It’s been about a month since I last stepped on the runway and just as much time since I shared a new blog post. I’m hoping to be doing both of those things a little more regularly (even if it’s once every other week). Last weekend though, I made my way down to the Bahamas with a few of my teammates to compete in their National/Open Championships. Since Haiti doesn’t have a National Champs of their own, the BAAA (the track and field federation down there) has always been kind and cooperative enough to give us the opportunity to compete at their own championships. The Bahamas is strong in a number of events and with Leevan Sands being a World and Olympic medalist, the triple jump is definitely one of those strong events; so you know I was excited to get some great competition and not have to fly more than 3 hours to find it.

Training has also never been better over the past month. If you’d like to know why, see for yourself –

I’ve been working on fixing my jump phase by timing my arms better since it was flat in both Jamaica and Brazil. The whole timing/synchronization of the arms adjustment also helped my step phase as you can tell.

When the show got on the road down in Freeport last Saturday, I felt great, the crowd was engaged (even if it was only to cheer for Leevan) and I was ready to put up a big mark. Things didn’t exactly go that way though. I ended up fouling all of my respectable jumps, but at least they were jumps that I could live with…had I gotten a white flag on any one of them. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t great or even as good as the above training jumps but they were 17 meters+ and I can’t complain about 17 meter jumps. There’s also the fact that the runway had a 6 foot long jump board which meant that I wasn’t getting as much going into my jump phase as I would have liked and lost nearly all of my speed each time I landed on it.

I fouled a total of 4 of my 6 jumps and took one from way behind the board but here are a couple of those fouls –

Now, something has to be said for the pit we were jumping into. Typically, there’s nothing better than hitting a pit when it is nicely raked and properly dug up. This pit over the weekend couldn’t have been any further from that. The pit was so hard that when your feet hit it, they slid out from under your as if you were trying to jump on concrete with cleats on. They tried digging the pit up after each round but it didn’t help at all and every jumper left the pit limping thanks to a sore tailbone. It wasn’t a good look; to say the least.

All in all, the trip was a great one. The Bahamian Federation and population in general were amazingly helpful and accommodating which made the trip that much more enjoyable. As far as my runway issues are concerned, I’d actually prefer fouling to the stutter-stepping I was doing all last year because it means that I’m finally running all the way down the runway and probably that I just have a better drive phase. I compete again next weekend in New York, as opposed to a month from now so I’ll be able to get a rhythm going finally which is great because I’m anxious to fix some things from last week and get a legal jump that reflects the level I’m ready to compete at!

P.S. — Photo credit to my teammate Alie Beauvais

I made my second trip to Rio de Janeiro last week, this time for the Grande Premio Brasil Caixa de Atletismo which was an IAAF World Challenge competition. My first time to Rio was 4 years ago for the Pan American Games and considering the fact that I didn’t even make the finals back then, I felt like I had some unfinished business to handle at the stadium in Rio. On top of that, I’m not sure if one win counts as a win streak, but after getting the win in Jamaica I was anxious to go 2 for 2 at World Challenge meets, regardless of who else was competing.

After a reasonably long flight from Miami to Rio and about an hour drive to the hotel I was finally able to get a decent meal and then head straight to the track. Believe it or not, I laced up my spikes and did some bounding and accelerations/sprints to shake out the cobwebs and get some blood flowing in my legs again. The following day was a simple pre-meet warm up that included some hurdle hops along with some block starts to help me feel how I would like to drive in my first few strides on the runway. Looks like I should consider doing some sprinting on the side right? Or at least start giving folks lessons on coming out of the blocks! In all seriousness though, I felt great going into Thursday night’s competition and was ready to take care of business.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as planned although I won’t complain too much about the outcome. I started off warm ups having a little trouble with my approach and it was probably thrown off by the fact that I was driving, pushing and just running better down the runway. So after fouling my first jump, I jumped into the lead in the second round with a 16.92m attempt which ended up being my best of the night. That lead didn’t last long as I was eventually passed by two former World Championships medalists from Cuba (one jumping 16.95m and the other jumping 16.93m). I actually passed my 4th attempt because my knee started to feel a little sore in the third round so I figured it wasn’t worth it since 16.92m was a mark I could live with in my second “real” competition of the year.

