The Start of the Track Season – 4/11/2023

The start of the Saisa track season had finally arrived. It seemed like I’d been looking forward to this day for a year. Track is probably my favorite sport; I love everything about it. My first track season was the previous season, which began in October 2022 and lasted until October 2023. That was, without a doubt, the highlight of my year. I’d met so many new people and made many new close friends, some of whom I never expected to speak to. Track helped me push myself to my limits and compete with my peers. I consider myself to be quite a competitive person, and I love pushing myself to the absolute limit to try and find perfection in what I do.

 

 The reason that I like to reflect upon my last track is because I feel like it was such an instrumental part and building block of the athlete that I have become. In terms of running, I am a sprinter since I tend to run short distances quickly. Last season, I competed in the 100, 200, and 400-meter dashes, as well as the 4 × 100 and 4 x 400-meter relays. The season was simply incredible; we won both of our relays and received two gold medals. In terms of personal events, I was slightly upset because I failed to qualify for the finals of the 100 and 200-meter relays. On both occasionsthat gap between my times and the cut-off line was so small, only about 0.02 seconds to be able to be in the top 6 SAISA  sprinters. The disappointment of not being able to bring back an individual win to the team is something that didn’t leave my mind for some time.

I wanted to prove to myself that I was capable of winning. In hindsight, one of the key factors that I believe hampered my athletic performance was the tension and nervousness that I experienced. This was mainly due to the fact that it was my first SAISA, and I honestly felt like it was a little too much for me when I saw everyone watching. “What if I mess up?” was a question that haunted me before every race; I was more concerned with what other people thought of me than with racing my own race.  This has now changed with the experience that I have gained. I wouldn’t say that I don’t care, but I have managed to learn how to lock in before my races and it helps me to almost forget about everything happening around me.

 

We had to start practicing for ISACS, a Sri Lankan track and field championship in which all schools were allowed to compete, two weeks after SAISA ended in Chennai. This is arguably significantly more competitive than SAISA, which is quite true in my opinion, because some of the local lads who run this race train virtually every day and are so close to perfection in sprinting events that it’s very difficult for us to compete with them. Having said that, it is not impossible to win, as I and my relay team demonstrated. I was so incredibly proud because it felt like my mindset had completely changed. My relay team for the 4×100 meter and the 4×400 meters consisted of Myself, Sam Turner, Diyath Kularatne & Akash Sellamuttu, we were able to beat all the other schools are Isac for the under 20 relays, and we did so well in the 100-meterrelay that we ended up beating a SAISA record as well.

 

On that note, it’s finally time for the track season to start once again, and I feel like as an athlete I have definitely improved over the summer, so I can’t wait to turn up at track and try and smash my old SAISA times from last year.