5th Place at USA's!

5.45m/17' 10.75" may not have been the height I wanted to achieve on Saturday, but gosh did I feel good! The weather out there was unbelievable and I felt fresh and ready to jump high. I was jumping really well at the beginning of the meet on my 5m 14.1 flex pole. I think the pound rating on it is 200 lbs, but I cleared the opening height of 5.35m/17'6.5" on it on my second attempt and also my second attempt at 5.45m/17' 10.75". Then I needed to go up to my 13.7 after the first attempt at 5.54m/18' 2". But I came down on the bar my second attempt so I decided to pass my 3rd attempt to get an attempt at 5.60m/18' 4.5". I put the standards up pretty shallow to 55cm so I wouldn't come down on it again, but I actually got my chest through the take-off a little better and knocked it off on the way up. The only thing I was upset about was not getting a chance to jump at higher bars because I felt like I could've jumped a lot higher but oh well. I ended up getting 5th place and that was a success in itself. I've never placed that high at this meet before so it was really exciting to be in the mix. I was one bar away from making the World Championship Team, but I may have made the Pan-American Team. It's a meet among North America, Central America, and South America. So it's sort of a world meet but more like just half the world. It would still be quite an accomplishment to compete on a Senior Team. The only teams I've ever been on have been under-age teams, never a professional level team. I only get to go if 3 out of the top 4 guys decide not to go because they have the choice. It sounds like a long shot, but I know a couple of the guys aren't going. It just depends on the other two guys. So we'll see! Here's a video of some of the clearances from the meet posted by Jack Whitt's dad... I'm wearing a white jersey with blue shorts. I have 2 clearances on it and they start at 26 seconds and 1 minute 26 seconds:



I had a ton of fun at the meet though! It was really exciting and I felt so close technically to jumping really high. I'm looking forward to this weekend! Julia gets to go with me and so does Ryan Hays (he was one of my teammates the first 4 years of college)! So its even more exciting with more people to split up the driving and have a good time with. There's a substantial amount of prize money at all the meets this weekend so I'm hoping I can make a little bit of money while having fun!