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?

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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.

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As you’d expect, even though was mostly pleased with how things went I am able to pick out plenty of things that I’m going to have to address to get where I want to go both indoors and moving into the outdoor season. Of course my body position and posture from the second phase into the final phase need some serious fixing. To be honest, I think that if I wasn’t fighting to avoid falling on my face on my step phase the above jump actually would have been an indoor personal best; especially considering where I ended up after two phases from a 41 foot board. My jump phase wasn’t half of what it typically is or should have been thanks to my being off balance and out of position but I’ll take it for the first jump/meet of the new year.

Combine the above adjustment/correction with the patience that comes from just jumping from a full approach and competing and I’ll be right where I want to be. Some other, more minor adjustments will always be necessary like tweaking my arms in my first phase but considering how my approach looked, after this meet it seems that all systems are definitely a go.

The next outing should be in 2 weeks…

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!

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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.

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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:

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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.

I entitled this blog post “Patience” because although my best jump was measured at 16.51m, I took off at least 8 inches from the back end of the board. It’s an indoor personal best by a few centimeters but not exactly the distance I was after. So I’m being patient. I know that things are coming together little by little and that they will come together exactly when they’re supposed to. A 17 meter jump at Virginia Tech wouldn’t have done much for me and I have no problem with waiting to drop that big one when it matters/I need it most. I’m also aware that the goal for me beyond the World Indoor Champs is consistency beyond 17 meters, so I tinker now so that things come naturally and effortlessly in June and beyond.

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Ok ok, so if it looks like I’m jogging, it’s because I am. But in all honesty, I didn’t realize that I was coming down the runway slower than molasses! And yes…I am still stuttering before the board, but at least I got a comfortable jump in (unlike in NY). My goal for my next few meets is to run hard and fast through the board and allow my speed to push me down the runway. After this 16.80m jump (from take off to landing), I know what I can and will do in Doha once I actually run down the runway; and that’s exciting.