The fourth and final Royal Canadian Legion nationals for Garrett King is shaping up to be a personal best.
“I would really love to place on the podium, but if not I’m looking for a good PB to end the season with,” said King, 17, who will challenge for medals at the Aug. 6 to 8 Canadian youth track and field championships at the Terry Fox Athletic facility in Ottawa.
Last year the St. Albert hurdler aggravated a tender hamstring in the 110-metre preliminaries and was done for the meet. The injury also sidelined the youth division competitor in the 400m hurdles, 400m and relays.
“I ran my prelim and I couldn’t really walk after that. I thought it would be OK but it wasn’t,” said King, who made Team Alberta that year with a provincial age-group record time of 14.77 in the 110m hurdles at the U17 Legion national qualifier. “The injury was a pretty big bummer but you can’t let it get you down; you’ve just got to stay as positive as you can and train harder and come back better next year.”
King’s best showing at Legion nationals was bronze in 2008 in the 300m hurdles at 41.67 in the U15 division. He also placed fourth in the 400m and fifth in the 100m hurdles.
The order of finish in his 2007 Legion national debut at the U15 level was fourth in the 100m hurdles and fifth in the 300m hurdles and long jump.
“Going there as a first year midget, it’s your first experience on a big team at a big meet. It’s the first time that you’re going to experience competing on the national stage, where it’s you against the best of Canada,” King said. “You realize you have to train even harder because every year the competition is just going to get harder as well too because in Canada that is our biggest competition of the year.”
Under the direction of Walter David, his long-time sprints coach, and hurdles specialist Ian Herriott, the Edmonton Olympic Track and Field Club member is going for the gold in the 110m hurdles, 400m and possibly the 300m hurdles.
“It’s coming to the end of our season so we’re all peaking right now so workouts are more focused on the technical and fine tuning stuff,” King said. “We’re not overloading in training because you’re not really going to gain much for conditioning within the next two weeks.”
This weekend at westerns in Winnipeg he will race for medals in the 110 and 300 metre hurdles and the 400m. Also on the provincial team are Olympic club teammates Niki Oudenaarden (youth division) and Morgan Walker (midget division) of St. Albert.
“It’s a really good meet to have before Legion nationals because it’s Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It’s a good prep for it,” King said.
At westerns King will run the 300m hurdles for the first time this season. As for the 110m hurdles, he was clocked at 14.90 in the preliminaries at the Alberta Age Class Provincial Championships last month in St. Albert, which also served as the provincial qualifier for westerns and Legion nationals.
“I ended up injuring my groin there in the finals so I don’t have my fastest time in that event yet.”
In the 400m King posted a personal best of 50.06 as the winner of the high school event final at the Edmonton International Track Classic last month at Foote Field.
“It was such a great experience getting to run at that meet. All of our Canadian Olympians were running there too and just to be on the same field warming up with them was a really cool experience.”
The previous weekend at the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association championships, the Paul Kane student finished first in the Grade 11 intermediate 400m at 50.74. His victory in the 100m hurdles at 13.53 was the third gold and fourth medal in two trips to the high school provincials.
His breakthrough performance in the 400m was at the 2008 Legion national qualifier as the top runner at 52.23. At nationals his fourth-place time was 52.32.
“My coaches have always been bugging me for years to start doing the 400 and this year my training program really was focused around the 400, as well as the 400 hurdles but they changed the 400 hurdles to 300 hurdles this year for us [in the youth division],” said the 2007 Athletics Alberta midget male athlete of the year.
On the eve of his last appearance at Legion nationals, King was sad to see it coming to an end.
“I am because the Legion puts on such a great program. They fly us out and they basically take care of us there for a week. It’s awesome what they do for us out there,” said the three-time participant in the North American Finals of the Hershey’s Track and Field Games.
