It storms in Georgia—not something I ever had to worry about racing in California. Yesterday’s meet, the Summer Sunset Classic in Marietta, was interrupted for almost two hours by a thunderstorm. Thankfully, the meet wasn’t canceled and I was able to compete in one of my two scheduled races: I raced the 100 under the lights around 10pm, and ditched the 200 since 10pm is already well past my ordinary bedtime.

My first month in Atlanta has been a blast: I drove across the country, competed in my first races in 15 months, met some friends in person for the first time in a long time, and am writing this from Charleston where I’m spending Memorial Day!

I’m definitely enjoying the change of environment and pace; hopefully it’s not just a honeymoon period.

Goal Tracking

• 🟡 Get 1% faster. I ran a FAT PR of 10.92 in my first race back, then 10.93 two weeks later. Unfortunately, it looks like Freelap times don’t translate to FAT+0.15: the difference seems more like 0.35 seconds. That said, those PRs were set after hard training weeks: I think I have a lot of headroom with a good peaking cycle and some minor technical cleanup.
• 🔴 50% less discretionary spending. I expected to go red this month, and did. We’re buying lots of furniture, spending time in fancy hotels, and generally making our first month in Atlanta a month to remember. My spending this month was 215% of my average spending from last year.
• 🟡 One hour of solitary free time a day. I’m still not doing a great job of tracking this, but my work-life balance has significantly improved since moving to Atlanta. I don’t start my workday until around 11AM, and I’ve managed to keep a strict end-of-work time of 7PM. That gives me plenty of time to myself on Tuesdays an Thursdays (when I’m not doubling up at the track and gym).
• 🟡 Twice-weekly live conversations with friends. I haven’t really been focusing on this goal. Even so, I managed to hit it every week but this past one. Next month, I’ll pay more attention and get this back into the green!

Managers and leaders often fall into the trap of drowning out their reports’ voices with their own. Almost everybody has dealt with or will deal with a micromanagey boss at some point in their career; the loud-mouthed, anal, pointy-haired boss is a stereotype for a reason. Loud leaders cause all sorts of problems for their organization:

I drove down to Oxford, Alabama for the TFCUSA Club National Championships. It’s primarily a youth meet, but thankfully they had an open section. The meet was well-run, especially given that they were wrangling children as young as 1 year old. I’m definitely encouraged by the track community I’ve seen since moving to Georgia: everyone I’ve talked to has been warm, friendly, and obsessed with track!

The meet wasn’t tracking wind information, but there was a medium-strength headwind all day. And it was hot! I brought 5 Gatorades, whcih I thought would be more than enough, but I had to supplement that with lots of water through the day.

5/8: Atlanta Track Club—Spring Track Meet #3

My first official meet in 15 months! It was absolutely phenomenal to compete again after months of solo work. Atlanta Track Club put together an extraordinarily well-organized masters-focused meet. Since they weren’t contesting the 200m, I only ran the 100m.

100m: 10.92 (+0.2)

The wind cooperated, turning in or favor right before our race. I was strong out of the blocks and probably had a lead for the first 20 meters. I wasn’t patient with my transition, however, and was fully upright before the 30m mark. By 50 meters, I’d lost my lead, and I had to grit through the last 20 meters. All that was enough, however, to run a FAT PR of 10.92!