Hardee glad to be healthy
Two-time NCAA decathlon champion at UT looking forward to competing at full strength.
As he stretched and prepared for his afternoon workout Monday, Trey Hardee wasn’t showing any signs of the injuries that have hampered him the past few years.
His elbow, which was reconstructed before the 2012 Olympics, didn’t hold him back while he did power cleans, a lift that combines elements of a squat and a biceps curl, in the weight room inside Royal-Memorial Stadium.
His hamstring, which forced him to drop out of the 2013 world championships, was as strong as ever as he finished his 90-minute workout with weighted squat jumps.
“Man, it feels good to be healthy. I haven’t had that opportunity in a while to really be healthy for a season,” said Hardee, who won the 2005 and 2006 NCAA decathlon titles at Texas. “And I’ve done well, even with injuries, so I feel like I’m playing with house money.”
And that’s bad news for the rest of the world’s decathletes.
Hardee was still recovering from injury when he won an Olympic silver medal in London. When healthy, he’s arguably the top decathlete in the world.
At the national track and field championships last month, Hardee won the decathlon with 8,725 points, edging out 2012 Olympic champion Ashton Eaton. It was the second-best score of his career, an achievement not lost on the 31-year-old Hardee.
“I guess I get better with age,” he said. “The main goal going into (the) U.S. championships was to make the team. Now we can go forward and build toward worlds.”
Though Hardee would enjoy hoisting a world title during next month’s IAAF World Championships in Beijing, his goal throughout the season has been to remain healthy.
“We set new goals and things we want to achieve each season,” Hardee said. “This year we were focusing on staying healthy and being able to have a full season completely without injuries.”
He’s not looking ahead, but Hardee is well aware that a healthy 2015 could lay the groundwork for a gold medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next summer.
“Of course, things snowball — both good and bad — and if you can have a strong training year and roll it into another one, that can be all the difference you need,” he said.
It can also be a mental edge in a grueling sport, whose Olympic champion is usually crowned “the World’s Greatest Athlete.”
Decathletes compete in 10 events over two days, with scores assigned for each event. Hardee — a former collegiate pole vaulter — is usually at his strongest on Day 2, which consists of the 110-meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1,500 meters.
“I know where I need to be on Day 1, since I tend to be stronger on Day 2,” Hardee said. “And that allows me to focus on myself. Because in this sport, you can tell when someone is broken or having a great day.”
Hardee wants to have a “great day” at the world championships, and his training is working toward that.
A typical workout includes 90 minutes to two hours in the gym, “depending on how quick the coffee kicks in,” and a session on the track, where he works on his throws and running events.
“It’s all about getting everything together” for a decathlon, Hardee said. “On the way to that, we’ll run other events — maybe the 100 here, and the discus — at different meets, which frankly don’t go that well since we’re training so much. But it all really pays off when you can put it together at a big event like U.S. championships or worlds.”