I got assigned lane 1 in a meet last Saturday and frantically tried to avoid getting hit by a javelin at around 50 meters into the race. Fortunately, I didn't get hit, but it threw me off my rhythm. I ended up finishing 6th out of 8.
I really doubt I would have won or even finished in the top 4 if that didn't happen, but approximately how much time did that cost me? Has anyone ever experienced anything similar to this?
BTW, a video of the race is below. The incident occurs at around 15 seconds into the video: