The meet itself ran like clockwork and outside of the two World Championships that I’ve been to in the last year, this was the most spectacular meet I have gotten to experience; and in most ways it was even better than World Indoors in Doha. Despite the cool weather and drizzle, there were 50,000+ people in the stands and they seemed to be engaged for every minute of the competition. There were musical performers performing between events and the announcer was one of the best I’ve heard at a track meet as well. After the meet, they even had fireworks to go with the presentation of the Diamond League winners. I wasn’t in the mood to stay and watch those fireworks or the presentation but it looked great from the bus that I was on heading back to the hotel. All in all, the meet was top notch and I can say that in spite of the fact that I was initially disappointed in my performance. I really hope to be competing at the Memorial Van Damme meeting again in the future! I also got to walk around downtown Brussels a bit on the day after the meet and the city managed to jump right up to my top 3 of favorite foreign cities along with Paris and Berlin (I suppose the list of major foreign cities I’ve visited isn’t quite THAT long…yet).

Now that the season is done I’m still going to be working out a little bit for the next couple of weeks. I’m going to do a light jumping workout next week just to make sure there aren’t any lingering injuries before I truly shut it down for 2010. Of course, by “shut it down” I mean drop down to just a couple days of light, emphasis on light, lifting each week along with some swimming, and biking. I likely won’t have more than a week or two of doing absolutely nothing but I’ll still be sure to get my fair share of R&R in while also supporting Ayanna since she’s powering through till the Commonwealth Games all the way in October!

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I had my last “workout” workout of the year yesterday afternoon in Belgium. I say “workout” workout because my coach already let me know that I’ll still be working out a bit once I get back to the States, in spite of the fact that tomorrow is my last meet for 2010. He said that he’d rather I ease into my couple weeks off by gradually doing less work than just abruptly halting my training altogether. I agree of course, but then again I guess it wasn’t really my call to make.

As I mentioned above and in previous posts, I’m out here in Brussels now for the Diamond League final. The event happens to be the last meet of the 2010 Diamond League series and also the finale for the triple jump. I managed to get a straight flight over here which was a must considering that in spite of the fact that I was in economy plus, the 5 extra of inches I was allegedly getting didn’t have the effect on my flight that I was looking for. At least I had an aisle seat though, so I was able to get up and stretch several times. Once I made it to baggage claim in Belgium I was immediately spotted by my driver and we shot over to the meet hotel, which is in the Brussels city center: no complaints here since I’m here until Sunday.

One of the toughest things to do while out here on the circuit is finding ways to pass the time when there are only one or two television channels in English. Fortunately enough, one of those channels this time around happens to be “ESPN America,” which is pretty much just regular ESPN. Also, since I’m in Belgium I get to watch some TV in French and work on my multilingual skills a bit. I don’t mind that at all. As always though, I made sure I brought enough movies and episodes of random shows that I follow to help fill any dead space that I had. That said, after filling some of that down time with Smallville, a nap and a couple meals, I got to check out Stade Roi Baudouin/Koning Boudewijnstadion…the stadium, which is sold out for the meet. That means 50,000+ spectators; which I got to experience at the World Champs last year but I’m sure the crowd and atmosphere will be no less awe inspiring.

I felt a little flat in the initial stages of my workout, which is to be expected after sitting on a plane for over 7 hours. As things got going though, I felt the explosiveness and “electricity” in my legs that I was looking for start to come back to me. I have no doubt that the massage I got following the workout probably helped out as well so I’ll be more than ready once tomorrow arrives, especially since I’m getting worked on a little bit today as well.

The forecast for tomorrow is calling for a high of 64F/17C degrees and some light rain in the morning. I don’t compete until nearly 9PM which means that it’ll at least be dry by then but I’m guessing that it’ll be a bit cooler than the high for the day. Good thing I checked the weather forecasts before hopping on the plane so I have some warmer gear with me and the temperature shouldn’t pose a problem with a good warmup before going out to the runway.

I’m ready to end the season on a high note and use this meet as momentum going into training for next year’s World Championships and beyond; first things first though…

Just want to give a quick shout out to the fellas over at Low Gravity. They did an awesome job on my site (in my humble opinion) and as their newly launched portfolio website shows, they do great work on a consistent basis.

Check ‘em out, let them know what you think and definitely consider them if you’ve got a web design/programming related project coming up!

In any case, we spent a good amount of time in the weight room last week including a couple of days where I got to go push my max up a bit in the hang clean and hang snatch. My coach and I are fully aware that I need approach/rhythm work perhaps more than anything at this point, but we always like getting some quality time in the weight room during the summer since such lifting opportunities are few and far between when I’m overseas or away at any meet for that matter. Besides, I got some good runway work and a speed session in between the days where I was pumping iron so it’s all good. After a couple of much needed rest days thanks to last week’s volume, it was back to work on the runway yesterday; still working on strength though as  I got to bring out an old friend: my weight vest.

I’ve been trying to sharpen my Windows Movie Maker skills just for the heck of it (and because it’s fun…when it’s not frustrating) and also so I could avoid posting a whole bunch of separate videos. Check out the masterpiece I came up with. The two weight room maxes are on separate days; two days apart to be exact and for those who were wondering.

I probably shouldn’t invest in a copy of Final Cut Pro yet though huh?

But, my strength continues to improve and at this point I’ve hit the lifting goals I set out for the season. At the same time, I actually think my speed has continued to improve through this point in the season as well. That said, the only thing left to do then is end the 2010 campaign with a bang and of course there’s no mystery as to what’s held me back on the runway thus far. Fortunately for me I’ve got at least one more opportunity and Brussels is as good a place as any to get it right; especially considering the fact that the 47,000 seat stadium is sold out!

In the mean and in between I’ll keep training hard although there will be a bit of a taper in the volume and intensity as the 27th approaches. I’ve also been really appreciative of the free time I’ve had in between training sessions since it means I get to let my brain rot a bit with computer games (StarCraft II), movies, television and now Madden since it came out yesterday. I’ve been knocking some things off of my leisure reading list too though so it’s not all bad. Still, I’m ready for football season to get here like everybody else.

While watching the footage of the jump the thing even more obvious than my slight collapse going into my jump phase is of course the “stutter dance” I’ve got going with my last few strides into the board. It’s getting to be a joke at this point, but taking into account how horrible I consider this 17 meter jump to be, I can take pride in the fact that once I get things down I’ll be able to take my jumping to some crazy new levels!

After being in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico since last Saturday morning, I was pretty eager to get the show on the road and Thursday night’s competition couldn’t come soon enough. I had gotten to watch Ayanna come back from injury and secure a bronze medal on Tuesday evening so I was that much more excited to join the fray. To start things off they originally had our competition scheduled to be held on the runway on the far side of the track (where there were few fans present). Of course you know that wasn’t going to stick, especially considering that the homestretch was packed with adoring triple jump/track and field fans! So after a few minutes of peaceful protesting and some walkie-talkie action between the officials, they gave in and quickly set up the other pit and runways for us.

I opened up the competition with a 16.56m jump which wasn’t at all what I was looking for to get things started. It put me in 2nd place behind a 17.20m opener for Randy Lewis from Grenada and later on I slipped to 3rd after Leevan Sands from the Bahamas got a couple of legal jumps in. One thing they warned us about while we were petitioning to switch runways was that we would be repeatedly interrupted by medal ceremonies crossing the runway to get to the infield. Couple that with the fact that we had 13 competitors in the competition and an officiating crew that was a liiiitle bit on the slow side when it came to switching the order after jumps 3 and 5, and it felt as if I had ‘forever and a day’ between jumps. I tend to like competitions that move along quickly so that I can get into a rhythm and get right back on the runway to correct the mistakes I made in previous jumps. This was not one of those meets. After each jump I felt some of my adrenaline leave me and my legs got tighter and tighter while sitting around. Once the finals came around though, we went from 13 to 8 jumpers and people also began to pass jumps so things really began to move along.

After being behind the board on jump 4 which resulted in a FLAT hop (we’ll call that one a warmup jump) I was ready to go on jump 5. Needless to say, jump 5 was the only jump where I stutter-stepped in the approach and I’m pretty proud of that. Jump 5 also ended up being my best jump of the meet and a season best (17.01m…first time over 17m this season). The jump itself still wasn’t what I was looking for though. Not only did I slow down a whole lot before the board but my heel landed squarely on the long jump board going into my jump phase. As you can imagine, landing on a hollow surface between phases is bad news and it inevitably = buckling; no matter how quick you tend to get off the ground. My jump phase on this jump was no different but I got what I could out of it and hit the sand just past the 17 meter mark. You’ll get no complaints from me though considering I know that shouldn’t have stutter stepped and that I should have gotten over the long jump board and yet I still made it out to 17 meters. Additionally, I’m pretty happy with the season best.

