Lolo Jones celebrates as she crosses the finish line in the women's 60m hurdles (© Getty Images)
World Indoor 60m Hurdles gold medallist Lolo Jones talks about preparing for the new season and her ‘taste of the summer’ at the annual Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival in her latest online diary for the IAAF.
“Hi, back again and the first thing I’ve got to say is I can’t wait to start my season at the Drake Relays at the weekend, if only as a break from the training.
“Everything is pretty hard core at the moment with the running and the weights. The 6x200m sessions are really tough because I’m expected to run every one quicker than the previous one and I’m on all fours on my hands and knees at the end of each session.
“Honestly, the only part of training I normally like is the weights training, but recently I’m not too sure I like that anymore because it has all been so tough.
“My training partner Stephanie Durst (a 22.48 200m runner) pushes me hard in training and as you would expect from a 200m runner, she gets the better in the 200m session – but I don’t like to give even half an inch and in the 60m to 100m sessions it is a lot closer, we are very competitive.
“Although training is hard at the moment I do like to make sure I do at least one thing each week as a release from the stresses and strains of training.
“Last week I bought a kayak and went out on the lakes for a couple hours and I can see myself doing it more often, although mainly in the off season.
“I also recently went to the Strawberry Festival at Ponchatoula in Louisiana. Many people associate California with strawberries but Louisiana has some beautiful strawberries, too, and I went along because a sister of a pole vaulter on the team was the Strawberry Queen at the Festival.
“It was so nice to go because it felt like a real taste of summer for me. As an American track and field athlete we miss all the summer festivals because we are away racing in Europe, we even miss out on celebrating the fourth of July.
“Seeing everyone have fun was great and I’ll definitely try and go again next year. By then I might actually feel like eating a strawberry again.
“I bought a crate of strawberries but I’m a little sick of them now, especially as everything at the festival had a strawberry flavour, whether that be strawberry shortcake, strawberry cheesecake even strawberry wine!
“But for now I’m looking forward to starting my season at the Drake Relays in my home town of Des Moines. It has a nice Mondo track there and a big crowd and it is one of the few meetings here in America which is close to being like a European meeting.
“My eldest brother still lives there and I’ll be meeting with my mum, sister and dad for a real family reunion. I’ll also be giving a talk to my kids at my old High School, Theodore Roosevelt.
“But the main aim is to start my season off with a victory in the hurdles where I hope to break my meeting record.”
Lolo
