Alex Nichols is a senior at Brunswick HS, he is the defending Class A indoor state champion in the 400m. Nichols has a personal best of 49.91 in the 400m & 22.69 in the 200m. Follow along this winter as Alex goes for a repeat.
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a good one! I had lots of fun over the dreadfully short vacation we had, and some of it WAS during a track meet! Imagine that! We’ve had two track meets since my last blog and as you can probably guess by now I have some weird stories from both of them, because I just can’t seem to run in a track meet without something strange happening.
The first meet was three days after Christmas. I went into it knowing that I had definitely not been running as much as I should have been over the break. However, I was also really excited because I was trying out the 55m, which I had never run! Our meet got postponed a day (Thank God) so we combined with a meet the next day. Kind of. We ran all the same events, but all the heats were separated and scored separately. In short, the whole thing took a solid six hours even though it was supposed to be a small meet.
I was getting ready for the 55m and pretending I knew what I was doing with my 3-point blocks. As I have said, my start leaves much to be desired, and I knew that was going to hurt me in the 55m. I was watching the boys run hurdles and waiting for girls hurdles when Phillip, a teammate, came running up and said “You’re on the track. Right now. No, like RIGHT NOW.”
I don’t know whether it was the double meet or what, but I thought I had a lot more time than I did. I also was confused because apparently the fastest heat (which I was somehow in) was running first. So I got up and went sprinting over to the line, whipping off warm-up clothes and throwing them at people I didn’t know. I finally got through the crowd around the start line and went up to my lane. The kid next to me, Luke Dang, who had been giving me a few pointers on the 55m, looked at me and said, “Hey man, where are your blocks?”
Oh right. Blocks. Whoops. The starter was already calling everyone to the line so I decided they were not important right then and I ran it without them. I did alright, I broke 7 seconds, but Hassan Mohamed from Lewiston ran a school record-setting 6.75 and Luke also beat me. I really enjoyed the race though, and I decided to do it again next meet. With blocks.
The rest of the meet wasn’t as interesting. The 400 was pretty easy because I couldn’t race any of the kids who were technically not part of our meet. I meant to take it a little easier than I did, but I heard footsteps behind me at one point and decided to pick it up. (Little did I know it was just a kid running down the longjump board.) The 200 was really fast, I ended with a 23.3, but I tore my foot again. I’ll spare you all with the details this time, but I will say I found glitter in the cut afterwards. Yeah glitter. I have no idea how it got there, in all seriousness.
The second meet was Friday night and it was awesome. I decided not to run any fast turns to keep my foot from hurting again, so I tried the 800 for the first time as well as the 55m and hurdles. I did hurdles once last year so I re-learned them quickly to try them again. The idea was to try out a couple events that might be my third event at states.
Hurdles were sweet, I ended up winning, though I’m fairly certain I jumped way to high over each one. I really liked them though and I want to give them another shot. The 55m was also cool, though Hassan beat me again. Curiously enough my time without blocks was faster than my time with them.
Finally came the 800. I ran one last year in a 4x800 but I had never run the open. It was…terrible, I hated it. I’m not sure which one is worse, the 400 or the 800, but the 800 was terrifying to run. I ran an easy first 2 laps and then took off from there to win in a 2:08, though I would not have won if I wasn’t racing kids who were tired from the mile and the 400.
Thus concludes my two meets. Our next meet is Saturday at Colby, which should be sweet since we never have away meets. I would also like to congratulate Connor Harris for jumping 6’ 6” in high jump Friday. It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Good luck to everyone in your upcoming meets!
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