Before adding anything else I should probably note that by my 4th jump, I had slipped into 4th place. Y’all know that I had come to this meet to win; so not making the podium at all most certainly wasn’t going to happen! In any case, I think my 5th jump woke some people up because it catapulted me into 2nd and Leevan immediately followed up with a 17.01m jump of his own to take back 2nd (based on him having a better ‘second best jump’). I’ll admit I got a bit excited on my last jump considering that I knew exactly what to do differently from my 5th jump to nab the gold. I came down the run way a lot faster and as a result my last few strides were a little shorter than they had been on the previous attempt. I ended up behind the board and out of position which got me the same sort of jump as number 4. To cap off the competition the jumpers in the top two spots ahead of me swapped places in round six and I ended with the bronze. Though it’s two spots below where I saw myself going into the meet, I’m not being too hard on myself this time around.

To have my coach, one of my training partners (and better half) as well as my Haitian teammates there at the track supporting helped immensely! It’s pretty rare that my coach is able to make it to one of my meets so it was great to get feedback on the fly and it clearly helped to make the necessary adjustments after each jump. I know Ayanna felt the same way during her competition. It also didn’t hurt to see one of my teammates, Moise Joseph, earn a silver medal in the 800m while I was still in the heat of battle.

In spite of the fact that I didn’t get the W, this has to have been was of my most memorable track and field experiences given the ups and downs of the competition itself and the new shape that Team Haiti is taking (note the fly warmup suit in the picture above). Don’t get me wrong, as with all the other events I’ve been to in the past to represent Haiti, I’ve seen some things worth shedding tears over as far as the team is considered; but this post is more on the celebratory side so I’ll save that stuff. For now, I’m going to line up a few more meets to end the season and ensure that I “keep rising to the top,” both in the immediate future and for coming seasons of course. Mo and I also both agreed that things will keep on rising for Haitian track and field as well since this is the best we’ve done overall in some time (Dominique Degrammont finished 4th in the 110 hurdles, Pascal Delaunay was 5th in the women’s TJ and Alie Beauvais made the finals of the 400 hurdles); and I know we’re not finished growing.

Most of the rest of what I picked I simply absorbed by being a fly on the wall and observing and listening to other athletes, agents and meet organizer types. Some other veteran athletes were also nice enough to school me on some of the finer points of the international track and field game. I generally like to believe that I am in control of my own “achievement path” so to speak; of course within the confines of what He has in store for me. But I set goals and then set out to achieve them in the manner I see fit and typically without interference from other people who may or may not have the ability to make my path to success more difficult (never impossible of course). As a result, I am the ghost writer of my own story.

The world of professional track and field seems to be mutually exclusive with this sort of “take the reins” approach to things though. Don’t get me wrong, you always have control of your training and thus performances which no doubt gives athletes some leverage on the circuit and I love being able to have control of things in that regard since I’m always seeking to push my body and thus personal bests to new levels/distances. But even that leverage is somewhat illusory, save for the Usain Bolts out there. I say Usasin Bolt(s) because he’s not the only athlete who owns their event and is able to use their name and reputation as a weapon as a result.

I won’t make this post any longer than it has to be but a frequent criticism of team sports in the US is that the leagues and owners play with and treat players like property or pieces on a chess board. In spite of the fact that there are no true teams (although the big time sponsors do represent teams in a way) or leagues in track and field and athletes consider themselves to be self-employed, agents, meet directors and sponsors seem to know better. Sitting in the lobbies of the hotels that I stayed in, it struck me how many money-motivated athletes don’t realize that even our sport is rigged and dictated by the aforementioned triumvirate of agents, sponsors and meet directors.

Don’t get me wrong, being money-motivated is a necessity to some extent, so this isn’t a criticism of that. After all, training full time means that you have to have sponsors and supporters to allow you to do basic things like pay your rent/mortgage, eat decent enough meals to have energy to train, get to and from practice and clothe yourself and your family. But it also seems to blind you from the fact that those with the true decision-making power will attempt to serve their own interests 98 times out of 100, with the exception being those agents who work with and for their athletes rather than operating under the impression that the athletes on their roster are under their employ. To some extent the job of agents is to even the playing field to some extent so that athletes have someone on their side; that’s a large portion of the reason that athletes employ agents right? Of course, money-motivation causes plenty of other problems as well, including some for our sport as a whole as was pointed out in a recent View from the Finish Line post.

Perhaps this sort of set up of the sport is something that I should have anticipated but it’s tough to really see these things until you’re actually in and around the game for a bit. Can/will things be changed? Probably not; after all, it’s the same system that our major sports leagues operate under although they have player’s unions. It would be nice for things to be a bit more transparent since it seems like much of the business of athletics is played out in the shadows. Of course, that doesn’t sit well with me considering, as I mentioned, I’m the type of person who likes having a hand in where things are going in my career; and that goes just as much for my track career as it does for my legal career. In any case, I’m fully aware that my task as an athlete is to perform and perform better than my competitors. I have no problem with that considering my only goal in this game is to be the best in the world and to do that I’ve got to beat the best. So I’ll keep climbing slowly but surely and keep playing the game. I just figured I’d share my observations with the people.