The competition itself wasn’t bad although the stadium was pretty much empty except for the backstretch where the runways were. Even with people watching the competition it seemed like they were more interested in partying than cheering for competitors, although the Brazilian athletes got some solid support which is to be expected. I didn’t mind though since I get a boost just about any time I hear noise, music or cheering in the stands and I’m about to jump…even if it’s not for me.

The jumps themselves felt good and relatively effortless like they should. It would have been nice to get some video but that’s usually tough to do. I have been working hardest on my approach and hop-step as you all know and my jump phase hasn’t been what it will eventually be (or even what it usually is). I felt as if I wasn’t being patient and simply curled into a ball and cannon-balled into the pit and as a result probably robbed myself of at least an extra foot. That won’t happen anymore and I’m looking forward to fixing it the next time I compete which will hopefully be on June 11th at the Adidas Grand Prix in NY; if not there then June 25th in the Bahamas.

Finally a quick thanks to a couple new/relatively new sponsors that I am now happy to be working with: Mizuno and RIVALUS.

ON TO THE NEXT ONE…

My first trip to Jamaica was long overdue and probably a bit too short to actually enjoy it like you’re supposed to. This was a business trip though.

After some uncertainty about whether or not I would be competing at the meet at all, I received my flight itinerary a little over two hours from the “wheels up” time so I was in hustle mode from the get-go. With my flight leaving from Baltimore as opposed to Washington National airport for some reason, I had a 45 mile drive in some thick Friday afternoon traffic before making it onto the plane.  Thanks to my tight schedule I found myself running from security to my gate (of course I first cut the security line to save some time) which is something I laugh at when I see other people doing. Guess I won’t be laughing anymore.

The flight to Kingston itself isn’t a long one really, but with the layover in Miami and then passport control in JA, I was exhausted by the time I got to eat dinner at almost midnight. Even so, I felt mostly rested on the day of the competition but the fact that we competed after 8PM didn’t help my cause. The meet itself was amazing though. It’s no mystery that track and field might as well be the national sport in JA and the crowd definitely reflected that fact. With probably no more than 25,000 people in the stands, it sounded as if there were 60,000 and the athletes definitely responded. For a meet in the first weekend of May there were some amazing performances across the board so as a fan of the sport, I had a great time! Ayanna being at the meet to compete in both the triple jump and long jump definitely helped my overall experience too though.

As far as the triple jump competition is concerned, like I hinted at above, we started a good bit behind schedule (about 40 minutes to be exact). On top of that, with all of the winds being headwinds, I’m not sure why we didn’t jump in the opposite direction. In any case, while I wish I had some video to share, I’ll just say that I ran through the board for the second time this season and jumped 16.80m into a 1.2m/s headwind on my first jump. The other jumps ended up being all over the place (all of them fouls either because I was over the board or ran out of the hop because things didn’t feel right) but the 16.80m felt easy and that’s a great thing. Getting the W is a good thing too and that jump was enough to do that. The distance could have/should have been a bit farther but my jump phase wasn’t as long and patient as it usually is but that’s an easy enough fix and a fix I’ll make at my next meet in Brazil.

This is a good starting point as the meets get more and more serious and competitive from here on out.

Trying something new for this update so no long winded and wordy introduction this time around. Straight to the video…

I uploaded the video of my UTEP jumps directly to my Facebook Fan Page so head there if you’re interested in checking that out. Next up for me will be a couple of meet in Brazil in May but in the mean time I’m heading to one of my least favorite cities this weekend to support Ayanna at the Penn Relays.

I fully realize that for some people, the outdoor track and field season got underway a couple weeks ago now. In fact, we had the first big relay meet of the year last weekend (Florida Relays; no disrespect to meets like the Raleigh Relays) and the Texas Relays take place this weekend. Unfortunately I won’t be able to head down to Austin to check them out though. In any case, my situation has been a little bit different. Thanks to some odd weather in the DC area, I had what felt like the first true workout of the outdoor season just this past Wednesday. The weatherman stopped predicting snow and hail and we were able to do a full jumping workout outside. Now I can say that I really feel like the outdoor track season, the TRUE track season, has arrived; just in time too since I’ll be opening up my season next weekend in El Paso at the UTEP Invitational. Besides, I know you had to have been tired of seeing videos with the same George Mason wall painting in the background from the indoor track.

