KIMbia Athletics

Hey everyone, thought I would give an update of the Monaco 3,000m on Tuesday.

I left this race and went home to the States the next day, and on the way back I was trying to figure out just what to take from this first half of the summer season and some of the spring. The only title of my first half of the track season is……..”The Frustratingly Mediocre Season.”

To call what I’ve been through this half a terrible season would be false; to say it was good or great would also be false. I think after last summer, with everything going so well, left me set up to try to do the same this summer, and that is a tough and incorrect way to approach racing. It rarely, if ever, goes as planned, and I was just fortunate to get out of last summer having everything go perfect.

This year I have faced many disappointments. I won’t go into all of them because I have previously discussed them, but Tuesday’s race in Monaco continued that trend. I came into this race once again having no expectations in terms of a time or place, but as always I just wanted to be competitive and have fun. I am happy that I did those, as I wasn’t feeling the greatest going into this race–in the days prior I was just kind of tired and almost zapped, but I was able to enjoy the experience and while still feeling not great stay in the race up until the last lap.

This is where the frustration comes in for me. I was there with a lap to go and got rolled, again! Somewhere just before the bell I got boxed in and missed the initial move and was never able to get back on the main lead pack once they started kicking, and thus kind of lost the real hunger to dig down and really go after the last lap. This is what I’m mad at myself about for–noteven with a gap not really going after it–because who knows if I could have caught some of them, because I just ran in hard versus really digging.

I ran 60 seconds for my last lap and ran 7:41.9 for my second fastest time ever, but I finished 11th…not competitive. The one thing that is positive to take out of this summer is that I’m learning way more from this summer than last, because last summer was so perfect. I’m facing adversity this year and I’m learning a lot, so if anything I will be so much smarter from this year and be that much better from it.

I am now back in the States and going to train for a month before heading back over for the meets that I had mentioned previously. I am no longer doing the Falmouth Mile, mostly because I need to get more training in at this point rather than just racing. I really enjoyed that race last year and am sad I have to miss it, but I feel that this is the best move for me to address a few things before stepping to the line again.

I would also like to say thank you to everyone for their support this entire year. I cannot express enough how appreciative I am of it. It is something that helps me to keep pushing, so again THANKS!!

I am looking forward to watching the Olympic Games in a few days and seeing what our team can do. I think there will be some exciting performances–we are sending quite the team! I am actually even looking forward to watching the 5K. (At first wasn’t planning on watching it, but now I may tape it for motivation.) I am excited to see what my training partner and the rest of the guys can do against the world. Good luck guys!

Well that’s it from me until I head back over in a month, but if anyone has questions I would love to try to answer them, so just leave them in my comments! Thanks again for the support and happy training/racing!!