National Scholastic Athletics Foundation

The 2014 indoor season was a pretty successful one.  I was able to win big races, starting with the Bishop Loughlin Games to the New Jersey Meet of Champs and whatever I could in-between.  Even though I didn’t PR, I’m glad I’m a hurdler.  It adds a bit of swag to the sport.

New Balance Nationals Indoor didn’t go exactly how I had imagined, but the weekend was still very successful.

The meet began on Saturday for me with the shuttle hurdle relay.  It was a highly anticipated race.  Starting from last year, Union Catholic and Western Branch of Virginia had developed a beef that will be put on hold until we meet again at outdoor nationals.  I was excited to race the shuttles, especially because we had a new crew, and even newer than the week before because one of our seniors, Mike Herron, hurt his hamstring and quickly had to be filled in by one of our juniors, Serge Gilbert.

Now, this was Serge’s first indoor meet, ever!  Seems pretty special that his first indoor race would be a national championship.  We didn’t win, but it was still a good race.  We all ran fast, but not as fast as we could have.  (side note: It’s ironic how (teammate) Taylor McLaughlin fell and hurt his wrist and had to get it wrapped up, because that whole week before nationals he would wrap up his fist as if he were a boxer and run like that at practice. What a dweeb, LOL!)

Next on the schedule was the 4x200 trials.  Going in with a bit of mixed emotion from the previous race, Taylor and I wouldn’t let the loss affect our performance for the upcoming races.  After beating our own meet record, the whole team regained a boost of confidence.  Next up was the sprint medley.  It was such a close race, with Andrew Ghizzone coming for the lead in the last 100, but was just a bit short.

Ending the day with two All-American honors and a 4x200 US#1 mark was good, but it wasn’t satisfying enough.  We wanted more; we wanted what we’ve been working so hard for.

Sunday was the day of the 4x400 and 4x200 final, the “easy day” (in terms of number of races).   First, we won the 4x2, lowering our time from before.  Shortly after that was our 4x400.  I’m not going to lie, I was shook to see that we were behind for a while (even though it was my job to get us ahead, LOL), but each one of us did our part (and we won).

Indoor nationals was great.  We went All-American in all of our events, top three, even.  We got three school records and everything that follows (US all-time lists, state records, county records).

Now I am on my week “off” in between indoor and outdoor.  What I am most excited for outdoors are the 400 hurdles. It’s going to be something this year, just watch.  The next big race I’ll be at is Arcadia in California.  I can’t wait to go, it should be fun.

See you outside, Track Nation!