As far as Wednesday’s workout is concerned, it went pretty well in my opinion. Check out the video below of my “cleanest” run through and a short approach jump of the session. For some reason my timing and posture were a bit off as far as my jump phase is concerned so my landing wasn’t as crisp as usual and I kept robbing myself of a couple feet. Don’t laugh at how I ended up sprawled out in the pit. 2 out of 3 phases isn’t bad though especially considering that this is only our second “true jumping” workout of the year and my hop-step is what I have been really working to get down so far. Of course. as always, there’s still room to improve in the hop-step transition and I’m still getting used to this technique change from a month or so ago.

Finally, last week we did some weight room and jump testing. I was slacking a bit and didn’t get any video but here are the results.

• Weight Room
  • Bench Press (arms to 90 degrees) – 315 lbs/143 kgs
  • Power Clean – 320 lbs/145 kgs
  • Power Snatch – 221 lbs/100 kgs
  • Hang Snatch – 208 lbs/94 kgs
  • Deadlift – 408 lbs/185 kgs
• Jump Tests
  • 4 Hops (Right) – 75’9″/23.08m *personal best*
  • 4 Hops (Left) – 73’0″/22.25m
  • 2 Hops-2 Steps (LLRL) – 74’7″/22.73m *personal best*
  • 4 Steps (RLRL) – 75’7″/23.04m *personal best*

Almost a year ago I wrote a post on a brief trip I made to Haiti…as in the Haitian embassy in D.C. This past weekend I made an actual trip to Haiti with Ayanna and my teammate Moise and had the weekend of a lifetime; to say the least. The purpose of the trip was to visit Shalom Village, an orphanage in Cap Haitien which is the country’s 2nd largest city and about an hour flight north of Port-au-Prince (PaP). The city also has a population that is nearly 65% under the age of 18, so you can understand the value of an orphanage there at this point in time. While the city itself wasn’t directly affected by the earthquake, some kids at Shalom Village and other Cap Haitien orphanages are from PaP. Of course even before the earthquake, orphanages in  Haiti played a crucial role in providing children with a chance to live safely with people who care about them and eat meals on a consistent basis (even though 2 meals is less than “normal,” 2 square meals is a great day for a large number of children in Haiti).

While my time with the kids was certainly the primary highlight of the trip I also had the opportunity to see and do things in Haiti that people who haven’t visited the country might only expect from other, more “tourist-friendly” islands. I even got to spend some time with my uncle and aunt which was a great experience in and of itself. This was before spending some time chatting with Wyclef about Haitian track and field and the country’s Olympic prospects.

We had some travel difficulties here and there and even with those in mind, it was a GREAT weekend. I came back to the States with a more heightened and focused sense of purpose overall as well as a desire to get back to work on the track with even more intensity than before.

We all know that a picture is worth 1000 words; so to keep this post from getting too wordy, I’ll share some pics from the trip.

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[View with PicLens]

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Things are starting to come together a bit more following last week’s technique change. Little by little though.

I set an indoor personal best yesterday and felt relatively comfortable doing it. Still, by now you know that indoors doesn’t excite me too much except that I appreciate being able to “train” in a competition atmosphere and at full speed. I also appreciate indoors as a preview of what to expect for outdoors considering things like the fact that because our training is focused on June through August we are still in a bit of a strength training phase.

I got back to work today though because I’m ready to go farther, much farther. Check out the meet footage below. I wish the first jump wasn’t a foul even though the last phase wasn’t near as good as my second jump. But, there’s no such thing as big fouls…only big jumps right?

P.S. If you haven’t yet, head on over to my Facebook fan page and hit the “like” button for me. I try to put up new blog posts as frequently as possible but I am able to post smaller updates over there as they happen.

So I’ve been sent back to school; triple jump school. I can’t say that I ever really left Triple Jump School since I’m constantly learning, tweaking and attempting to perfect different aspects of my craft. Actually, even if I jumped this far, I’d still be back in the “classroom” the following Monday or Tuesday (after a bit of celebrating of course).

Given the recent issue with my arms being out of sync like I mentioned in my last post, I am going to try and revamp my technique in the hop phase. The main goals are the same (maintain speed, hop far and be patient) but instead of literally running off of the board and using a single arm take off, I’m going to try a double arm hop. To be fair, it’s probably somewhere between a single arm and double arm take off but either way, it’s very different than what I’m used to. There are probably just as many “single-arm hoppers” as double-arm at the international level but in my case it will allow me to make use of my left arm in the second phase rather than having it tucked like I have been doing since I switched to a single arm hop way back in my sophomore year at Harvard.

