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...

The night before the big day

Boy was my mom right... if anyone read her comment on my last post, she pointed out that when i'm tired, i'm negative about things. And i realized that today more than anything. I got 9 hours of sleep last night and i've been ridiculously positive about every single little thing today. I cant think of how many times i kept thinking to myself, geez yesterday i woulda been pissed about that. But not today. I'm a new man and I'm gonna get plenty of sleep tonight too. I'm so excited for tomorrow, you wouldn't believe... My pre-meet warmup today was fantastic. I felt better than I've ever felt - fresh, quick, focused... I'm ready. Coach and I got our plan together for tomorrow's warmup and competition and I'm ready to execute.
Julia sent me an email earlier today of a USA logo that was really cool. It's actually the USA TV Network Logo that I added color to. She said if I had someone else to help me, it wouldn't be too difficult. Well... I probably could've asked somebody else to help, but I wanted to see if I could do it myself. So that's just what I did. I got out my paper, traced the logo, cut it out into a stencil, taped it to my head, and started outlining it onto my hair with sharpie... man that was difficult. I was determined to get it perfect, but sometimes... it just doesn't turn out the way you want. Perhaps that's my perfectionism talking, but I wish Julia was here. Her skills are un-top-able! But here it is... The red sharpie outline hasnt come out entirely yet, but hopefully tomorrow it will so the blue will look better:

And that's it. Simple, Elegant, To the Point. I suppose it's not my normal style of dying every last strand of hair some bright, ugly color, but it gets the job done for this meet and sends the message I wanna send: I'm going out there to represent my self, my team, and my country, and I plan on representing the United States of America on foreign soil once again! Ok, maybe it doesnt say all that but that's what I'm saying now.

Oh, and this gas station right beside our hotel has the best combination of snacks I've ever seen. Never before has one convenient store held possession of all my favorite snacks... Five different kinds of Sour Rips, Buffalo Sunflower Seeds, Molten Hot Wing Chips... Check it out:

Here in Oregon... Hair Ideas??

What a long trip. Every time i come out here to good old Eugene it's always a day-long adventure that never seems to end. First, it's an hour drive to the airport from Lawrence, then there's the airport wait followed by the 3h 45m flight to portland. Then there's the acquiring of baggage which usually goes by pretty quick, but obtaining the rental car/van/SUV/ always takes about an hour. THEN, when you think it's finally over, you have to drive 2 hours to Eugene. And that's all good, the day should be about over and its time for bed, but no... there's a 2 hour time warp back in time when you arrive and suddenly you have to stay awake for an extra couple hours. haha, ok but really, I'm not upset about the trip at all, it just got to me today. I was extremely tired by the time we started driving to Eugene. I absolutely love this part of the country once I get out here but dang I wish I could teleport... How much easier would life be if we could teleport?! Come on, seriously i've always wanted to teleport but then I think, welllll i bet everyone would get extremely lazy and fat and stuff, but what if teleporting was a "reward" for exercising??? Or what if it was just a lot of work to teleport? For example, you have to run at least 10 mph in order to warp into another place in the country, or 15 mph to go worldwide! Ha, I could go on but i'll save it for another time. Possibly never, where that conversation belongs. Ok so I'm in Springfield, right outside of Eugene. I have a room to myself so that's pretty awesome. I can sit here and blog all i want without another dude mackin with his girlfriend over the phone or somethin. I had an AWESOME new york style pepperoni pizza from Old Chicago today for lunch. Just had to get that in here. Then I just had Five Guys where, you just can't go wrong... When we got to the hotel today, we changed and went to the basketball arena for packet pick-up then went to the track to watch our sophomore thrower Mason Finley throw discuss. He threw great the first round and was in first place after the first flight. the second flight went and 7 of them threw further but Mason was 8th so he was the last competitor to get into finals. He really went for it all in the final round and had some promising technique but failed to throw any further. So he finished up getting 8th in the country which is fantastic! Especially at his age. He's got some big stuff coming in the next few years for sure. So between the first flight and finals, I went off to the practice track and did a warm-up and some strides. I felt really good for some reason. Usually I'm pretty tight after a day of traveling but I guess I did something right recently and it paid off. I've been trying to drink a lot more water the last couple months since I quit drinking coke. I've felt a lot better physically lately. I think my body is finally getting used to all the hydration I'm puttin in instead of carbonation, caffeine, and sugar. It really makes a difference.
Well its 11pm here so its way past my bed time in kansas. I just wanna keep everyone updated on how my trip's goin and what i'm doing. At least a few people have told me they enjoyed reading it every day and want to read more so this is for them. And I don't have to worry about the others who dont care cuz, well they wouldn't have read this far anyway... I've been watching Lopez Tonight while writing some of this and if anyone else saw it, Pitbull was awesome and NeYo really needs a computer to help his voice out i guess. It was interesting but Pitbull seems like a cool dude. Ok I'm goin to bed. And I have to be honest, I've stopped myself several times during this post from posting more little negative comments than I've already written. For some reason I'm realizing how negative my mind is today. It's not where I want my mind to be and I dont know why i'm being so pessimistic but I'm really gonna try harder to find the bright side of things cuz that's usually how I act anyway, but oh well, i'll work on it. It's gonna be a fun weekend, that's for sure! I really wanted to get out there and vault once we got to the track. I'm lookin forward to saturday and i'm not sure it could get here quick enough! Oh, and if anyone has any hair ideas, please comment on this post with your ideas! The more, the better!