I keep saying that I need to blog on a more frequent and more consistent basis, and I really do mean it when I say it; let’s see if I can actually get the ball rolling in 2012 though.

In any case, for this first blog post of 2012 I just wanted to share an interview that I recently did with BBC Sports. Check it out, feel free to comment here and also check out (and ‘like’) my Facebook Fan Page while you’re at it since I share tidbits there a little more frequently than I do here.

Training is going really well and I most likely won’t open up my season until February, in anticipation of the World Indoor Champs. We’re getting into things a little bit more gradually this time around since I’ve already hit all of the important competition standards. I’ll be back with some training and other updates in the near future.

Happy New Year folks!

2011 was a long season for me, to say the least. I began competing in January and went through October. I got off to a great start (May through July) but I didn’t maintain that momentum and fell short in my two primary goals for the season, those of course being the World Championships and the Pan American Games. Better this year than next year though, right? That’s what folks have told me and it’s 100% accurate. I’ll be heading to Istanbul, Turkey for the World Indoor Championships in March and we’ve got 98 days to go until then. Although the indoor champs don’t mean as much as the Olympic Games…I’m looking forward to them just as much as I’m looking forward to London. I’ll be ready for Istanbul but will be even more prepared for London and looking to do something truly special. It all starts here; 8 or so months out.

I’ve had the last 4+ weeks off from training and it’s been great to just relax and spend the time in New York without my family. About a week and a half ago though, I started with some really light workouts to get the blood flowing and muscles going again. Even though I did some light weight/high repetition workouts in the weight room, I actually jogged for the first time in a month this week; I had been biking to that point. I’m definitely easing into things before the workouts get truly intense but something tells me that I won’t be any less sore come next week or the week after. Either way, it’ll be really  good to get back to work; with my eyes on the prize…

I competed at the Aviva London Grand Prix two weeks ago now and although it didn’t go as expected (16.61m for 6th place), it felt good to get back on the runway without having Criminal Procedure, Secured Transactions, Evidence, Wills or some other bar exam topic in the back of my mind. My pre-meet workout felt great but when Saturday morning rolled around and it was time to warmup to compete, I felt a bit more tired than I would have liked. During the competition itself, I felt as if I was jumping well as far as technique is concerned aside from a flat jump phase, but I wasn’t running as well as I did down in Puerto Rico. At this point speed is the name of the game and I definitely didn’t have it then. Considering the fact that we’re now starting to do more and more speed work in practice though, I know my speed won’t be a problem in Daegu. On top of that, I’ll have more than just one day to get over the time zone shift which is what I dealt with out in London.

Last week was probably the final week where I’ll be lifting heavy and doing some “serious” jumping in practice so it seems we’re finally starting to taper off; especially as we get closer to about two weeks or so out from the first day of jumping in Korea. I actually had two jumping sessions in a week for the first time in a while last week. That was in addition to the heavy weight room loads that I mentioned but I know I needed a week like that. The benefit of our competition starting so late is the fact that I’m able to get these couple extra weeks of solid training in and I’m not complaining about at all. Still, I’m definitely excited as we start to shave things off here and there in training. I’m certain that the results will speak for themselves come Spetember 2nd and 4th.

Check back later this week for the results of my last, intense short approach jump session. Here’s how things went last time -

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I uploaded the video of my UTEP jumps directly to my Facebook Fan Page so head there if you’re interested in checking that out. Next up for me will be a couple of meet in Brazil in May but in the mean time I’m heading to one of my least favorite cities this weekend to support Ayanna at the Penn Relays.

Given the recent issue with my arms being out of sync like I mentioned in my last post, I am going to try and revamp my technique in the hop phase. The main goals are the same (maintain speed, hop far and be patient) but instead of literally running off of the board and using a single arm take off, I’m going to try a double arm hop. To be fair, it’s probably somewhere between a single arm and double arm take off but either way, it’s very different than what I’m used to. There are probably just as many “single-arm hoppers” as double-arm at the international level but in my case it will allow me to make use of my left arm in the second phase rather than having it tucked like I have been doing since I switched to a single arm hop way back in my sophomore year at Harvard.

Yesterday was the first time we’ve done short approach jumps with spikes on in a little while and it was also the perfect time to start perfecting the new technique. When I hit it right, it felt great and other times it felt like it was my first time really working at it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Both jumps are about the same distance even though my 2nd phase on the 2nd jump isn’t as patient as it was on the 1st. I definitely had more speed on the jump phase though which is what made up for the weak step phase.

Given how things went yesterday, I’m really looking forward to giving things a go from a full approach.

