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.
Hello again everyone. The season is really starting to heat up now and we’ve had another meet since my last blog, plus a bunch of other cool stuff that’s happened.
Brunswick traveled up to Colby on the 12th for our first away meet (excluding States) in years. I never really considered the difference a track makes on times, unless it was a banked track, but Colby was definitely a lot slower for me. The turns were really sharp, and I was still worried about my foot a lot so I ended up running the 400 in lane 2 just to make them a little wider. My times were not wonderful, I ran a 53 in the 400 and a 23.6ish in the 200, which are currently my slowest times in each race. However, my foot felt fine, so I look forward to the next meet as the first real meet that I can run injury-free (knocks on wood).
Oh but wait, that sounds like a boring meet doesn’t it? You’re right, it was. That is until our bus, cruising at 50 mph down the highway, was assaulted by a large turkey. I didn’t see anything, but I felt something smash into the bus and looked to the front. A turkey had crashed directly into the bus windshield, shattering it, and hitting the bus so hard that the rear-view mirror INSIDE the bus had been shattered. We slowed down and pulled off to the side of the highway to wait for another bus, which took approximately an hour. While we were waiting, an SUV came flying down the highway towards us. I don’t understand how it is even possible not to see a school bus on the highway, but he jerked out of the way at the last second, spun a full 360 degrees, and ended up in the snow bank 200 meters in front of us. For those of you who don’t know how far 200 meters is, you’re on the wrong website. Anyways, we finally got home in one piece and went out to eat. I obviously got a turkey sandwich.
We had this weekend off, so our next meet is on the 25th. I haven’t raced anyone really close to me yet in the 400, but next week Ryan Smith and Will Hirnak from MTA are both running it, as well as Brunswick’s own distance runner Jamie Ross, who is moving down for a week for the competition. It should be a crazy fast heat, and I’m sure whoever wins it will have the fastest time in the state afterwards. I’m taking it as a practice for KVACs to try some new stuff and hopefully get in a really good time. With the 50.3 State record a little less than a second away, I’m fairly certain that a lot of people could topple that this season. Anyways, I’m looking forward to my first big meet and I wish everyone else luck!
-Alex Nichols
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