I’m down here in Mayaguez, PR though and compete on Thursday. I can safely say that I am not a fan of bunk beds, particularly when I’m relegated to the top bunk! But hopefully I’ll be able to get up a CAC Games related post soon, especially since Haiti’s team is stronger than ever before and I’m feeling 110% ready to wreck shop when I get on that runway.

Tuesday,  June 29: Arrive in Paris, France at about 7am after an overnight flight. I was met in the airport by someone from the meet and then we were off to first pick up another athlete in the area and then we began our 2 hour drive to Reims where the meet was being held.  I competed the next day so I made it a point to get out to the track warmup and also see what I would be dealing with and to allow myself to visualize how the next day’s competition would go.

Wednesday, June 30: Competition Day. Like most meets overseas, I ended up competing in the evening. By the time competition was done and I got back to the hotel to shower and then find something to eat it was past the time when I would be able to get an adequate amount of sleep. Still, I was happy with relatively happy with my performance.

Thursday, July 1: My flight left from Paris a little before 11AM so I hopped on a train to the airport and began my trip to Stockholm. Luckily, I had a straight flight and made it to Sweden around 1:15PM. After a short trip to the airport, a quick lunch and brief nap it was time to get ready to hit the track again at the Sollentuna GP. As you may have noticed in my season up to this point and from last year’s schedule, competing in back to back weeks is not my favorite thing to do. Competing on back to back evenings though; and in two different countries no less??! Well let’s just say that I definitely won’t be doing it again…ever! I could only muster up a 16.04m jump for 4th place — not a good look.

Friday, July 2 – Sunday, July 4: I had a couple of days in Sollentuna/Stockholm to rest and recover before it was on to the next one. The way my body felt after the back to back fiasco from the two previous evenings, I really did not want to even leave my room let alone venture out into a foreign city. Fortunately, I changed my mind and took to the streets of Stockholm on Saturday for a self guided tour of the city. It only lasted a couple hours thanks to my weary legs along with the sun beating down on me but I think I saw nearly everything and it was a worthwhile excursion. Sunday morning at about 3:30 in the morning, I began my journey to the Greek island of Crete. About 10 or 11 hours later I had made it to the town of Rethymno and the beautiful beach front resort that would serve as the meet hotel. The first order of business was a pool workout to loosen up the legs after all the traveling.

Monday, July 5 – Wednesday, July 7: With a couple more days of rest, I felt as if I was able to get my legs back under me; for the most part. I spent the majority of my time reading “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and watching episodes of Smallville (I’d heard enough about it to pique my interest so I finally gave it a try and have been hooked ever since) but got a good track workout in on Monday. Tuesday was another recovery day and I was able to take a dip in the Sea of Crete for that purpose since getting enough ice to make an ice bath would have been extremely difficult with no ice machines in the hotel. Wednesday came and went and after another lackluster 16.64m performance considering the time I had had to rest/recover it was time to get mentally prepared for then next competition.

Thursday, July 8 – Friday, July 9: Thursday brought another 3:30AM departure, which I had to make on only about an hour of sleep since after the meet (which finished up later than it should have) I had to wait a while for a massage, then grabbed some dinner and hustled to do some packing so I could take a quick nap. Thanks to an air traffic controller strike in Athens, those athletes leaving Greece on the 8th either had to wait for hours in Athens until the strike was over so that they could find a flight OR as in my case, they winded up leaving Greece extra early and sitting in Dusseldorf, Germany for nearly 6 hours. Fortunately I met an agent who was also traveling to the Gateshead meet and was nice enough to allow me to be his guest in the extra comfortable and luxurious Lufthansa airport lounge. That helped the time fly by.

By the time I made it to Newcastle I had missed the bus to the track to workout which was just fine with me considering I was in no mood or condition physically to do anything on the track after the 16 hours of travel it took make it from Greece to England. Yea, it took a bit longer than it should have considering I was only traveling within Europe! So I hopped on the bike in the fitness center and even managed to get a little treatment on Thursday night. Friday was a rest and recovery day, so I got a massage in the morning and took an ice bath before bed.

Saturday, July 10: This was the last day of my trip and my last competition on this Euro-Tour. I love the atmosphere and competition in the Diamond League meets and felt very fortunate to be competing in another one. My warmup felt really good as did my approaches. By the time I got to doing some warmup jumps though, I could tell that my legs had another idea. As expected from those warmup jumps I felt flat when it came to getting off the ground in between phases and I could only get out to 16.67m. After the meet I got to eat and catch up with the Texas contingent that was in town including my coach from while I was down there. Afterwards I packed, rather haphazardly and the next morning was my final crack of dawn trip to the airport on this journey.

