So in a total of about 4 days, I made it to Daegu, Korea, competed at the IAAF World Challenge Meet and made it back to my home base in Virginia. To give a brief recap of the experience: it was tiring; not as tiring as you might expect, but still very tiring nonetheless. I, along with a good number of other athletes who competed at the meet, arrived in Daegu on Monday evening after a total of 15 hours in the air on my end. After catching dinner with my agent and a couple of his other clients, I had to hit the streets of Daegu for a quick jog/shakeout since the fitness center was already closed (it was after 11PM by that time). I got a massage the next morning and just hung out around the hotel, spending most of the time on Skype with Ms. Alexander, until the skies cleared a bit and I was able to hit the warm up track without getting soaked. I like to get my pre-meet workout in around the time I’ll be competing the next day anyways though, just to help my body get used to things just a little bit more; especially since most of these events begin after 6PM which is rarely the case with meets in the States. There was also a pretty nice welcome reception and dinner for us the night before the meet buuut I missed the presentation and performance portion of that and made it just in time for the 4 or 5 course meal.

Presentation at Athlete's Reception

“Meet day” went mostly according to plan and thanks to a brief nap before hopping on the bus to the track, I was able to minimize (not eliminate) the yawning I did while warming up. That said, my warm up went pretty well considering I started off feeling a little tight; but I felt like I was ready to rock. The stadium setting and crowd were both amazing. It wasn’t quite sold out, but there were at least a good 25,000+ people thanks in no small part to Usain Bolt making his 100 meter debut. Of course the atmosphere helped us jumpers get into the competition and enjoy ourselves as well. But, about the jumping…

To sum it up: I didn’t jump as well as I should have. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very positive experience overall. I competed against a very high quality field and took 3rd. I also jumped farther than I had on all but two occasions last year (16.64m), but that point is hurt a bit by the fact that I came out the gates with that 16.92m performance in April. My speed down the runway and even at the board were also better than almost any time before. So I’m aware of the positives I should take away from this past meet. All that aside though, I am just particularly disappointed because not only did I not execute, but I made mistakes that I wouldn’t make 98 times out of 100. I can post the video here or on vimeo/youtube if enough people want me to, but for now let’s just say that it was beyond hideous for a near 55′ jump. I didn’t exactly stutter step at the board because I chopped my stride for about 12 of the 16 total strides of my approach! As a result I didn’t actually run off of the board and my hop was short and choppy in the same manner that I was running down the runway. To be honest, I’m not sure if the hop was even 18 feet which of course caused complications in the step phase and even jump phase which was the only saving grace of the jump. I couldn’t believe what I saw when I first watched the footage.

Myself and Some of the Other Guys in the Field

Fortunately enough, this should be a relatively “easy” fix! This was of course only my second time using this new approach in competition and I just have to remember to stay fluid on the runway going forward. I also have to get my hop trajectory and rhythm down which will only come with competitions and time; especially considering how well practices have been going. So on that note, I know that I’ll be competing for sure at the Diamond League meet in NY on June 12th. It would be nice to get one more meet in before then so I can get some more “practice” in a competition setting. We’ll see if that desire comes to fruition. In the mean time, my graduation is Sunday so I’m definitely looking forward to soaking that all in and aside from that I’ll be doing everything possible to make sure all systems are a go on June 12th.