18' 8" at the Gill Factory Vault!

I finally jumped what I knew I could jump today. It had been avoiding me recently and I'm glad to finally get back to where I wanna be. I'm jumping on big sticks again and just being more aggressive overall. It definitely paid off today as I tied for 2nd place behind Derek Miles, the #1 ranked US vaulter and the guy I've idolized since high school. 4 of us jumped 18'8" but Derek had one less miss than the rest of us so he won on misses. I tied with Mark Hollis and Jeremy Scott. The impressive thing about Derek and Jeremy is that they were both running from a short run of just 12 steps! All three of those guys looked really good today so I'm excited about the team we're sending over to Daegu for the World Championships. It's pretty sweet to jump with the big boys and hang in there. I was in the mix with 4 Nike-sponsored athletes. Obviously this doesn't happen every day for me but I'm hoping to stay up there with them as close as I can for the next year or so. I definitely think I can jump a little higher real soon but that's another story. I thought for sure that today was the day I would finally break that 19 foot barrier, but the wind had other plans. It switched to a head wind for all of our 2nd and 3rd attempts at 19'. Oh well... I'll definitely settle for a 5.70m clearance. It's just too bad I wasn't quite dialed in by USA's! The weather was even better at USA's and I was on the same poles there. But I guess I just wasn't quite ready yet. Well I'll tell ya... I'm ready now. I'm ready to jump some even bigger heights. Unfortunately I don't have many more meets left this year. There are a couple more street vaults I'd like to go to over the next couple months but I'm not sure which ones I'll end up going to yet. Ok I definitely got ahead of myself... I was obviously excited about today so I didn't even mention yesterday ha.
Yesterday... well all I can say is it was about 100 degrees and the runway was very unpredictable. I was bouncing left and right and sinking every other step so I decided during warmups that I would just jump medium run from 14 steps. So I did that and felt ok. Not the greatest as I kept rushing the vault and kicking out at the bar at the top. I opened at 16'8" and made it first attempt. Then the bar went to 17'2" and I made it second attempt. Joe Samaniuk, the coach at The University of Wisconsin cleared it on his first attempt so he won. We both missed all 3 attempts at 17'8". So he got the top prize of $500 and I get whatever the meet director decides to send me in the mail, ha. He wasn't sure how much money they would make from the following divisions the next day, today. I should get some money, just probably not much. Ryan got 3rd place and Julia got 2nd place so overall it was a pretty solid day for the crew! Especially with blazing hot conditions and a screwy runway. Fortunately for the River Vault, they said they would have a much better runway for next year so I definitely encourage everyone to go. It was a great atmosphere and the river is almost within spittin distance so that was awesome.
We finished up that competition around 6pm and I realized I forgot to ask someone to video our jumps. So I apologize for that but I have all my videos from today! I may only post the clearances though just cuz I see no point in showing misses to you. I'm sure all you care about is clearances but if I'm wrong, leave me a comment on this post to tell me otherwise and I'll accomodate your wishes the best I can, ha. Ok so I guess I'll put my 3rd attempt at 5.80m/19' up just cuz I feel like it. I haven't taken too many attempts at 19' so it's good to get that kind of experience under my belt. Also, I've been asked what poles I was on. I started the competition on a 5m - 14.5, then moved to a 5m - 14.1 for my 5.50/18' clearance. Then after a few jumps, I moved to my 5m - 13.7 when the bar moved to 5.70m/18'8".