Meet Report: 2022 Berkeley All-Comers 2

I ran the last “indoor” meet of my season outdoors at the second Berkeley All-Comers meet of 2022. There’s a special place in my heart for Edwards Stadium—I’ve run there many times, from Junior Olympic meets as a 12-year-old to state qualifiers in high school.

This meet was my first in California since February 2020—I saw a lot of familiar faces from 2019 and 2020. I didn’t expect the camaraderie of unattached athletes before I got back into the track scene, but it’s come to be one of the more important factors keeping me in the sport.

I didn’t expect much going into this meet: with a rolling schedule, I knew it’d be hard to time my warmup routine, and the track at Edwards Stadium is notoriously slow. My goals were just to have a strong drive phase and transition in the 60 and to get some speed endurance work in the 200.

60m: 6.88 (+1.3) (video)

• I won both my heat and the meet outright.
• I’ve run three 60s this season and PR’d all three times! This time was with a slight tailwind and adjusts to either a windless 6.90 or 6.93 depending on the conversion factor you use. Both times are still faster than my old PR.
• I focused on driving back into the track and having negative foot speed on my first few steps. I think I did this reasonably well, though I defnitely haven’t mastered it yet.
• For the first time in a race, I felt like I was forced upright by my speed instead of getting impatient and coming upright early.
• I think I need some more practice starting off a reaction instead of going on my own mark.

200m: 21.85 (-0.9) (video)

• I won both my heat and the meet in this race as well.
• This was a huge outdoor PR—my previous best was 22.10, set two years ago on this track. Corrected for wind, this was a 21.76 effort.
• I drew lane 5—about average given the effect I found of lane draw on 200m times.
• I did a really good job staying relaxed on the home stretch. Obviously, this is a lot easier to do when you have a big lead, but it’s something I’ve struggled with in the past.
• Apparently, I stepped on the inside line at least once and probably twice—I would have been disqualified if the officials had decided I had hit the line twice, so I got off lucky. I haven’t had a ton of practice starting on the curve, so that’s something I’ll need to tighten up as my season progresses.
• I still need to figure out proper inter-race habits. My calves were cramping a bit during my warmup. How much faster could I have been with a locked in routine?

Overall, I’m really happy with my performance this meet. I didn’t expect to PR but came away with two lifetime bests!

My next competition probably won’t be for a month or so—I might travel up to Pittsburgh for Carnegie Mellon’s first home meet, or keep it low-key at one of the many local meets in Georgia.