What a relief, the long season of frustration, let-downs, and confusion has ended. This past Saturday and Sunday was our conference championships; I competed in the hammer on Saturday morning and the javelin on Sunday afternoon.
First the hammer, it was raining on and off all day Saturday which is usually a good thing for hammer throwing because it makes any circle faster. Surprisingly enough, with all the room they had at this facility, they didn't have a double circle (one circle for discus and a separate circle inside the same cage for hammer). The disadvantage of that is having to deal with circle inserts which I despise because they never fit perfectly in the circle and of course, the one section of the inserts that was slightly crooked was the one right where I like to put my right foot to start. It's no excuse though; I started off very well in the warm-ups. Had some far warm-up throws, I'm guessing around low 50m range. My first throw I was nice and relaxed and threw 51.10m. That was the only legal throw I had in the competition as I fouled the next 5 for various reasons. I just couldn't get comfortable out of the back and the start in the hammer for me is the most important part. I placed 4th and scored 5 points for my team so I was happy.
The javelin was on Sunday at 12:30pm. I almost forgot to check-in because I was warming up in the designated warm-up area which was in a bubble next to the track. I felt great in the warm-ups though and some of the main points my coach and I had been working on in the past week were clicking almost perfectly. My series: 1) 56m ensured I got 5 more throws 2) 53m It felt a lot better than 53m, not sure what happened 3)59m Put me into the lead going into the finals 4) 58m I think, solid throw, just way too low 5) 61.44m I didn't know it at the time but the kid in 2nd place had moved past me on his 5th throw with a further 59m throw. 6) I could hardly bare to watch the final round as there were easily 4 or 5 other guys who could have thrown farther to pass me. One by one they threw and I remained in the lead, and then came the 2nd place guy. He launched one that looked far and it was tough to tell because the sector lines were not very accurate. As soon as the official said "59.68m" I was overwhelmed with emotion because I had finally caught my break and at the perfect time. No clue how far my last throw was. In all fairness I gave up halfway down the runway because I was so happy already.
61.44m is only 20cm off my personal best from last year so now I am back on track to throw farther. The win automatically qualifies me for East Regional’s which are at the end of the month, and I have IC4A championships in 2 weeks and I feel big things are coming. I am done with hammer for the season, but considering I only practiced it twice aside from meets early in the season where I was taking a lot of warm-up throws I cannot complain about PRing by a couple meters and moving up 4 places at NEC's from 2007.
Our men's team placed 8th with 27 points, which is one place up from last year's 9th place finish, and is very promising considering that many key people have been battling with injuries all year. Senior Andre Donaldson PRed with a nagging hamstring to place 7th in the triple jump. Junior Louis Elrose courageously came back from a car accident and placed 4th in the high jump in his first meet all season. Our makeshift relays added points, too: 4x8 placed 7th, 7:58.55; 4x1 placed 7th, 43.69; and 4x4 finished 8th 3:21.13.
Special thanks to St. Francis College Alumni Throwers Matt Dzwonek and Rory Erskine who made the 7+hour trip on their own to watch me throw; it helped tremendously.
I will have the video uploaded later today or this week and will post the link here.
If SFC would start getting people with real talent, such as yourself, and not bottom fishing out of the PSAL and CHSAA they might be getting somewhere other than 8th and 9th place. They need to expand their recruiting to out of state and start signing people with point scoring ability. No more of those nonsense runner who show up just to show up, get people who want to win and who want to be on a team!!!
