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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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Second, (and this isn’t something new that I’ve learned but just a reaffirmation of something I already knew) the value of speed in the triple jump can never be overstated. That’s runway speed and speed on the ground in between phases. I got a chance to watch the finals of the Men’s TJ this time around and saw a competitor set a World Indoor Record in the process; can’t get much more motivating than that, especially when you know the person, right? Instead of being in awe of the jump though, it was certainly a nice jump (to say the least), my first thought was “I can do that.” And that fact bothered me then and I’m sure will continue to bother me for some time. Watching that 17.90m jump confirmed to me that the missing links in my jumps this past indoor season and in general are a comfortable approach and speed through the board. I know I’ve mentioned my desire to be faster at the point of take off in previous posts and still I haven’t gotten it down yet. I will soon enough; that is for certain.

Finally, I learned that fully devoting oneself to training at a world class level can be nothing but advantageous. Sure it can get monotonous, but there is just so much in terms of preparation on and off the track that goes into being a world or Olympic champion or into simply jumping over 17.10m on a consistent basis, that 9.5 times out of 10 a true focus on athletics is necessary. I was fortunate enough to have conversations with coaches and athletes these past couple of weeks that confirmed this theory. To be fair, I’ve focused a tad more on track and field this year than I have the past two years, and I feel my level of training and performances have reflected that fact. As a 3rd year law student I’m able to have that liberty, but still academic responsibilities (a 25 page paper here and there, agreements to draft, about 9-13 hours of class a week–sadly there are a few classes a week that I couldn’t be bothered with, preparations for exams) can never be entirely overlooked. I still have to graduate after all! Make no mistake though, I’m definitely looking forward to focusing on my jumping even more next year…in spite of the bar exam prep to be thrown in there somewhere.

In the end, I give myself a solid “A-” for this indoor season. Making the finals at Worlds would have taken that to an “A” and jumping 17 meters would have made it an “A+” but I’m very happy with the way things went and tend to not expect much from indoors anyhow. I improved my indoor personal best by over 30 centimeters (not including the fouls that I had that were much further). I competed in my first IAAF level grand prix meet…and didn’t finish in last (don’t worry, not finishing last wasn’t my goal). I also figured out what it takes to jump far, and more importantly how I’M going to jump far.

All in all, my complaints with this season are drowned out by thoughts of what went well this season and how great things will be outdoors; especially since I used the season to work on things in terms of my approach. The first go-round outdoors is shaping up to be at the Mt. Sac Relays but we’ll see what Coach thinks about that. For now it’s back to the routine and back to the lab for me and in the mean time you guys can check out the new Doha/World Champs photo gallery I’ve added!