Post-Practice...

All I have to say is... THAT was a great practice. I ran short then medium run and felt really good. I'm so ready for this weekend.

Getting ready for my Midwest Circuit

If you've read my previous posts, you know that I'm going on a trip this weekend to compete in 3 meets in 4 days. What you don't know is Julia is going with me! She was trying to work it out with her summer class and stuff the last week and she figured it out! Also, my friend and old teammate Ryan Hays is coming with us! It'll be the three of us driving up to a River Vault in La Crosse, Wisconsin, then heading to Champaign, Illinois for the Gill Factory Vault, and lastly driving back this way to Webster Groves, Missouri (right outside of St. Louis) for the Pole Vault Explosion. It's bound to be the most vault-filled weekend of my life so far and I'm more excited than I was going to USA's! I've been jumping really well lately and I feel really close to jumping a higher bar and maybe something close to 19'. Everything would definitely have to line up perfectly, but I wouldn't be saying it on here if I didn't really believe it. Julia and I went out to Walmart last night to pick up some snacks and stuff for the trip. $50+ later, Julia dragged me out of there before I got too carried away, ha. We're all prepared for a great trip and we're planning on leaving around noon tomorrow. I'm hoping to post updates throughout the weekend but the'll be so much driving that i'm not sure. I'm gonna try to put up pictures from the meets and hopefully some video, at least that's my goal. It's gonna be about an 8 hour drive tomorrow and then the first competition is on Friday at 3. I'm planning on opening pretty high on Friday in order to take fewer jumps to save my energy for Saturday. The Factory Vault has much more prize money and competition so I'd rather be fresh for that.
Oh, and check it out! Morry Sanders, the coach of Arkansas Vault Club (AVC) liked one of my quotes that I wrote on Facebook a couple months ago and wanted to make a t-shirt out of it. I definitely let him and he actually did it! He made a shirt for his summer camp this year with my quote on the back! Here's pictures of the shirt:

Unfortunately, I don't think you can buy any, but I'll find out if he has extras to sell. I know my family said they wanna buy some. Anyway, I have vault practice tonight at 6:15pm with Coach and I think his pole vault camp will be watching. So I hope I have a good practice! ha. I'll update tomorrow before/during/or after the trip!

VaultUnited.com

I can't believe I forgot to mention this earlier. Vault United is a social networking site exclusively for vaulters, friends, and fans! It's plans are pretty large and it needs more viewers to make things happen sooner! They have a lot of good resources and it's a lot of fun to navigate through. It has a facebook-type feel to it within the networking section, but they also have several other things going on within the site. Show your support by buying a shirt or some other gear! I'll post a link on my blog permanently after I post this. But definitely check it out as there's no reason not to! And sign up to see all the member's only stuff!!
VAULT UNITED

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!

Time to Play

Welp, I've been looking forward to this day for a while now. I just had a sub from subway and i'm gettin ready to leave for the meet! Thanks to all of you for your support up to this point and thanks for following my blog in this first week. My goals today: 
1. Have Fun
2. Drive the Chest
3. Make Aggressive Mistakes
4. Make a World Team
5. Jump 5.72m

Wish me luck! However it goes today, it wont be the end of the world! The sky's the limit...