 7 and 8 keep their times and race the remaining competitors, which were just me and lane 6 at this point.
  • One misfire later, we finally got to run.

• I didn’t do a great job keeping my heels low at the start but came out ahead anyways. I was trying to take a slightly more conservative angle than normal, but looking at the video, it doesn’t really seem like I did.

• The race almost felt like a practice run once I got up to speed, since I didn’t feel my competitor the whole race. I stayed pretty relaxed (maybe too relaxed?) and finished with a top-3 lifetime performance.

• The wind measurement may have been the measurement from the first attempt with the false start—it definitely felt like I was driving into a stronger headwind.

200m: 21.55 (-2.3)

• Video/slow-motion
• I only had about 40 minute between events, so after chatting with a couple people, I went straight back into dynamic drills and strides.
• This time, my heat was (almost) full. I came in with the second-fastest seed time and raced in lane 5.
• After my blocks slipping in warmups, my start wasn’t as forceful as it could have been, but I still ate up the stagger on lanes 7 and 8.
• My lower body felt disorganized on the second half of the curve—I had a couple strides where my foot landed at a sharp angle.
• I exited the curve about even with lane 4 (the fastest seed time) but pulled away over the last hundred meters.
• 21.55 is a facility record (previously 22.30) and a 0.3 second PR for me! That wind-adjusts to 21.29 in neutral conditions, so I’m looking forward to see what I can do in the next couple of races.

Next up for me is either the Tennesse Challenge in Knoxville or the Life U Last Chance in Marietta depending on which meet I can get in to.