Meet Report: 2023 Outdoor Music City Challenge

I competed in the 200m in Nashville at Vanderbilt’s Outdoor Music City Challenge last Friday. It was an evening meet—I raced around 6:30PM, which is not far off from my typical bedtime. Usually, for evening meets, I like to adjust my training schedule to try to get used to the competition time. Unfortunately, the track I’m running at isn’t consistently open during the afternoons, so I couldn’t do that.

My back has been continuing to improve, but it’s still not at 100%. Top speed running remains a challenge in coordination and stability.

200m: 22.09 (-1.2)

• I had the inside-most lane in my heat (3).
• My start was fairly strong, and I made up the stagger on lane 4 quickly.
• I took the second half of the curve a little too conservatively, but entered the home stretch in contention.
• I didn’t have as much speed endurance as the rest of the field today, and faded to finish 4th of 5 in my heat with a 22.09.
• Overall, I finished 15th of 38 in the meet, while based on seed times, I was expected to finish 16th.

This wasn’t the greatest showing for me—I’m fairly disappointed in the time, especially considering I was able to run a quarter second faster last weekend. A lot of the next few months for me will be recapturing the speed endurance and max velocity form that I had before my injury.

Next up, I’ll race at Lee University on May 13.