Making deposits; that’s pretty much what I’m doing from now until next August…making deposits. Each practice I complete is considered a deposit made into my Daegu 2011 Bank so that over the course of the next 308 days I am consistently adding to my repertoire and strengthening my weaknesses. I plan on showing up in South Korea ready to make it happen and just let my investments pay dividends. Admittedly, it is a tad bit early to be preaching about Daegu and the 2011 World Championships even though I’m thinking about it, so for now I’ll just let you know how my first couple weeks of practice went.

As I’m sure is the case with everybody else who is getting back into their groove right about now, the first couple weeks are pretty painful. This year, my coach and I set our starting point a good bit higher than last year so by Thursday of the first week even walking was painful. That’s probably due in no small part to the fact that my workouts on most Wednesdays in this part of the season consist of a full weight room session followed by by sled/tire pulls and then some nice, long 100m hills; lots of them. That said, this past week wasn’t nearly as bad and I’m glad my body got hip to the game pretty quickly. I do have one more workout tomorrow though but I’m feeling great going into it.

Without boring you with the details, I’m working in 3 week cycles for now (two weeks hard; one week “down,” but not really “down” if you know what I mean). Each week, I have 3 weight room sessions, two running sessions and two jumping/bounding sessions. Sprinkled in there are some body weight circuits, tire pulls, plyo circuits and hurdle/hip mobility among other things. We won’t get on the runway for a bit but each day I feel myself getting stronger and more prepared to make the most of the coming runway work. Believe it or not, because of that feeling of daily progress I actually enjoy the struggle that goes along with fall training; or any training for that matter. It’s also a blessing to be able to devote myself fully to the triple jump for a bit as it means that I am able to do the little things as far as training AND recovery are concerned.