Indoor races
12/Jan/2013 – Meeting Régional 2 (Coque)
In my first race for the year, I ran a 200m in 23″41. I finished first in the fifth heat, and overall 16th out of 39. Later that day, I participated in the 4x200m relay, where I was part of my club’s second team. We ran 1’38″95.
19/Jan/2013 – Championnats Indoor (Coque)
The indoor championships were a challenging day, with four races. I first ran a 60m, where I qualified for the finals by winning heat 4 out of 5 in 7″36. There were 39 competitors in total. In the 60m final I finished 5th and last, in 7″32.
On the 200m with 23 competitors in 4 heats, if I wanted to qualify for the final I couldn’t hold back all. I was seeded in the first heat with Tom Hutmacher who would later win the finals. I ran all out, and finished second in 22″97. I advanced to the final as fastest time-based qualifier (the 4 first sports already filled by the winners of their respective heats). As this was my fourth race for the day, I was already quite tired and although I had a podium finish in sight (third place was within reach) I was bumped to fourth place by Wesley Charlet on the final meters. I still managed to do 23″01.
Outdoor races
13/Apr/2013 – Meeting TC (Arlon, Belgium)
I wasn’t sure how well my training had prepared me for the outdoor season – my sessions had been a little over the place with a mixture of sprints and long distance runs. I expected this competition in Arlon to be a low-key event, and it was. Warming up almost on my own should have been a tell-tale sign, but in the end only three people lined up for the 100m. I won quite easily in 11″62, with a tailwind of 0.7m/s.
14/Apr/2013 – Meeting Ouvert (Soleuvre)
One day after the 100m in Arlon, I thought I would see more competition in the first outdoor track meeting in my own country.
Most local guys elected not to run, however, and I should probably have skipped this race as well. The track is only 200m, which means the 100m end rather abruptly in gym mats rather than giving you plenty of time to slow down after the finish line.
I had an OK start and won with a narrow lead over Pol Bidaine. Our times were 11″56 and 11″67, respectively. Unfortunately, the abrupt braking phase into the gym mats somehow affected my hip placement, and even eight months later I can still feel some of the repercussions of that impact.
01/Sep/2013 – Meeting Ouvert International (Dudelange)
After not being able to sprint all out for a few months, I still went back to the track in September. I was still hoping to finish the season on a positive note, and while I hadn’t done much sprinting I’d done quite a bit of strength training and some longer runs to at least maintain a modicum of shape.
In the race, I had a pretty bad start and didn’t recover from that at all, finishing last in the first heat in 11″64 (with a tailwind of 0.9m/s, to boot). The race was won by Festus Geraldo in 10″98, which meant the gap was considerable.
22/Sep/2013 – Coupe du Prince (Luxembourg)
My hip was still bothering me, and as such I was happy to hear that my club had enough other athletes to cover the individual competitions at the Coupe du Prince. However, they asked me to participate in the second 4x100m team, whose goal was to save some points in case the first team didn’t finish or was disqualified. I thought I could manage that, so I taped up my various injuries, and ran 4th position on the relay which we finished in 48″33. While I would have considered this a very bad result in my competitive years, it needs to be taken in context of a club competition; plus we did leave three other teams behind us.