“Yeah, I thought it and I achieved it…“

‘Doing’ is very distinct from ‘trying.’ It’s so distinct, that the mindset you decide to approach an undertaking with, that you’re going to do or you’re going to try (to do), can make all the difference in the outcome of that undertaking.

My approach when it comes to competitions AND training is to be a ‘doer’ as opposed to a ‘trier’. If coach has a killer workout penciled in for the day, I never get to the track thinking that I’m going to try and get through or survive the workout, but rather that I’m going to manhandle it; period. That goes for every workout, regardless of what’s on tap or what day it is. If I’m at a meet and I’ve outlined a goal for myself beforehand then my mindset is that it’s already a done deal. In many respects getting on the runway just becomes protocol mostly because I’ve already accomplished the goal and rehearsed my jumps so many times in my mind that the execution takes care of itself.

It would be incredible if my attempt to be a ‘doer’ always resulted in the achievement of my goals an aspirations (whether in triple jumping or otherwise) but as you might imagine, this unfortunately isn’t the case. I’m certain that it isn’t the case for anybody, regardless of how solid they are at mental preparation or how accomplished they may be overall. Still, the only way to get a running start down the road towards your dreams, whether Olympic gold or absolutely anything else, is to do, not to try.

Ralph Marston had a superb post on his own blog/website last Thursday, The Daily Motivator, so call me lazy for piggybacking on it but I couldn’t have written a better post on the topic if I tried so I’ll share it here. Of course, these aren’t my words –

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The way to achieve is not to try. The way to achieve is to do.

The difference between trying and doing is all in your perspective. That difference makes all the difference in the world.

When you see yourself as trying, you are burdening yourself with the expectation of failure. Instead, put all your energy and focus into doing your very best, and into expecting the best results.

Merely trying is itself an excuse, and it gives you permission to make all sorts of other excuses. Doing, on the other hand, gets results.

If you’re going to make the effort, then make it count. Let go of any thoughts that you’re just trying, and embrace the most positive expectations.

You are absolutely capable of making a real and valuable difference. So forget about trying, and with well-deserved confidence, go ahead and get it done.

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On that note, I like how my New York Giants got it done last night especially considering that, to a man, the entire team went into the game to claim victory and nothing less. Super Bowl here we come!

2012 is finally here…

I keep saying that I need to blog on a more frequent and more consistent basis, and I really do mean it when I say it; let’s see if I can actually get the ball rolling in 2012 though.

In any case, for this first blog post of 2012 I just wanted to share an interview that I recently did with BBC Sports. Check it out, feel free to comment here and also check out (and ‘like’) my Facebook Fan Page while you’re at it since I share tidbits there a little more frequently than I do here.

Training is going really well and I most likely won’t open up my season until February, in anticipation of the World Indoor Champs. We’re getting into things a little bit more gradually this time around since I’ve already hit all of the important competition standards. I’ll be back with some training and other updates in the near future.

Happy New Year folks!

239 Days to Go. That’s what the countdown on the London 2012 website reads now and although it seems like the Games of the XXX Olympiad are right around the corner, I have to fight back my anxiety. I’m sure other athletes preparing for next summer are doing the same thing because although the utmost effort, focus and intensity are requirements for each and every training session between now and July/August 2012, you don’t want to burn out emotionally before the summer even gets here.

2011 was a long season for me, to say the least. I began competing in January and went through October. I got off to a great start (May through July) but I didn’t maintain that momentum and fell short in my two primary goals for the season, those of course being the World Championships and the Pan American Games. Better this year than next year though, right? That’s what folks have told me and it’s 100% accurate. I’ll be heading to Istanbul, Turkey for the World Indoor Championships in March and we’ve got 98 days to go until then. Although the indoor champs don’t mean as much as the Olympic Games…I’m looking forward to them just as much as I’m looking forward to London. I’ll be ready for Istanbul but will be even more prepared for London and looking to do something truly special. It all starts here; 8 or so months out.

I’ve had the last 4+ weeks off from training and it’s been great to just relax and spend the time in New York without my family. About a week and a half ago though, I started with some really light workouts to get the blood flowing and muscles going again. Even though I did some light weight/high repetition workouts in the weight room, I actually jogged for the first time in a month this week; I had been biking to that point. I’m definitely easing into things before the workouts get truly intense but something tells me that I won’t be any less sore come next week or the week after. Either way, it’ll be really  good to get back to work; with my eyes on the prize…

Daegu was disappointing to say the least and I’ve been underground a bit since then. Considering the fact that I was in the best shape of my life (thus far) having jumped near or farther than 17 meters from a short approach on two separate occasions, I really can’t even explain how or why I jumped as poorly as I did. Sure I could have used a trip to the chiropractor while I was out there but I felt fast on the runway and my workouts while out in Korea had all been on point. In any case, if you read my blog posts or check out my Facebook fan page with any regularity you know that things went as bad as they could have gone. While Daegu was supposed to be my introduction to the world, I now consider it just a “minor setback for a major comeback.” That comeback is going to begin in Guadalajara, Mexico.

