The Spanish Championships of adapted athletics took place in Burgos last weekend.
This competition was the last important event before the World Cup, which is to be held in London from the 14th to the 23rd of July, and for me, it was a vital part of my training plan in the run up to London. Now it was time to move on from the training phase to the competitive phase.
The first trial that I took part in was the 200 meters sprint and it was held on Saturday afternoon. It was a good race, and I felt great from beginning to end. Hopefully this bodes well for the following weeks. The strong wind was against us in the trial, ( 1.7), and prevented me from achieving a remarkable time. However, the positive feelings for both me and my coach made up for it. My final time was 24 «26’ – enough to win the Spanish title.
Sunday morning began with a major setback for me, with a constant pain in my stomach, which prevented me from being 100%. Even so, the warm-up for the 100-meters, the first trial that morning, was quite satisfactory. After an intense warm up, my legs began to respond. In the race I had a good first few meters, followed by a brilliant follow up then the remaining few meters which didn’t go so well. This, along with the slight wind which was blowing against us (less than one metre a second) made it impossible for me to break the 12” barrier. I finished with a time of 12” 02’. However, this was the best official time I’ve achieved since London 2012, where I set my personal and current Spanish record of 11 «79’, which stands me in good stead for the future. Provided there are no unexpected setbacks, in the World Championships I will be in with a good chance of setting a new national record. With these positive feelings and becoming the new Spanish Champion, we faced the last test of the championship: the 400 meters sprint.
Here we decided to approach the race like a training session rather than a competition. This season the decision had been made to focus more on the 100 and 200 meters sprints. Thus, the strategy for the 400 was to run the first 200 metres at just less than maximum intensity and the second 200, due to being more tired, to slow down a little. My feelings in that 400-meter trial were strange, with a speed of 25 «0 and a rather tricky end, which showed clearly that I had not trained for this race all year. The result – 58 «and my third title in the Spanish Championships in Burgos.
In short, a championship full of positive feelings which makes me optimistic for the World Championships in three weeks’ time where I’ll hopefully manage to win three more titles for Spain. I’ve already won a total of thirteen titles. Let’s hope that all of our hard works pays off and we go on to add to that number.