Hurdles are hard.

I mean, more specifically, that competition hurdles are heavy and that the crossbars are stiff, so it really hurts when you hit them.

I was reminded of that when I injured my foot by kicking a hurdle while demonstrating drills to the middle school team two months ago.

Then I was reminded again when I sliced open my trail-leg ankle in a race where hurdle 8 was set at the wrong height.

Oh, right, yeah, I forgot to mention that after seven months of dieting and speed work and hurdle practice by myself, I have (entirely without a hint of glory or hope of glamor) un-retired from playing track, too.

Two weeks ago, I took my first race start since 2017. It was my first block start, my first hurdle race, and my first real race since the dec I barely finished when our second and third kids were about a year old. In the time since then, I’ve struggled to make up my mind about sports and have been driven to develop my career.

But the discomfort of avoiding my dreams, both athletically and professionally, came roaring back in December 2023, when I started coaching one of my coworkers sons in the high hurdles. That’s a separate story, but the end state is I’ve un-retired from sports coaching and I’ve un-retired from my one great sporting love, the 110 meter hurdle race.

I’ll be direct: I’m excellent as a coach, but I’m fully unremarkable as a sprint hurdler. And I’ll go farther: despite losing 20 pounds (20 to go!) and diligently doing my speed work, I ran an abbreviated race over shortened hurdles in an absolutely abysmal time. (For track fans, I went 18.32 over 100m hurdles at 39″, which is objectively bad. My lifetime best 110 is 14.91 over 39″.)

But the crap performance didn’t matter. What mattered was getting through the crippling anxiety I’d felt for 3 days before the meet. What mattered was not caring I had no time to warmup around volunteering at the meet and managing my kids. What mattered was lacing up my spikes and getting in the blocks when every fiber of my being wanted to make an excuse and drop out.

The reality of that odd race was that I dropped into a Masters 50+ heat, which is why the hurdles were at 100m spacing (8.50m rather than 9.14m). I asked to raise them up and the volunteer team set 9 hurdles at 39″…and 1 hurdle (#8) at 42″, my proper race height. I bugged out at the start line and set my block spacing all wrong. And, as mentioned, I didn’t get time to do any warmup beyond one set of A skips and 10yd of high knees.

So I stumbled out of the blocks, misstepped to H1, completely broke rhythm over 42″ H8 and crashed it, then had to take H10 on my off-leg from a jog. I made nearly every possible technical mistake in that race, costing at least 1.5 seconds and up to 2.5 seconds. But I started and finished that race and, after it, I knew everything I needed to know: I can keep competing in the hurdles.

That was the source of all my anxiety. Hurdles are so hard, that I wasn’t sure I could even stay in the game.

And start lists were announced for the Masters Pan-Am Games happening in Cleveland this year, for which I am registered and at which I want to have my peak performance for the season. I opened them the moment they came in, because I wanted to research my competitors. If there’s real risk I come DAL in a race, I want to be able to brag that I was beaten by some masters legends.

Well, if you’re curious: compared to over 250 competitors in archery and more than 60 competitors in the track 10,000 meter run (most miserable activity I’ve ever imagined!), there are 17 men competing in any of the 3 high hurdle races. In my 30-49 bracket, there are 3 of us.

THREE men from around the world between ages 30 and 49 elected to run the high hurdles in the most prestigious Masters meet in the western hemisphere. Even after the hurdles get lower, closer, and fewer in older age groups, only 14 athletes still sign up to race.

Sprint hurdling is the ultimate game of attrition. Being bold enough to show up at all seems to be a victory.

That’s how hard hurdles really are.
And I’m starting to think this is exactly where I belong.

3 more meets before that big one. I’m a coach first, but also still an athlete, just like all of you. So I’ll keep you posted on the progress.