Obviously you know I didn't jump as well as I had hoped, since I'm just now posting a recap of the meet from over a week ago. The first thing I have to say is that I had a GREAT weekend in Colorado! Julia and I drove out there Friday morning and drove back Monday morning. It was absolutely great weather and we camped out all three nights! It was so much fun, more fun than I've had in a while. We were just so care-free and did whatever we wanted for 4 days. That doesn't come around very often with our busy lives, so it was well-appreciated. Anyway, I jumped 5.35m/17' 6.5" for 4th place. Everything I had accomplished in practice that week, I lost it during the competition, ha. Ok well I had one excuse for sure... My very first approach down the runway with a pole, just to catch my step, I slipped off the runway and did a shoulder-dive into the box (the runway was about 9" high on the road, like usual) Both of my knees were scraped up pretty bad... my shin, elbow, and hand were also scraped, bruised or really hurting. I was certain at that point that I was going to go back to my short 10 step approach and just jump from there. Obviously I wouldn't jump that high going from 10 steps compared to 18, but I hadn't jumped from 18 steps in a couple weeks and I wasn't able to do very many pole runs from that run during that time either. That equals me not being very confident from that long of an approach after taking a spill like I did. But after walking around for about 10 minutes trying to find some bandaids and looking for poles I could borrow from a short run, it didn't feel right. I was determined to jump high and it was my last meet of the season, so I decided to give my long run another shot. Since I slipped off the right side of the runway, I slid to the left and ran down the left side of the runway the whole way down. It took me a few more jumps than usual during warmups to try to gain my confidence back and I thought I did that pretty well. The meet starts and when the bar goes up to my opening height of 16' 6", I'm ready. I felt good about my warmups (not including my fall, ha) so I grabbed my 5m 14.9 and smoked it. I'm feeling good, the crowd is louder than I'd experienced at most meets this summer, so I was jacked up and ready to win this thing. The bar goes up to 17' and I'm wayyy over it, but come down shallow and hit the bar. I finally clear on my 3rd attempt after moving the standards up all the way to 50... the closest I've had the standards EVER. But I put my pride aside and did what I had to do. Usually I keep the standards back and make myself do things better and penetrate further on the pole and clear the bar that way. But that wasn't the day... there was money on the line. Money that was going to end up paying for that trip! The whole week of practice before the meet, I had been very successful at getting my chest through further and thought I could transfer those techniques over to long run with only a little bit of effort... not the case. And with my confidence shattered from the get-go, I accepted the fact that I probably wasn't going to do anything extraordinary during the meet and just did the quick fixes to make as many bars as I could. The bar goes up to 17' 6" and the same thing happens... hit it on the way down, hit it on the way down, barely make it on the third attempt. Whew... Still in it. The bar goes up to 18' and I do the same thing and come up short for the first attempt. Paul Litchfield clears the bar on his first attempt so I pass up to the next height 18' 4.5" for my remaining 2 attempts. Rory Quiller does the same thing and so we both go to 18' 4.5" with 2 attempts and Paul with 3 attempts. I finally do what I wanna do and get my chest through and get a fantastic jump! Unfortunately, the standards were at 50 so I hit it on the way up... Bitter-sweet moment... Now I have to decide whether to stay determined to get another good jump and move the standards back to 60 or keep them at 50 and bank on the fact that the majority of my jumps have been shallow so I'll play that card. I pick choice #1 and it was wrong. I had a shallow jump with the standards at 60 and barely hit it on the way down. But that's not all that happened. Right when I hit the take-off and left the ground, the back of my left shoulder instantly hurt. It wasn't a "pop", but it felt like I pulled something. I'm blaming my 3rd attempt miss on that fact alone, haha. I felt great on the runway, had a decent take-off position, but just got really thrown off after feeling that pain halfway through the vault. Game over. Paul won with 18', Rory got 2nd on misses, April Steiner got 3rd with her height of 14' 6" I think?? and I got 4th with 17'6". It turns out I strained my Teres Major, a muscle that is involved with similar movements of the lat. Turns out you use it a lot when you take off and start to row, especially. I'm currently rehabbing it, and it feel much better now. It's not going to be a game-changer by any means, just annoying and painful for a week or so. Luckily that was the last jump of the last meet of the season for me. Who knows what caused it to strain because I've never had any problems with that territory of my body. I think it may have been the fact that there was a headwind the whole time and I may have been a little tense during each jump. Regardless, it's healing up and I'll be good to go in a couple weeks after my "off-season" is over ha, yea... a couple weeks = my off-season. Tell me what sport competes for 10 months and then only gets 2 weeks of an off-season. That's the sacrifice of being a Professional Athlete and I'm more than willing to make it. Since I'll be taking the next week or so off, I wont have much to say so I'll talk to you again when I do. In the mean-time, I'll try to find video from the Colorado meet because Julia wasn't able to film. Everyone was telling me that I was over every bar by at least a foot so I'm anxious to see what they were talking about haha. I'll try to post again soon.
God Bless the men and women who gave their lives 10 years ago. I'll never forget.
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