Journals : Marques Johnson of North Dakota State University
First off congrats to Lashawn Merrit for dropping 44.93 and 20.40. Well, it's down to the Bison Classic in the good old Bison Sports Arena this Friday. This will be my last opportunity to qualify for the US Championships, so it's do or die for me. I competed this week at the Iowa State Classic. It was a very nice meet with some great athletes. Started out on Friday running the 200. Drew lane 2 so I wasn't to thrilled about that but that track and field. I got out very good but I didn't want to blast to hard out the gate. Being back in lane 2 I had to run damn near 60 meters before so I wanted to conserve a little energy. Coming on the turn I sat on the guy in lane 3 the first 50 and the last 50 i started picking it up. My main competetion was in lane 7 so I had to put the burners on to try and catch him. I had a real strong finish but got 2nd with 21.91 to 21.83. The 60 prelims went pretty good. I got a good start and finished 2nd in my heat with 6.86. I was dissapionted because i missed the fast heat of the final but there was plenty of competition in the other section. The final,.. we come up to the set position and i leaned forward in the blocks and then started to rock back. As soon as I rocked back the gun goes off, and all I see is shoes and jerseys. I tried to stay relaxed and finish strong. I ended up running 6.85 and the winner ran 6.79. Its disappointing to know that you could run the times that you want but a lttle mistake can mess everything up. The 4x4 relay was crazy. Flordia ran 3:03.9X and made it look easy. I was kinda worried about the 4x4 because one of are memebers sprained his ankle and wasn't sure if he was going to run. This guy ran 48.00 so it kinda hard to replace that leg. The good thing is that we still ran 3:11.80 which is only .18 off the school record we broke 2 weeks ago. I got the stick in 4th place to and just ran my ass off. I ran in lane 2 once again because I saw Oregon and another team trip each other up in the 1st heat and I was trying to be another victim. I battled down the home strecth and we ended up getting 2nd in the heat. Coach had me at 46.5 on the split.
