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…

On October 27^th I’ll be competing at my second Pan American Games which are officially underway as of Friday. My performance in a torrential downpour in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 is pretty amusing now that I look back at it. I think I jumped 15.45m even though my season best that year was 16.31m. I am certainly not the athlete that I was then and unless one of my teammates beats me to it this year, I plan on coming away with Haiti’s first Pan American Games medal in athletics. Training since Daegu has been…interesting and somewhat up and down. I’m sure my body is a bit surprised by being in this phase of training all the way into October but with a couple weeks until Pan Ams we’re starting to kick training up even more and things are beginning to fall into place and finally starting to get excited about being back on the runway.  I’m definitely excited to be one of the 12 athletes (8 track and field, 1 tae kwon do, 1 judo, 1 tennis and 1 weightlifting) representing Haiti at the Games though! Compare that to the US’s 600 athletes.

The accommodations here are definitely pretty comfortable to say the least and Daegu pulled out all the stops for this village and as far as taking care of the athletes is concerned. The food leaves  a bit to be desired, but hey…it can’t all be perfect and luckily I brought a good amount of Rivalus Promasil along with some other snacks just in case.

My coach gets in today but the workouts I’ve done on my own since being here have gone pretty well; each one better than the next. I’ve already had three relatively light weight room sessions as well as a speed session so I’m getting nice and familiar with the track and with getting my body going early in the AM since I’ll be competing at 10:30 AM on Friday. Now that coach is here though I’ll hop on the runway for some approaches and light jumping.

The fact that I compete at the tail end of the meet means that I’ve been venturing out of the village only to hit the track and a shopping center that happens to be a five minute bike ride away. This is my 2nd time in Daegu and I didn’t do any sightseeing last time either but from what I’ve heard there isn’t too much to see anyhow; unlike Seoul where there’s plenty to see and do. I’ve been passing the time by making use of the Kindle app on my iPad, watching episodes of “Breaking Bad” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and of course tuning into the meet. I still wish I hadn’t blown the AC adapter for my Xbox on my first day here!

P.S. Huge thanks to Mizuno for helping us look like we belong at the World Championships.  They provided our team with some pretty amazing uniforms and gear!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.