Not Content With the Waiting....

While I wait to finalize the location of my immediate future, my training is definitely not on hold. In fact, I feel like I'm progressing faster than ever. Last week I managed to finally master a drill that my 14 years of gymnastics has been getting in the way of the last couple of years. Once I got that drill, it really did feel like a lot of things clicked. Right away I was able to get some pretty significant improvement in my short run vaults. I had one great day vaulting with the high school group in town. Then I had a couple of up and down days where the troubles can be blamed only on myself. For some reason I had convinced myself that my normal starting step was a foot back from where it actually was. So I ran through several times because it felt very off, of course since I was at least a foot out. Thinking I was just having an off day, I tried to make it work refusing to let myself give in and move up. But now that I have established myself as a complete idiot, I'm looking forward to my next vaulting day where I get to leave those silly mistakes behind me. I will have a lot more to combat next time, since it will be my first day vaulting outside this season!! Exciting times! In the meantime, it's back to the tentative moving plans that I must say are looking much more definite. I may be in Knoxville by the start of next month!

Big Changes? Or No Changes?

It's been a while. But the last couple of weeks have been really hectic, I don't really know how to make sense of it myself. The indoor season ended with a final meet at App State. Overall it wasn't a bad meet, I definitely jumped better than I had at a meet all season. But it wasn't good enough. I had really high hopes heading into the indoor season. It was my third year in a row thinking I had a shot at getting to indoor nationals, and for the third time I wasn't close. This year is definitely different, I am much more confident in my jumping. And technically it is finally starting to feel like it's coming together. But it's just too late.

After my last meet, my coach and I met to discuss the plans for the outdoor season. I knew in the fall that the end of the indoor season could bring some big changes to my life, and it's looking like I was right. I was given a choice: I could stay in my current training situation in Boone (which, lets be honest is very very good) or I could move to Knoxville and train there. It really was a HUGE decision that I didn't take lightly. I made my choice to leave Boone and head back to Tennessee. There are many bonuses in Knoxville, but the biggest deciding factor for me was really my vaulting. I have been training in Boone for two and a half years now. I truly appreciate how far I have come, and I can't say thank you enough to everyone that has helped me here. Meeting Daniel and getting to train with him has truly changed my life. And I won't necessarily be leaving him behind as a coach, he will still be involved. But I do feel like I need a big change. I have become very comfortable with the training here, which can be a good thing. But I feel like I am getting a little complacent. I am letting myself get away with some things in my training that I am not happy with. Knoxville is scary, I really have no idea what it will hold for me. There are so many unknowns. But I think that getting myself out of my comfort zone could be the best thing for me. I know my vaulting is progressing, but I need to find a way to push past what I'm used to and finally make that breakthrough.

Once the stress of making my decision was over, I had a couple of days to get somewhat excited about the move before it felt like the bottom dropped out on it. The situation has changed, in the end it is definitely for the best. But it puts my immediate future totally up in the air. The pieces aren't coming together in Knoxville like I originally thought. It is frustrating for me, because I am the type of person that doesn't really waver on decisions once they are made. Other than vaulting there are a lot of things hanging in the balance like jobs, a place to live, and all the other things that come along with a big move. I had started informing people in town I was leaving last week. And I spent the weekend looking for apartments and scoping out Knoxville with friends. So if it turns out I am not moving I am going to feel like a pretty big fool. The most stressful part for me is that I feel out of the loop and like the situation is out of my control. It is not a situation that I do not like to be in and I am definitely losing a lot of sleep over it. My biggest fear is that this will drag on and have a negative impact on my outdoor season. All I can do now is assume I'll be moving soon and keep planning along those lines. Hopefully it will all come together in time...

Hikes, Bikes, and One Awesome Weekend

Happy Valentines Day everyone! I'm not too big into the holiday. And I'm spending this one alone. But Geoff and I made up for it by having an amazing weekend!! Saturday was Geoff's day to plan an outing and Sunday was my turn. Great minds think alike, because we both planned things that took advantage of the gorgeous sunny weather! On Saturday we picked up some hot coffee at Earth Fare and went out to hike around by the river. I have been absolutely dying to spend some time outside, so I loved every minute of it. And then we took our time getting back to town, just driving around on backroads enjoying the scenery. It was nice to finally be able to relax together.
Sunday was quite a bit more active. I borrowed a bike from one of Geoff's friends and we headed out the the 4x and slalom courses behind ETSU. With how gloomy the winter has been I know Geoff had been itching to ride. I haven't ridden a bike other than my road bike on a trainer in years. And I haven't been on a mountain bike since at least 2005.... So needless to say I was pretty nervous. I was prepared to eat it a lot and make a fool out of myself, but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun. I didn't fall, and I actually started getting the hang of it again by the end. Maybe I have found my next sport to try my hand at... :)

Yay for the Training Room!!

I never thought I would be excited to be back in the training room, but today I was ecstatic to be there! As a post collegiate athlete, it's really hard to get the kind of consistent medical attention that you get used to in college. It's up to you to stay on top of icing and rehab on your own. And to be totally honest, that is hard to keep up every day. But thanks to some great friends, I have some help now! My new best friend is Sara. I have a few nagging injuries that keep coming back year after year. I think with a little help from Sara every morning I will be in tip top shape, and most importantly I'll be able to avoid those big injuries that can quickly ruin a season. And I'm super excited to be able to ice bath every day!! Woo hoo!!

