Something New: Eurothrash 2011

With the disappointment of not making USA's behind me, I went ahead and bought my ticket to Europe for the 2011 summer season, and I couldn't be more excited. I'm headed out on the 30th of this month and will arrive in Dusseldorf, Germany on the 1st of July.

I'll be jumping with a great group of dudes formerly of UCLA in Bobby Talley, Dustin DeLeo, and Greg Woepse, and we are poised to take Euro by storm. We all share a manager, the great Chris Bencomo, who has done a fantastic job putting together a series of meets for us. Our base will be Leverkeusen, Germany, and we will branch out to all sorts of meets from there.

I will keep blogging from over there for sure, so you'll have to stay tuned to be up-to-date on my plans. What I can say for sure at this point is that my first meet will be on July 2nd in Uden, Netherlands. I have a few more jump sessions before I take off, so if anything good happens before I leave, I'll post an update.

All-in-all, this season hasn't been what I hoped for as far as clearing high crossbars in meets, with 5.40m being my season and post-collegiate best, but I'm more excited to pole vault right now than I ever have been, and I'm pretty sure that's a good thing going into this series of meets.

Stay tuned!

Coping with Disappointment

Well for anyone that doesn't know yet, I failed to qualify for this year's USATF Championships. In my mind there is only one word that coincides with this fact: pathetic. I have spent a whole year only pole vaulting, and that has all led up to this, and I was unable to put myself in the top 15 marks in the country, and thus didn't earn a spot to the Championships. I am extremely disappointed in myself.

That being said, I know that I am a better jumper than I have showed in 2011. I made a pretty big gamble in coming out to San Diego for 3 months, stripping down my training and my jumping, and trying some stuff that I've never tried before. These changes (clearly) haven't yet transferred into jumping high bars, but are ultimately for the best. I cleared a season's best of 5.40m a few weeks ago in Walnut, CA, and that was the best that I have been able to manage this whole year. I feel confident, however, that if I stick with the changes that I've made, and clean up a few things within the jump, I will come out with a mark that I'll be happy with by the end of the summer.

Anyway, sorry for the somber and disappointing news, but I just wanted to update the blog and keep everyone posted on my journey. Let's hope this all ends up working itself out. I sure would like to leave a meet halfway satisfied with my result at some point soon.

Stay tuned.