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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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’m not big on New Years resolutions and I’m not trying to “change” so much as I’m looking to improve. I make it a point to look forward and plan my future/set new goals far more than I bask in retrospect. Of course, the past can be beneficial in shaping the future. That said, considering the fact that I see my future, in all endeavors, to be nothing less than an ascent, dwelling in the past is of little benefit. Here are some of the things I will be pursuing on the track and am thus expecting of myself in 2011. Should be a great year; both for me and my “squad”!

• Consistency in my approach and as a result consistency in my speed through the board; both of which providing me with consistency in my performances: average best jump per meet — 16.90m
• Multiple track (runway) records during the indoor season. Yea, I’m putting it out there. I’m only competing a few times indoors but intend on walking away with a couple track records namely Virginia Tech’s Rector Field House and the Armory up in NY.  I believe the records at these two spots are 16.80m and 17.00m respectively.
• Improvement of my performances at Diamond League meets. Whatever that means. I finished 6th in all of the Diamond League meets I jumped in save for that dismal ‘no mark’ performance in Brussels. I intend to just plain “do better” on that stage this coming year.
• Making the finals of the IAAF World Championships out in Daegu, Korea in August/September. The men’s qualifying round is at 10:30am on the morning of September the 2nd and I suspect that the automatic qualifying standard will be somewhere in the range of 17.10m – 17.20m. I’m not looking to leave anything to chance as far as moving onto the finals is concerned. Additionally, once you’ve made it to the final dance all bets are off and you just compete like your life depends on it (and like you may never get the opportunity to be in a global final again).
  
• Earning a medal at the Pan American Games in October. To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about competing at a major competition all the way at the end of October but not only will I be in shape and attempt to do my best at the Pan Am Games but I’m looking to be on the podium.
• Finally, it’d be nice to have a sponsor by the end of the season (or “corporate partner,” which I think is the more appropriate title for several reasons). Of course I don’t have as much control over this as I do over the other things on this list so comparatively it’s not “as important” and won’t occupy nearly as much of my thoughts or planning for that matter.

I’ve got plenty of other, more minute and particular goals but these are the main objectives for the coming year. There are plenty of other milestones and things I will have to check off en route to accomplishing the above things but it’s all part of a process.

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.

Being from NY, I competed at the Armory while in high school so it’s always great to go back, not to mention the fact that my family and a couple friends usually make an attempt to come check me out at the meet. There’s also usually some worthwhile competition and this year will be no different. It all makes this weekend the perfect occasion to put a big mark out there and let people know I mean business (although other people’s expectations for me going into Worlds make no difference in the end). So, I figured I’d briefly share a preview of sorts on what I’m aiming for, expecting and looking to work on this weekend.

Coming off of my competition down in College Station, I admitted that although I was somewhat dissatisfied, the performance marked a season opening best for me and thus something to be pleased with. Still, heading up to NY I want to jump farther, much farther…but that’s always the case right? As a result, the exact distance the official calls out after my jump becomes far less important than properly executing the things I’ve been working on in practice. Besides, that’s what will get me to jump far on a consistent basis.

The two major things for me to focus on for Saturday and beyond are my approach and my arms in my hop phase, particularly the left arm. I may or may not have mentioned in a previous post that at Worlds last year, my approach length looked like it was half the distance of some of my more experienced competitors. Now, my 16 stride approach treated me quite well for a long time, and that’s not to say that an extra long approach automatically results in better marks but my coach and I still decided to move back to 18 strides. Doing so allows me to drive for a longer period of time in my first few steps and gradually accelerate so that I can bring more speed as I come through the board. Since I’m accustomed to a shorter approach though (and 2 strides is actually significant enough to disrupt one’s rhythm), I blasted out in the beginning portion of my approach in the first couple of meets instead of gradually building through the entire 124 feet. As a result, my rhythm has been off and I haven’t really felt ready to hop once I get to the board. I’m definitely looking to work on that so that my approach isn’t something I have to think about going into Doha and beyond. Of course, NY is where I’ll be unveiling my new and improved, more patient approach; so it should be good.

I’ll save the truly technical triple jump talk about my arms for people who are really interested in the event itself. That said, I’ll just note that I had…past tense…an efficiency issue. Rather than making sure my arms were constantly moving forward and back, always keeping as much of my momentum and speed moving down the runway and to the back of the pit, my left arm in my hop phase would constantly flail out to the side. I’m sure you can imagine the problem this poses when you’re running full speed and take off on one leg to come back down on that same leg. My balance and posture tended to suffer as a result and at the same time I was losing more speed than I would have liked. I made it a point to note that I had an efficiency issue because I am certain that I’ve got things figured out. It will take more than a couple of meets to perfect what I’ve changed the adjustment will be more than enough to take care of business this weekend which will spell trouble for the rest of the field from here on out.

Time to get to work…

P.S. I did some approaches and light bounding in some new spikes on Tuesday evening and all systems are most definitely a go.