— A lot of people just head over to Europe for the summer but I’m back home training and tweaking things in anticipation of the CAC Games in a couple weeks. I fully intend to go down there and secure the gold for Haiti so I’m doing what I need to do now so that I can walk the walk down in Puerto Rico. I’ll follow up this post once I get some more free time after unpacking, doing laundry and getting readjusted to EST to briefly fill you in on what I considered to be the highlights of my trip.

After last weekend’s meet I came into this week’s training with the mindset that it would be a fresh start of sorts. To be honest, I’m mostly satisfied with my season thus far anyways, especially considering that I’ve only competed 3 times,  but I wanted to focus on perfecting those things that have been holding me back. My goal was to begin that process in with week’s jump practice.

Of course, we started the practice with plenty of approaches. I didn’t tape them because I wanted to focus on getting the same internal rhythm down on every approach and in every practice without the assistance of the camera, so you’ll have to take my word on the fact that they were pretty good and certainly better than before. My problem arises in competition settings, but I was at least able to focus on not even thinking or peeking at the board and maintaining my speed by driving the whole way down.

We wrapped up the practice with 4 short approach jumps at near maximum intensity, followed by some plyometric exercises with additional weight. Here are jumps 1 and 3 of my series with the second one (jump 3) being the best of the 4. The patience in the first two phases of jump 3 aren’t bad at all and I’ll take it for a short approach. I feel as if the extension on my landing wasn’t what it usually is though and I didn’t have enough height in the jump phase. Lastly, I didn’t have nearly as much speed after 2 phases on the third jump as I did on the first one which probably cost me a good bit as far as distance is concerned.

The Men's TJ Field During Introductions

So my Diamond League baptism came and went and it certainly wasn’t what I was looking for. Needless to say, I still genuinely enjoyed the experience, the competition and the fact that my parents, coach and friends were finally able to make it to a meet. The competition on the other hand was pretty disappointing. The track fan in me was also excited to watch the numerous world leading or near-world leading performances in other events. That said, once again I got to watch other jumpers, who I know aren’t necessarily faster or stronger than me, jump distances that I know I should be jumping. Still, as with every meet in the past (whether it goes well or not) I have to simply go back to the lab and work on what I need to work on.

In the end I finished 6th with a jump of 16.60m. The 6th place finish isn’t necessarily the worst thing that could have happened considering the fact that the 7th and 8th place jumpers only got 3 jumps as opposed to 6. Also 6th in a Diamond League competition is somewhat respectable…I just wish I had jumped farther. Oddly enough, you don’t even have to ask what it was that held me back because the easy answer is: my approach! What else is new?

Honestly, I do feel as if this weekend’s meet was  a turning point for me, although it seems that I say I’m going to nail things down after every meet. This time I realize that I am holding myself back mentally.  My mental shortcomings aren’t in the confidence department like many athletes however; and although the field on Saturday included 3 current and former World Champions and just as many Olympic medalists, it also has nothing to do with nerves. Believe it or not my stuttering problem also isn’t driven by a desire to avoid fouling! It seems that for me, my issue is that when it comes time to jump for real and I’m making my way down the runway, I get anxious at the sight of the board and concern myself with “jumping far,” “being comfortable at the board” and “making sure I can handle the first two phases.” Of course, if you’ve read any of my previous posts you would know that the only thing I want to be concerned with halfway through my approach is continuing to run.

While I think that my “problem” is one that can be worked on in practice by getting down an approach rhythm that I am comfortable with and that becomes 2nd nature; what I really need to do is simply compete. By getting on the runway more often in competition settings I’ll be able to get used to the feeling of turning off my instinct to worry about the board or my first phase during the approach and in turn I’ll get used to running allllll the way down the runway. For as long as I can remember I’ve always been concerned with actually jumping in the triple jump. Who would have thought that thinking about jumping and actually trying to jump was, for the most part, the wrong way to go about things?! Wherever I end up competing next, I am excited to try just running the whole way down the runway and not even thinking about my jump until I’m halfway through my hop phase (or even until I hit the sand, that would be ideal since most of the jump is instinct anyways). I’ve felt it before and it did feel pretty odd, not to mention I fouled all of those jumps…but fouling is the least of my concerns. At this point I think I’d rather see a bunch of Fs or Xs (for fouls) next to my name on a results sheet as opposed to sub-16.90m jumps.

As always though; on to the next one…