ilivetrack.com

My new website is ilivetrack.com, I have refocused all my energy towards it so please visit www.ilivetrack.com.

ilivetrack.com is a place for all track and field athletes to have a voice, regardless of age or talent level. The only stories here are yours. Tell everyone how your run went today, tell them how much you lifted today, and tell them you jumped a PR today. Tell everyone that you live track at ilivetrack.com.

The Trials

One Week. There is only one week till the qualifying round at The Trials. For those of you who didn't know the competition format at the trials is a little different. At The Trials there is a qualifying round followed the next day by the trail and finals rounds. On Friday next week they take the whole field of shot putters 24-30 guys, and cut it to 12 by giving everyone 3 puts and taking the top 12. There is also an auto mark in the qualifying round where if you throw x distance, say 20.50m, then your automatically into Saturdays trials round and you can stop throwing, so really you could only take 1 throw on Friday to make it back on Saturday. Then on Saturday it's a brand new competition, none of the marks from Friday's competition count, with the basic meet format. You get 3 throws to make the top 9 and then the top 9 get and additional 3 throws. Top 3 make The Games. There are only few meets that have this format, The Olympics, The Trials, World Championships, and The NCAA Championships.

Pre, Flooding, and Trials

This has been a quick week. Pre was on Sunday. Which I did o.k. 20.68, not bad but I had two good fouls at least one of which was over 21m and closer to 21.20m. They weren't bad fouls, In my opinion they weren't even fouls at all. I got called for touching the top of the ring out of the back, which is cheap, it's a lame call and they only way to tell is if someone is lying on the ground flat and looking at th ring, which there never is. Regardless the meet was still good the new Hayward Field looks awesome it's a great setup the rings are great, now if it was just closer to a major airport and the were more hotels in Eugene It'd be perfect. But you can't have it all.
I'm sure a lot of you have seen this picture or the video that goes with it, it's form this past week in Wisconsin when with all the rain caused a damn to burst and washed away these lake homes. Well it just happens that this house is soon to be family of mine. This home belongs to my Fiancee's Aunt and Uncle , Liz and Tim Fromm and there three daughters so it's been kinda weird just watching their home float away. Luckily they all are o.k. but they are with out a home or anything else. So Steph and I are going to go visit them this weekend up in Chicago, they are staying with Family there. Today being Thursday June 12th if is officially 2 weeks till The Olympic Trials begin, and it's going to be a fast wait, time has flown by already and now it's just two weeks to go. I know I'll be ready and bring myself to the meet with everything I have, I've but a lot of eggs in this basket. So we will see the Shot Put is one of the strongest events in the US and things might get crazy, but historically and John Hendershot from Track and Field News will back me up on this, It has never taken more than 21m to make the US Olympic team. Never. Now you might say,"Well Dan what about the 2000 Olympic Trials were John Godina got 4th with 21.09m? What about that Dan." Well I would have to reply, "Well track nerd, In 2000 before The Games C.J. Hunter, who got second at the trials with 21.87m, got popped and didn't go, essentially moving everyone up a place in the end, and therefore technically John was 3rd with 21.09m. Now get lost and stop asking stupidly narrow topic questions." Thats how I imagine that conversation would go.

New York Grand Prix to Pre

Well it's taken me to about today to want to write a new entry in this thing so... This past weekend was the New York Grand Prix, and it was almost the worst case scenario (fouling out) for a competition. I only marked one throw out of the 6, my last and it was only 18.90, almost 2.o.m less than my last meet. I knew it wasn't going to be good during warm-ups. I felt sluggish and uncoordinated during and it unfortunitly transfered to the competition. I was all over the place, I just couldn't coordinate my body to what my head was telling it what to do, I was a mess.
O well you got to put it behind you. So Pre is this week, which is always a great meet, and we get to compete on their new track. It will also be nice to compete at the Olympic Trials venue before the trials start in 3 weeks. So hopefully I'll regain my mind and be able to throw properly there. There was an article this week in the Statesman Journal about the shot put at Prefontaine but I wasn't mentioned, makes sense though I haven't thrown far yet.
Here is a link to Breaux Greer as "Hurricane" on American Gladiators, which was kinda my idea in the first place, not him being a gladiator, but I want to be a competitor and beat up on the Gladiators. Those guys might look big on T.V. but I know I would tower over them, I think there scared for some real competition, thats why they pick lawyers and accounts, guys who can't even bench over there body weight. Granted I'd get tired because I have no cardiovascular endurance, but I don't think that factors into many of the games, and besides I could train for that anyways. Good luck Breaux have fun beating up regular people.

Steven Spielburg disapoints me

Yesterday was my first day throwing since Adidas in Carson, and it was o.k. My groin/hamstring felt a little sore but nothing intolerable. The only thing that sucked was that I didn't really press my practice as hard as I normally would of because I was babying my leg. There are no new pains this morning so I guess thats a good sign. Today I'm going to throw again if it doesn't rain, which it has been for the last 3 days, and hopefully I'll be able to tie into a few throws and reassure myself that my leg will be fine.
To make things worse last night I went and saw Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Worst Movie Ever. Lucasarts and Steven Spielburg are just getting lazy. Their moves have been some of the largest disappointments ever. They should just learn to leave well enough alone and never had made prequels to Star Wars(not that Spielburg was involved,but I'm still going to blame him by association) or this awe full 4th Indiana Jones movie. Sure they made a lot of money, like Uncle Scrooge in Ducktales, I imagine that they both have large vaults of gold coins that they swim around in. Regardless of this they ruined both trilogies.South Park made fun of this a few years ago with their "Free Hat" episode, when Lucas and Spielburg were "Digitally Enhancing" everything. I'm not going to go into detail in case there are people who still want to go see this disaster, but in my advise wait for the DVD if you must see it, and avoid it all together if you want to still want to think of Indiana Jones as iconic.

On a happier note Congratulations to Christian and Teri Cantwell, Yesterday was the birth of their son Jackson Daniels Cantwell
11lbs. 2oz. and 23 in. long. Congrats guys.