Yesterday was the first time we’ve done short approach jumps with spikes on in a little while and it was also the perfect time to start perfecting the new technique. When I hit it right, it felt great and other times it felt like it was my first time really working at it.

Both jumps are about the same distance even though my 2nd phase on the 2nd jump isn’t as patient as it was on the 1st. I definitely had more speed on the jump phase though which is what made up for the weak step phase.

Given how things went yesterday, I’m really looking forward to giving things a go from a full approach.

It’s just a matter of time before I get my timing down…

My approach this year has been, respectable. Not great and not “exactly” where I think it should and eventually will be, but it is far better than last year. As a result, I am hitting the board with far more speed and my timing on each phase is a bit out of wack because of it. I feel as if I end up rushing things on the jumps rather than taking advantage of the extra speed and enjoying the ride on each phase. It boils down to timing though, because that is what influences foot placement and arm position; the two things that help to minimize ground contact time and also determine the amount of speed conserved throughout the jump. As I learn to be patient I have also got to slow things down in the air until exactly the right moment when I end up exploding into the next phase. So with that said, here is the product of my competition at the Armory this past weekend.

The above jump is actually the main reason that the competition wasn’t a complete waste. It certainly wasn’t my farthest jump of the day and the approach wasn’t even as good as it has been in recent competitions, but this jump teaches me enough to make up for the lackluster distance of my best jump of the meet. After all, indoors isn’t about distances anyways remember? Even though I am actually “mostly” happy with the approach on the jump, the hop phase is what really caught my eye. I was more patient than I had been at other competitions and got some good distance on the hop. The final two phases are horrible but that is where the timing becomes an issue.

Once I get my timing down I won’t crash on the transition of the hop-step and will be able to explode into the second and then into the third phases. I will also be able to make efficient use of my left arm rather tucking it like I did here. Even though I slowed things down a little, it wasn’t slow enough considering the ground I was covering and I ended up basically falling back onto my right foot rather than being active and exploding into the next phase. The end result is a horrible second phase and horrible posture in that phase. It seems I also cut the cycle of my right left short on the hop phase. It’s always the little things.

Even with all that, I can say that this jump is a quality one in my book because of the lessons learned from it. Even though my hop phase is the only worthwhile piece of this jump I feel as if this jump will be the template for the huge ones to follow. It’s just a matter of time before I get my timing down.

…And when I do…

I most certainly have my feet firmly grounded in reality. Still though, considering that my last “Passing the Time” post had to do with the amount of television that I watch, you’ve probably already figured out that I don’t spend all of my free time reading and attempting to be an intellectual; which was the topic for the first post. Depending on recent game releases, I probably spend just as much time playing video games as I do watching television when I’m not training, getting treatment, eating or sleeping. I’m not ashamed of that fact either. It’s probably no mystery that video gaming is big amongst male professional athletes and I KNOW that female athletes play their fair share as well; don’t be fooled. Ayanna does work on my Nintendo Wii. Although I do play a couple of online/multiplayer games, I typically play video games for the challenge and satisfaction of completing single player games and solving the puzzles that go along with doing so. I’ll also admit though, I actively keep up with the video game and tech worlds and a couple of the websites I check on a daily basis include: IGN.com and G4TV.com.

At the moment I have both an Xbox 360 and a Nintendo Wii but I’ve been a huge fan of video games since the Super Nintendo days. I did have an original NES but at that time my parents limited my video gaming a whole lot more than they did as I got older…and even then I was really only allowed to play on weekends. I have to say though, in my opinion the Super Nintendo is the best video game system ever. Nowadays though, most of my time is spent on the Xbox unless a “must buy” Wii title comes out. That said, I don’t really have a genre that I stick with or avoid for that matter and I also even dabble in the PC gaming world as well: I’m pretty open minded.

While some of these titles are obvious I’m sure, here are the games that I am playing, have played or have enjoyed most recently–

PC

• Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
• DC Universe Online

Wii

• Super Mario Galaxy 2
• Sonic and Mario at the Olympics

Xbox 360

• Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
• Madden 2011
• NBA 2k11
• Mass Effect 2
• Army of Two: 40th Day
• Splinter Cell Conviction
• Batman: Akham Asylum