Outside the Aspire Dome

So the meet I had in France this past Friday went alright…I suppose. I set an indoor personal best of 16.64m and came in 4th behind three jumpers who went 17 meters (one of whom was Christian Olsson, the indoor world record holder in the event). As you can imagine, I had higher aspirations for my first meet on the “pro circuit,” especially considering how things were looking before I left the States! But hey, I won’t complain with a personal best after having just hopped off the plane a couple days earlier. Not to mention the fact that the point of the meet was to get a solid jumping session in ahead of the World Indoor Champs, and to cut down the amount of traveling that I had to do to get to Doha. Oddly enough, leaving from Brussels to Doha on Saturday after the meet wasn’t the piece of cake I had anticipated and I only made it to my room in Doha after about 22 hours of traveling from start to finish! But that’s an entirely different story.

Since arriving after 1 am Sunday morning, my time in Doha has been amazing and my body is finally getting acclimated to the time zone and the travel. The hotel is top notch, as are the food (fortunately enough) and the service from both hotel and IAAF staff. Additionally, I was one of the first few athletes to arrive so for the first few days I had my own driver taking me wherever I needed to go. It’s quite easy to see that Qatar/Doha is pulling out all the stops for the event and that their top priority is the comfort and satisfaction of athletes; after all they do have their sights set on hosting the 2022 World Cup and I’m sure that this event is a small stepping stone towards that. The city itself is beautiful and the 85 degree weather doesn’t hurt either. Whatever stories you’ve heard of Doha and its rapid growth, if you’ve heard or read such stories, are all true. There is construction EVERYWHERE and many people have told me that they’re attempting to play catch up with Dubai which is for the moment the top tourist/business spot in the Middle East. As nice as it is here in Doha now, I’d love to see what things are like when their plans are even further along, although it means that the traffic that is already horrendous for a city of less than 400,000 will no doubt be several times worse.

As far as athletics facilities are concerned, everything is top notch to say the least. The grounds of the “Aspire Zone” are pristine and the stadiums, fields and even shopping areas included in it are all amazing. We’ve been using an outdoor track as our practice area for the past couple of days, but I managed to sneak my way into the Aspire Dome itself and it too is spectacular! I’m glad I got my “jaw dropping” moment out of the way nice and early though so that when I’m in there later in the week, it’s truly all about handling business.

While there is of course “track and field after World Indoor Championships,” I’ve had my eyes set on making this final since my first global level competition (which was admittedly just 7 months ago). I am certainly more excited than anxious to get this show on the road, mostly because I know what needs to be done and how to do it. These last couple days leading up to Friday are just about fine tuning things with some speed work and explosive lifts, while enjoying the fact that I’m here! Rest assured, I’ll definitely enjoy the competition experience as well.

P.S. Congrats to the George Mason track and field teams on their performances at ECACs and IC4As this past weekend; particularly the men’s 4 by 4 with their 3:07.43 and qualification for NCAAs.

Back to the subject of the fake World Tour that I’m on at the moment though. Ayanna and I spent some time in Paris in August and as you can imagine, northern France (our hotel is in Lesquin) is nothing like Paris and certainly not during March when its only 40 degrees. Everybody has been quite helpful and very hospitable though and they seem to love the fact that I speak French (to some extent). On top of that, the hotel isn’t bad and although I wish there was more water available to us, the meals are free and even edible so you’ll hear no complaints out of me. I got to do a little bike/treadmill workout once I got here so my body feels pretty good for having just flown for 7+ hours, but I’m looking forward to getting a track workout in today.

Check out the startlists for Friday at: http://www.meeting-pasdecalais.com/6LIEV10StartListau3mars21h00.pdf. It seems as if all of the events are packed with top level talent and my guess is that everybody is trying to get a meet in before Worlds, like myself. As far as the TJ field is concerned; I think all but maybe 2 of us will be heading to Doha over the weekend so as far as test runs go, Friday’s meet will likely produce something relatively close to the competition atmosphere I’ll get next week. At the end of the day though, it will still be just another meet where I’ll be trying to bring as much speed in my approach as possible and work on my hop phase…much like I have all season.

So in spite of the fact that the snow in Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia this week has made it pretty difficult to get to the track on some days, I’ve managed to have a great week of training thus far. My coach and I tweaked my approach once again and it feels amazing, far better and more comfortable than it did before NY. On top of that I’ve been working, little by little, fixing my left arm on my hop phase to ensure that it gets back, even if it’s just a little bit.

Here’s the product of that work from a short, very short, approach. Some more speed should push each phase out a bit more, particularly the step And please excuse the commentary from my roommate/training partner/videographer Jeff, I suppose he enjoys workin’ the camera; although he is right about the road to Doha:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And I’ve added one more meet before Worlds, so I’ll be competing somewhere next weekend, though I suppose I should figure that out ASAP; and I’ll also be taking a couple jumps in Liévin, France before heading over to Doha. I was pretty excited at hearing about the invitation to my first “pro” meet. The meet in France will act as a final systems check before the big show. Check out my meet schedule for the links and more info.