Saturday, December 22, 2012

Your Favorite Blog is Back


Ok, so most of you surely didn't even notice, but my blog was gone for a while, and this post marks its return.  A pretty weird time to re-start this thing, but that's just how it goes.  

So the first question on your mind might be "this blog was gone for a while?".  I won't address that question but if you did notice its absence you probably wondered at some point "why did it disappear?".  I'll be short with my answer to that question.  I reached a point in my pole vaulting career early last year where I was no longer attacking the event with the ferocity and vigor that I once had.  I was in great shape, but consistently competing poorly.  At that point, I must admit I was ashamed of the athlete that I had become.  I wanted to be done with that feeling altogether.  And that's why I took away my blog.  Make sense?  Probs not, but that's all I'm going to say about that.

Anyway, in about July of last year, following last years disappointments (5.40m season best, multiple no-heights, not feeling like myself), I knew I needed a change, so I called up my good friend Jacob Pauli and asked him if he would coach me.  He said yes, but wondered how we would arrange this coaching scenario.  I told him I would move to his city, and he said "giddy-up then" and hung up the phone.  (Sequences shortened for dramatic effect).

Fast forward a few months and I've had the best fall of my life while living in Waterloo, Iowa and training at the University of Northern Iowa.  It has been completely different than anything I have ever done before.  We attacked my base training with a focus on eliminating my weaknesses while still exploiting some of the strengths that I already had.  Different is good.  I don't want to get too much into details, but I'm feeling strong, fast, healthy and confident.  I feel like myself.

The move has also been incredible for my mental state.  Aside from Jacob, nobody in Iowa knows what I looked like before this year.  I don't feel like I have to prove anything to anyone, and I have no distractions from other coaches or athletes.  We are stuck in our little frozen tundra bubble, just plugging away.

It took me this whole fall of rebuilding myself to finally feel like I could bring back this blog.  It won't ever get too specific, because I don't think I have anything unique or profound to say about how to pole vault in a broad or general sense, nor should anyone probably be listening to what I would have to say about that anyway.  Everyone who knows me also knows that my theories on the pole vault are comically simple.  I just wanted to bring this back for the people who know me and care about what I'm doing.

Anyway, I just want this post to be over so I can quit talking about why my blog is back and start making jokes again.  

May the force be with you. 

By the way, this post is dedicated to Robert Coates, who reached out to me a while back and asked me why my blog had disappeared.  He's a former pole vaulter who now works as an air traffic controller. He apparently enjoys reading my posts and wanted the blog to come back.  Well it's finally time, Robert, so here's hoping you're not sitting there now wondering why you ever asked me to write again.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Reno, Home Meet, A Bloomington Visitor, etc

So. Check it.

Reno was super fun, but I blew it again. It was a pretty pathetic NH, and I walked away just feeling upset with myself. I had a great warmup and started the meet on a pretty decent starting pole, but when the crossbar went up I started running low, planting late, and not doing the things in the air that we had worked in practice. Bummer!

The rest of the weekend was super fun though, and it was sweet to see my best PV'er buddies (minus JP... so sad) and talk to all of the young pole vaulters. Here are some things that happened:

  1. Rosie's for at least 25 meals
  2. Gun Show
  3. Bro-Out all weekend
  4. Got fired up from Bemiller and Brad
  5. Blackjack table fiasco of 2012
  6. BTHBS (Bobby...)
  7. Chatted with some youngin's about the importance of proper training shoes. (Really? That's the best advice I could give?)
  8. Greg never showed
  9. Bencomo showed via Greyhound Bus
  10. Occupied the Horseshoe Bar
  11. Let the cat out of the bag about the T&M... so dumb... some of you know what that means
  12. Keno in Reno
  13. Howled like a wolf while winning on the Howlin' Wolf Slot Machine.

When the dust had settled, Dustin joined Vera and me on the plane back to Bloomington. We hit some hot training during the week, and I showed Dustin around Btown, which I had consistently, appropriately and perhaps exaggeratedly hyped for the past 9 months or so.

On Saturday, we had a meet at IU that went pretty poorly for us. I made 5.10m and 5.20m, and failed miserably at 5.30m, and Dustin blew over 5.10m by a foot, but then tweaked his hammy around the mid on his next trip down on a bigger pole, took it up anyway (gotta admire that), and came back down on the runway. He nearly saved it into a picture perfect tuck and roll, but he got tangled up, landed on his right foot, and bruised his heel a little. It's not that bad though, and he's been about 5.50m in the air every time he has the right pole in his hands lately, so look for a BIG one from him soon.

I also have to give a shout out to my boy Bobby Talley for his 5.31m PR this weekend in Seattle. If anyone ever gets a chance to watch him jump, please watch how hard he works in the air. It is pretty incredible. Serious feel.

So this weekend I'm headed to Champaign, Illinois to jump at the U of Ill, and I'm bringin back some old cues. I'm on the right track with things, but the only part that I'm missing is finishing jumps on the right poles. My 5.20m make this weekend was on a 5m 13.3, and was a pretty serious blowthrough. The problem, though, is that when I catch sight of the bar it feels as if I'm going to come up short. Because of this I'm not finishing the jumps I need to be finishing. In reality, I should have been on a 12.9 or 12.6 this weekend, which should equate to some big bars. SO, this weekend is going to be all about going old school... banging in poles and throwin' a spanker on it up top. In case you're a little confused about my nomenclature... here:


That's right.

OK, this is a super long blog post about mostly nothing, so it's over now.

Peace be with you all.


Tuesday, January 3, 2012

2012 and returning to this Blog instead

Dude. That blog on my website really sucked to update. This is way better. That being said, my website is still awesome. Check that noise out HERE, y'all. There are one or two blog updates on there that you might have missed. They were boring anyway.

OK, so here we are in the rest week completing cycle four of training for this season. That means 16 full weeks of preparation, and this fall all I missed was one weight workout and one track session while the flu was trying to hold me down. Besides, that, stuff has been seriously going down. I have PR'ed for a triple in the snatch, tied a PR for a triple in the clean, PR'ed for my 8lb Overhead Medball Throw/Man Test, and had some cool jump sessions.

Speaking of jumping, this break was sweet. I got to have some sessions with some awesome friends in Dustin DeLeo, Mikey Woepse, Bobby Talley and Brad Walker (best photo ever?!?).

Pappa Woepse, aka "El Jefe", and also the dude next to Mikey in that glamour shot I linked to above, served as coach for three sessions at Mater Dei High School, which, as it turns out, is a dirty dirty place to pole vault. We were all beating in poles, turning the corner like banshees, and doing our best high-fiving.

Ok what else? So I have a meet this weekend at home. It should be a smashing good time. I'll be bringin' it from 18 steps and trying to go bangarang on some big boy poles. Mostly I'm just ready to compete again. It is fun.

After that, I might (or might not) head to Iowa to see one of my very best buddies, Jacob Pauli (JP, you SOB, you've done it again), and jump in a meet in the dome at UNI. After that, it's time to get our Reno on. Jeeeeeaaaahhhhhh son!

OK I gotta go hit this rest week. That's enough of this.

Peace Be With You.