a relief, but not happy

Last Friday I travelled to Clermont-Ferrand with my mum and Arno.
We hurried at the airport so we could still see Rudy's High jump. Rudy missed some points in the 60m and the Long jump (7.17 and 7.12) but he did well in the shot (14.22) and we saw him jump 1.89, so he was happy with his first day.

On saturday I started my first multi events competition since 18 months. I was pretty nervous because I wanted to do well.
Warm-up felt ok, except the fact that my left quad was stiff, but I didn't feel it while I was running so I thought everything was ok.

I had a false start, so I had to stay in the blocks the second start. The result was a very bad start where I lost at least 0.1s. 8.52 was a result that made me pretty happy, because I knew with a good start I could run faster.
But as the competition went on my quad got stiffer. The high jump didn't go the way I wanted. I didn't have the power and coordination to take off properly and 1.66 is absolutely Laurien-unworthy. The shot didn't go well either, because my body just didn't coorporate with me.

I did a warm up for the long jump. I could sprint pain free, but I couldn't take of and I told Arno I didn't want to take the risk of getting seriously injured in this time of the year (I need to train well the next couple of months to do well in the summer). So we decided to call it a day.

Rudy did well with a PB in the hurdles: 8.34, he did well in the pole vault: 5.20 and he ran 2.48.66 in the 1000. He didn't score a PB but we think 5762 points is enough to receive an invitation for Birmingham.

Monday I called Dr Peter Vergouwen (who is my sports physician) and he wanted to see me right away, even though the stiffnes in my quad was almost gone.
Dr Geertsema (Radiologist in hospital 'Gelderse Vallei') made echo of my muscle and fortunately he didn't find any damage.

Dr Vergouwen did feel something happened to my muscle and diagnosed it as an 'overstretch' (I don't know the exact term in English). He said it happens more often that after a flu/infection people do not reinforce their muscles and start competitions. The muscles are not ready to handle these forces and they protest. That is what hapened to my quad, because my quad used to be a weak spot in my body.

If I had known this before, I wouldn't have started the competition. But obviously I didn't know. I have learned from this experience and I'm happy I didn't get seriously injured. Peter Vergouwen is convinced I would have torn my muscle, if I had done the long jump.

The positive side: It will only take 10 day sto recover and after that I can start training again. The 11th of March we will leave for South Africa again to spend some weeks training in the sun. That will do me good and I'm looking forward to it.

French championships

In Holland we have a saying that after the rain, sunshine will come.
After my withdrawal from the national multi events championships I took some days to recover properly. My doctor gave me antibiotics for 3 days and that halped me recover.

I tried to get in the French championships next weekend and the French federation allowed me to compete. That means I can finally do a combined events competition (the first one since July 2005).

The down side of that is that I can't compete in my nationals (individual events), but my federation supports me in competing in France.
The French champs take place in Aubiere and that is a hall I have good memories of (it was my break through in 2005). Hopefully it will turn out ok.

I will keep in touch to say how my preparations go!

bad luck

Sometimes things happen that you can't control. My indoor season went very well and I felt like I was in good enough shape to compete in the nationals (pentathlon). Unfortunately last week I caught the flew. I had to stay in bed for several days and sunday I thought I was finally getting better. My temperature was ok again and I took some extra days recovery before I started training again. And although I never stopped coughing, I felt good enough to train again.

Wednesday I did a good hurdles session and I really felt like competing again. but on the way back home I started to feel ill again. My temperature raised and I started to sweat 1 minute and I felt extremely cold the next minute.

The next morning I went to the doctor, because for me it took way to long before I recovered. The docter told me I caught an infection when I was ill. She gave me anti-biotics and I had to rest for a couple of days.

All of this meant I have to withdrawn from the National Championships next weekend.
I'm pretty sad I can't compete in a multi events competition, because that is what I have been training for all this time. But my health is more important and I hope I will get better soon.
If I will compete again this winter depends on my health.

first competitions

After a good return form South Africa and a week of recovery, I started my first competition on January the 21th. I travelled to Dortmund, Germany, to compete is the 60m sprint and the shot put. Although both events took place at the same time, I managed to put down some good performances. In the series of the 60 (which I ran between my forst two attempts in the shot) I finished in a good time of 7.74. I ran the semi-final in 7.70 which was a pb (My start was very poor and the last 10m was even worse, so I expected a lot from the final). Unfortunately I couldn't improve on the semi's and I finished 5th with 7.72.

Between the races I was also competing in the shot. My first throw was a reasonable 14.98 (considering the fact it was a technically poor attempt). So I tried to hit it in the other attempts, but I became messy and it didn't work out well for me. So no improvement.

That was Dortmund.

One week later I started the regional Championships of Picardie (the region where Rudy is coming from). I competed in the hurdles, high jump and shot.
First I want to tell you what happened to me the friday before the competition.
I did a high jump session and I was warming up by doing some heights of 3 and 4 strides. With one jump I came through to deep and the result was that I hit my head in the standard. It started to bleed immediately and Rudy brought me to the hospital. 2 stitches was the results (Good job Laurien). So the next day I did some hig jumping again to get some confidence to jump on the sunday.
Sunday the 28th I started with a hurdles race. I feel I have to run some more races before I feel solid again. It has been a long time since I ran hurdles in competitions. So my time of 8.61 was bit disappointed. After the race I had to go to the shot. Because the competition was going on (I missed the warm up) I stepped in in the second round. The first attempt was rubbish and I fell out of the ring. The second attempt was a safe one to stay in the competition: 14.84. On my thirth attempt I tried to hit the shot harder but again I missed it. And Although it was technically poor I still threw a PB of 15.21 (so that is promising). I skipped the last two attempts because I wanted to go to the High jump where the bar was raised to 1.60 (my starting height).

I jumped 1.60 and 1.64 in one attempt. Then I started to be messy again and it took me three jumps to clear 1.68 (but I did that with anough room between me and the bar). Then in the second attempt i cleared 1.70. Then I tried to hard to clear 1.72 and didn't focus on my technique. Unfortunately I didn't jump any higher. But the good thing is that I'm not as hopeless as training made us believe ;-)

Now I'm back in HOlland and I have had some good trainings sessions so far. I also found out again that there is a thin line between being in shape and getting ill: I caught a cold.

I also started my internship at my own old secundary school. It is fun to see all my old teachers again and interesting to see the other side of secundary school (teaching instead of learning).

If everything is ok I will start next sunday in Utrecht (my last preparations before I will travel to Gent to compete in the National Multi Events Championships (pentathlon). I'm looking forward to that competition.