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.