In all fairness though, this time around I took a tiny “half-step” (rather than my usual 4 stride walk up) into my short 6 step approach so maybe that resulted in the improvements. I’d like to think that’s pretty unlikely though! I just want to get a consistent feel for things and since I now walk into my full approach, why not add a tiny step to this one? I also had a weight room session immediately before the tests this time around, but the weights were relatively light since this is something of a recovery week for me. In any case, the results were very encouraging but watching the video allowed me to see just how much work I have to get to where I need to be. Let’s just say that it’s a lot. I’ll let the videos do the talking though and if you’re interested in a side by side comparison of this year’s results and last year’s results check just below the final clip. Also, check the video title for a description of the drill.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

November ’09 Results → December ’10 Results

Making deposits; that’s pretty much what I’m doing from now until next August…making deposits. Each practice I complete is considered a deposit made into my Daegu 2011 Bank so that over the course of the next 308 days I am consistently adding to my repertoire and strengthening my weaknesses. I plan on showing up in South Korea ready to make it happen and just let my investments pay dividends. Admittedly, it is a tad bit early to be preaching about Daegu and the 2011 World Championships even though I’m thinking about it, so for now I’ll just let you know how my first couple weeks of practice went.

As I’m sure is the case with everybody else who is getting back into their groove right about now, the first couple weeks are pretty painful. This year, my coach and I set our starting point a good bit higher than last year so by Thursday of the first week even walking was painful. That’s probably due in no small part to the fact that my workouts on most Wednesdays in this part of the season consist of a full weight room session followed by by sled/tire pulls and then some nice, long 100m hills; lots of them. That said, this past week wasn’t nearly as bad and I’m glad my body got hip to the game pretty quickly. I do have one more workout tomorrow though but I’m feeling great going into it.

Without boring you with the details, I’m working in 3 week cycles for now (two weeks hard; one week “down,” but not really “down” if you know what I mean). Each week, I have 3 weight room sessions, two running sessions and two jumping/bounding sessions. Sprinkled in there are some body weight circuits, tire pulls, plyo circuits and hurdle/hip mobility among other things. We won’t get on the runway for a bit but each day I feel myself getting stronger and more prepared to make the most of the coming runway work. Believe it or not, because of that feeling of daily progress I actually enjoy the struggle that goes along with fall training; or any training for that matter. It’s also a blessing to be able to devote myself fully to the triple jump for a bit as it means that I am able to do the little things as far as training AND recovery are concerned.

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!

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.

It’s been a few weeks since my last blog post but considering that I’ve got a bit more free time thanks to my graduating last month I’ll try and blog a bit more regularly. In any case, this weekend’s Adidas Grand Prix will only be my 3rd meet of the season but it’ll also be my Diamond League debut and I’m looking forward to it for that reason (among others of course). I also consider the meet to be a homecoming of sorts since it’s being hosted in NY which means that my family and friends there can actually come watch me compete which is a rarer occurrence than I’d like thanks to most of my meets being overseas or on the other side of the country. Needless to say, I’m anxious to get back on the runway and back in competition…a meet schedule this spread out is new to me; although I must admit that I’ve gotten some quality training sessions in as a result

Considering that I’ve gotten some really good jumping work in the last couple of weeks, including a short approach personal best of 16.41m from 12 strides (which I plan on pushing out to 16.65m+ in the coming weeks), this week and part of last week have been about speed and sprinting mechanics. We’ve also gone from 3 to 2 lifting sessions for the past couple weeks. Here’s the end of the power clean portion of my workout from Monday:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve never “cleaned” that much before (301 lbs/136 kg) although my goal from the fall was to hang clean that weight so I’ll be checking that off of my list next. Before the rep above I did 5 reps @ 85%, 4 @ 90%, 3 @ 95% and 2 @ 100%. And yea I definitely need to learn how to get my elbows all the way through and catch the weight in a front squat position, but considering that I’m a triple jumper and not an olympic lifter I suppose the catch isn’t quite as important as the rest of the lift (for now). Anyways, as you can imagine, I’m feeling pretty explosive and at the meet I’ll just be focusing on my approach and speed through the board like I’ve been trying to do in just about every meet since indoors because the rest of the jump tends to take care of itself after that. Like I’ve said before, the whole running down the runway and through the board thing is much easier said than done. But I suppose I can’t expect it to come too easily since it IS the key to jumping far after all.

As far as the meet is concerned, I fly up to NY on Friday and compete Saturday evening at 5PM. I keep telling people that I would have been fine with taking the bus or train from DC straight into Midtown Manhattan as opposed to flying to Queens and then dealing with the hassle of getting from there to the hotel but hey, at least transportation is taken care of so it won’ t be as much of a hassle as usual. Besides, “beggars can’t be choosers.” If you’re in the States, the meet will be live on NBC from 4PM to 6PM and believe it or not I actually think they’ll show a good amount of triple jumping, if the coverage of other Diamond League meets to this point is any indication. There are also plenty of ways to watch the meet live on the internet if you’re outside of the U.S. In any case, regardless of how much triple jumping they do or don’t show, the meet will be worth catching if you’re a fan of track and field at all considering the start lists for all of the events have some pretty amazing fields.

Since they’re having the high jump this weekend I’m also looking to catch up with a friend of mine, fellow Longhorn jumper Andra Manson, whom I haven’t seen since World Outdoors in Berlin. Of course I can’t forget the other Longhorns I know that’ll be there on Saturday (Jacob Hernandez, Leo Manzano, Michelle Carter) or my Haitian teammate Mo Joseph who will be running the 800. Sad to say, Mo is a Gator and not a Longhorn AND I’ll be the only Crimson at the meet.