And on another good note, vaulting this morning was great! We stuck with a shorter run, focusing on getting my plant out early and then being really aggressive off the ground. I really felt like I was making some good progress. I can't wait for Friday when I get to apply all of this to my longer run! :)

Niswonger

So this past weekend was the Niswonger Invitational at ETSU. It's a track (and meet) that I know very very well. I was definitely excited about it. But with all of the travel issues the week before it was a challenge getting recovered in time. Surprisingly, on the day of the meet I was actually feeling great! One thing I have come to expect from Niswonger every year is a REALLY long wait. After warmups I had to sit for almost an hour and a half before I came in, and that was only 4 bars from opening height. 15 girls no-heighted, or didn't clear their first bar. It was rough.
Again, my results weren't exactly what I was hoping for, but there was definitely progress. I started at a higher bar and cleared it on my first attempt. I haven't had a first attempt clearance since the first meet. And most importantly I started on bigger poles. All of my meets so far I have used my 12'4 poles for at least the first bar, but this time I jumped straight to the 13' poles. The last few weeks I have spent a lot of effort trying to simply get used to running from my full run, and now that I'm getting comfortable I am really going to be able to attack my vaults. I still have some technical improvements I can make, and we have decided to take the weekend off so that we can focus on making some changes. My next meet will be back in Boone at App State again. I'll keep you updated on how practices are going. I am really really looking forward to finishing the indoor season with a big jump!

The Summit

So the National Pole Vault Summit turned out to be quite the crazy trip. Overall, I was disappointed with the experience. I have been to the Summit twice before, in 2007 and 2009. Both times I had nothing but great memories. I always loved the lectures, the elite competition was exciting, and the competition itself was always a lot of fun. But this time around was different. I don't feel like I got much out of the lectures, though I think it had less to do with the lectures being different as it did with me just having a lot more knowledge on the topics. The question and answer session with Brad Walker and Tim Mack was really good though. It was just the college and open athletes in there with them, so were a lot of great questions about training. And the highlight of the lecture day was by far Willie Banks' talk as the keynote speaker. If you don't know who he is, he was a world record holder in the triple jump. Check it out, very inspiring!!

">

The competition itself on the whole was very disappointing. Maybe I have a different view on everything this time around because of how far I have come in the last 2 years, but it was just unimpressive. In the elite competition on Friday night, only one girl cleared higher than 14 feet. Two of the top vaulters in the US, one a former Olympian and the other a World team member, both failed to clear a bar at all. I don't think this takes anything away from the girls. They are all great vaulters. I think it just illustrates how difficult it was to jump at the Summit this year. For my own competition on Saturday, I think it was possibly one of the worst run meets that I have ever competed in. I was with a really good group of girls, most of them are capable of jumping 13 feet or higher. But the situation was just terrible. About 10 minutes into warm ups we were told we were only getting 20 more minutes on the runway. Normally you are given about an hour to warm up. And once we started competing the hardest thing to deal with was the crowd. I really like having people watch me jump. In fact, the more the better. It really gets me going. But what I don't like is when all of those people are standing just a couple feet back from the runway. It was like a party down there. And no one was paying attention to the vaulters that were competing. From where my coach was standing at the box, he couldn't see 30 feet down the runway to catch my mid mark. I don't watch the other vaulters much during the meet, but I think the results tell it all. Everyone was struggling. Only 5 girls cleared higher than 12 feet.

Overall I was very proud of myself with how I handled the situation. For the day I only had 2 run thrus, and I know exactly why I ran through on them. It's an easy fix. It was my first meet running from my full run and I handled it well. I finally moved up onto my bigger poles. And I finally felt like I put together a decent jump over a bar:

So I am very happy with how I handled the situation. But the experience was bad enough that we will have to think really hard about whether or not we will add this meet to our schedule again.

The trip back was a great way to top off the weekend. Our flight out of Reno Sunday morning was cancelled. Since there were at least 3 big conventions in town the earliest they were telling us we could get out was Monday evening. So rather than sit there and be unproductive, Geoff and I rented a car and drove by Lake Tahoe over to Sacramento, CA. We were told that the pass was covered in snow and that we wouldn't be able to make it without chains, but it was a gorgeous sunny day up there. Definitely made me wish we had time to stay a while.

Glad he was able to stop before he needed to take a runaway truck ramp!

We were able to get on a flight out of Sacramento Sunday evening, and we met my coach in Phoenix and we were all on the red-eye back Sunday night. I am not a fan of all-nighters so it has taken me a while to recover from that. But my next meet is actually TODAY in Johnson City! It has been an easy week letting my body recover from the travel, and I'm really excited to be back and Johnson City jumping in front of friends and family again. I've got good feelings about this!! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Reno Time!

So this time tomorrow night I will be in Reno, NV getting ready for the Pole Vault Summit. This morning was my last training day in Boone before the early flight out tomorrow, and I am happy to report that it was a GREAT one! Many of you know that I have been trying to move my run back to 8 lefts for a little while now and it hasn't happened for one reason or another. But today I was ready!! We had to move my workout earlier so that 5:30 am wake up came early!! But I was ready and excited. And the vault session went great!! No run thrus from 6 or 8 lefts. And I had to get past some distractions that in the past I have let get in my head. Overall I was really proud of myself. Now I am definitely ready for Reno. It's going to be a great weekend!! As long as we can get to the airport in the snow.....