On October 27^th I’ll be competing at my second Pan American Games which are officially underway as of Friday. My performance in a torrential downpour in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 is pretty amusing now that I look back at it. I think I jumped 15.45m even though my season best that year was 16.31m. I am certainly not the athlete that I was then and unless one of my teammates beats me to it this year, I plan on coming away with Haiti’s first Pan American Games medal in athletics. Training since Daegu has been…interesting and somewhat up and down. I’m sure my body is a bit surprised by being in this phase of training all the way into October but with a couple weeks until Pan Ams we’re starting to kick training up even more and things are beginning to fall into place and finally starting to get excited about being back on the runway.  I’m definitely excited to be one of the 12 athletes (8 track and field, 1 tae kwon do, 1 judo, 1 tennis and 1 weightlifting) representing Haiti at the Games though! Compare that to the US’s 600 athletes.

I’ve been in Daegu since Wednesday and am starting to get my legs under me; finally. Getting here was a story in and of itself considering the fact that it took just under 27 hours, but I’m fortunate to not have to compete for the first time until Friday. My teammate Moise on the other hand, had to run the first round of the 800m on Saturday morning and definitely felt the effects of the trip in the closing stretch of his race. Getting to Daegu just two or three days before his race was quite the disadvantage for him but once again, the reason that we didn’t arrive earlier that is a story in it’s own right.

The accommodations here are definitely pretty comfortable to say the least and Daegu pulled out all the stops for this village and as far as taking care of the athletes is concerned. The food leaves  a bit to be desired, but hey…it can’t all be perfect and luckily I brought a good amount of Rivalus Promasil along with some other snacks just in case.

My coach gets in today but the workouts I’ve done on my own since being here have gone pretty well; each one better than the next. I’ve already had three relatively light weight room sessions as well as a speed session so I’m getting nice and familiar with the track and with getting my body going early in the AM since I’ll be competing at 10:30 AM on Friday. Now that coach is here though I’ll hop on the runway for some approaches and light jumping.

The fact that I compete at the tail end of the meet means that I’ve been venturing out of the village only to hit the track and a shopping center that happens to be a five minute bike ride away. This is my 2nd time in Daegu and I didn’t do any sightseeing last time either but from what I’ve heard there isn’t too much to see anyhow; unlike Seoul where there’s plenty to see and do. I’ve been passing the time by making use of the Kindle app on my iPad, watching episodes of “Breaking Bad” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and of course tuning into the meet. I still wish I hadn’t blown the AC adapter for my Xbox on my first day here!

P.S. Huge thanks to Mizuno for helping us look like we belong at the World Championships.  They provided our team with some pretty amazing uniforms and gear!

The World Championships are literally around the corner at this point and I can’t wait. I’m as ready as I’ve ever been and will be even more prepared come the qualifying round. Since my last blog post, I took the New York State bar exam up in Albany, NY which was far from fun as anybody who has taken the exam will tell you. Now that it is out of the way though, I not only have a little more free time on my hands, but I can gladly turn my attention and focus to September 2nd and 4th (qualifying and finals of the TJ in Daegu).

I competed at the Aviva London Grand Prix two weeks ago now and although it didn’t go as expected (16.61m for 6th place), it felt good to get back on the runway without having Criminal Procedure, Secured Transactions, Evidence, Wills or some other bar exam topic in the back of my mind. My pre-meet workout felt great but when Saturday morning rolled around and it was time to warmup to compete, I felt a bit more tired than I would have liked. During the competition itself, I felt as if I was jumping well as far as technique is concerned aside from a flat jump phase, but I wasn’t running as well as I did down in Puerto Rico. At this point speed is the name of the game and I definitely didn’t have it then. Considering the fact that we’re now starting to do more and more speed work in practice though, I know my speed won’t be a problem in Daegu. On top of that, I’ll have more than just one day to get over the time zone shift which is what I dealt with out in London.

Last week was probably the final week where I’ll be lifting heavy and doing some “serious” jumping in practice so it seems we’re finally starting to taper off; especially as we get closer to about two weeks or so out from the first day of jumping in Korea. I actually had two jumping sessions in a week for the first time in a while last week. That was in addition to the heavy weight room loads that I mentioned but I know I needed a week like that. The benefit of our competition starting so late is the fact that I’m able to get these couple extra weeks of solid training in and I’m not complaining about at all. Still, I’m definitely excited as we start to shave things off here and there in training. I’m certain that the results will speak for themselves come Spetember 2nd and 4th.

Check back later this week for the results of my last, intense short approach jump session. Here’s how things went last time -

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

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*

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.