Summer Training

The Summer of 2014

At the end of the outdoor season I had found a new coach, Shelby Johnson, alumni from very successful University of Michigan Track teams in the 70s. He saw me at the track I was training at, while I was coaching the Oakland University Track Teams Hurdlers. He decided he would start giving me some pointers, and by the end of 8 weeks he had helped me to drop a considerable amount of time off my season and career best. With this short period of time as my coach I was interested in what he could do for me with more time...from here we decided it was time to go all in with changing training with him. This was not an easy decision because my University coach had done much for my career, first giving me the ability to continue running D1 University track, then allowing me to continue to train, while I was unemployed, and a volunteer coach for the university. But it was time to see what else I could accomplish. The biggest thanks go out to Paul Rice for all he has done for me and my career.

My summer started with 2 weeks off to let my body recover from an intense 8 week cycle of 6 days a week of spiked up hurdle drills at the Avondale High School track. This took a toll on my body and upon returning from Calgary (my first international win), I was ready for a break.

After the break I set up a schedule which would work with my new full time job at Detroit Diesel. The schedule looks like this:

• Work (Monday - Friday 9am-5pm)

• Lifting (6am)

o Monday

o Tuesday

o Thursday

o Friday

• Track work (hurdle drills, form) (6pm)

o Tuesday

o Thursday

• Bike ride (cardio) (6pm/weekend)

o Wednesday

o Saturday

o Sunday

With this crazy schedule I had little time to interact with people but I was able to make the time I felt was necessary to unwind, often spending time with my father.

Coach Johnson was good about getting to the track when I needed him, but also realized the times I needed to train on my own. This summer was much different in many ways for me. The biggest difference was that I didn’t spend an excessive amount of time breaking my body doing longer sprints, as I had during my university years to prepare for preseason conditioning. I also have decided to only race the 60mh and 110mh in order to focus my large frame in rhythm with the high hurdles. This race is very different and challenging for a guy as tall as me, but I am out to prove that I can do it.

There were a lot of times where I was uncomfortable but I trusted my coach. He wanted to run me in some time trials in August to see where we were in training, and progress was being made. With February as our target we were happy with the progress.

Some stress came when the weather got colder because I don’t have an indoor training facility nearby. With my working in Detroit, Ann Arbor seemed to be a logical location for me to train. a move to a nearby town which would locate me between the university and work is a possibility by the end of the year. But for now, I spend about 3.5 hours in my car daily, averaging just less than 2,000 miles a month. Can’t say I’m doing this the easy way, but I want to make it happen and I’m willing to make sacrifices.

The season is approaching, and I hope for some fast results to end this crazy 2014 year. Stay tuned for the beginning of the season!