Huh?!?

Can ANYONE tell me what the heck an “Express” Drive-Thru is??! We figured it had to be something like Express E-Z Pass lanes on the highway where you don’t have to slow down and the toll amount is still deducted but didn’t get a chance to try ordering chicken nuggets at 25 mph. There’s probably a somewhat more sensible explanation, but I still don’t think the sign makes any sense.

Now that I’ve gotten that out…I opened up my outdoor season this past weekend at the Mt. Sac Relays, right outside of Los Angeles. This is two weeks later than I’ve started things out the past couple years but the extra time was necessary given how long my indoor season was and the magnitude of the changes I’ve made since then. After trying an 18 stride approach for a season, my coach and I decided to go back to 16 strides + a slight modification.

While the approach work has been going well in practice, this weekend let me know that there is no substitute for getting in a meet and seeing how things feel and work. As I’m sure you can guess considering what I struggled with indoors, I ended up stutter stepping before the board on what ended up my best jump. Continuing to chip away at that gaping hole in my armor that will make a huge difference right off the bat. On top of that, it seems I was a bit impatient in my step phase and flat in my jump phase. I know I sound like a 3rd party observer by using the phrase “it seems,” but I really couldn’t feel that I was rushing things while jumping and only noticed when I watched the footage. That tells me that the patience is something that will fix itself as my rhythm and timing come together with some more meets.

Oddly enough and thanks to some fouls and bailed jumps, that’s my first jump above that ended up being my best jump. Although it held up as the best mark throughout the competition and I’d gotten the “W” before my last jump; I still wanted to use my last attempt to put a bigger jump out there or at least run all the way through the board for once. I ended up fouling a jump that was maybe over 17 meters but anyways “there are no big fouls, only big jumps.” Here it is:

All in all, I’m happy with the performance considering that it was a season opener and I went in healthy and came out healthy. I know that if I fix nothing but my approach, I can jump a whole lot further and when I fix the rest of my jump…well I’ll let the jumps that come speak for themselves. In the mean and in between, finals are around the corner so I’ll resume the role of legal scholar for some time. I’ll update on what the next step on my track schedule will be as soon as I find out for certain.