Another good practice!

Here's an example of what happens when you squat a lot all week and then vault on friday. My low take-off makes me squash the pole and then go straight up and straight down while my feet are forced to fall out. It was a good practice though! I was on my 5m 14.5 pole which is the biggest pole i've ever been on in practice. And I'm even guessing I could have gone up poles since it was bending so much. Anyway, I finally remembered to video some jumps at practice but I only had one jump left in me so I only got this one. I'll try to get better at that and put more videos up from practices.

GREAT Practice Last Night!

Last night Ryan, Kevin, and I vaulted and I had one of the best practices I've ever had! I only ran from 14 steps and I got on a pole I barely get on from 18 steps in practice. I blew thru my 5m 15.8 that I usually jump on consistently from that run, then I blew thru the 15.3! I'm pretty sure I've never done that in practice before from 14 steps. So I got out the 14.9 and it took a few jumps to get used to it, but I had some jumps that made 18' look easy! I was really excited to get on that pole at this time in the year. It's as if I just started my season a couple months ago. But we'll use this data and put it towards our training schedule for the Olympic Trials next year and hopefully peak at the right time. I'm really excited for the remaining meets this summer. I may have to throw my 5.10m poles in my bag! =)
Oh, and I got a new bike helmet this morning. It was cheap but it fit perfectly and is very comfortable!

Training for Kentucky

Last week at the beach vault was a little kick in the face. I got back from that 4th of July weekend trip and basically didn't do anything for 2 weeks and expected to jump high. That's not how it works and I know that. I just made up excuses like "I need rest" and "It's too hot outside", ha. The latter is actually a valid argument if anyone's been to Lawrence, KS lately. It's been in the high 90's and 100's the last couple weeks. But whatever the temperature is and no matter how I "feel"... I need to keep training. I've realized that and I'm tired of getting 2nd place. For the next couple weeks, I'm gonna train like it's still the heart of the season because I wanna win. I want to, and SHOULD be able to jump at least 18' every meet. No excuses. I'm out of college and it's time to get to that next level and I won't get there by sitting on my keister. There's a meet in Henderson, Kentucky on August 12th and 13th called the Jammin' and Jumpin' Street Vault. I just registered, so I officially plan on going. Monday, I did a little warmup. Tuesday, I took about 15-20 jumps from short run and moved up a few poles. Usually I'm only on a 15' 7" - 18.2 flex pole, but yesterday I blew thru that and then blew thru a 16' 18.0 flex. I finally settled in on a 16' 17.5 but it was hesitant. I wasn't comfortable on it for the first few jumps but then I got the hang of it. Tonight, I lifted with Ryan (who's practiced with me every day this week and will actually be my training partner from now on! Exciting stuff). Then we did some strides after lifting. Tomorrow I have a recovery practice that consists of just a little warmup and on Friday we jump again. I think we're gonna jump from 14 steps. So there it is, my practice schedule for this week and hopefully in a few weeks, I can go down to Kentucky with a little more confidence and physical fitness than last time. I'll catch yall up at the end of the week!

2nd place tie at 5.35m/17' 6.5"

Well that didn't go as well as I'd hoped... I wanna be able to go out and jump 18'+ any day of the week. I know I can, it's just not happening right now. I guess my season is dwindling down and I'm gettin a little worn out, but come on, Three 2nd place finishes in the last four meets isn't cool at all! But hey, I've won prize money at every meet I've competed in this summer so it's hard to complain, along with it being my first summer out of college. I'm just greedy... like every other true competitor out there. My vault was eh, "so-so" today. I did a couple things well and a couple things not so well. Overall, I'd have to say it was a bitter-sweet day. Vaulted pretty well for not doing much training the last two weeks, yet didn't get over 18 and got 2nd place again. Oh well, on to the next one... not sure what that will be yet but I'll let you know for sure. I always wanna post updates on here for yall but gosh dang it if I don't have some boring days sometimes, ha. But I'll try to keep you informed as often as possible on my life, my vaulting, and how I'm balancing the two. So far, so good. Everything is pretty much falling into place in my life and I couldn't ask for anything more right now. I move into my new apartment on the 30th and couldn't be more excited! That'll finally give me a chance to get all my crap organized and throw a bunch of stuff away. I think getting organized in one part of your life strongly affects other parts of your life. At least that's what my coach tells me! ha. Back to today... We unveiled the prototype of the Vault United jersey today! We're not an official club yet or any of that stuff, but we're gettin closer!! (funny that i'm using the pronoun "we"... I don't have anything to do with the behind-the-scenes work of Vault United, I'm just the guinea pig) But I like to think of it as a WE thing since I'm such good friends with Ryan Hays, the founder. He worked really hard this week to get a jersey made just for me to wear at this beach vault this weekend and I just want to say thanks to him for providing me with AWESOME gear so quickly. And a big thanks goes out to the meet organizers of the 2011 Grand Haven Beach Vault for puttin on a superb event that was run very smoothly and was an absolute blast! I can't believe I forgot to mention how fun that meet was! It was my favorite "street vault" ever. Lake Michigan is beautiful... Cold, but beautiful. For my first time in Michigan and seeing the lake, it couldn't have been better. The weather was absolutely perfect all weekend and my dad and I are really have a good time out here.
I'm gettin tired so I'm gonna make a movie of my vaults real quick and add that to the bottom of this post. Then I'll add on some more pictures from the day. (If you don't already know, most of the pictures I put on the site you can click on to make them bigger. Just FYI) Enjoy!

Loaded up!

Beautiful Day

First Ever VAULT UNITED Jersey!!

ONE of the lobbies in our hotel that we were switched to for tonight... it's ridiculous

Grand Haven Beach Vault Today!

Did somebody say "beach"?! Heck yea! Today is my competition at the 8th Annual Beach Vault in Grand Haven, Michigan. I've never been here before, never even in the state of Michigan really, so I'm a little more than excited. My dad flew up from my hometown of Watkinsville Georgia (after a 1 1/2 hr drive to the Atlanta Airport) to Kansas City and his flight arrived at 8:40am... Yea, early morning for him. I headed out from Lawrence to the Kansas City Airport and picked him up at that time to drive 11 hours out here to Michigan! The meet directors put us up in a hotel right in the middle of downtown Grand Rapids, MI, about 45 minutes from Grand Haven. It's an awesome town so far. Everyone is really nice and there's a great "feel" about it. But we're leaving here around 10am to head over to the beach where I'm supposed to vault around 1pm. We got in last night about 10pm, ate some dinner with Darren Niedermier and went straight to bed. Man were we tired of driving. My dad did most of the driving (about 11 hours of it, ha) so I could keep my legs as fresh as possible. We stopped a bunch of times so I could walk around and stretch my legs but they still feel pretty tight, as to be expected. My dad has never been to a street vault of any kind before and that gets me really pumped up for him to be here. He's gonna video my vaults on my iPhone so they can easily be uploaded to YouTube and then put on here. I'll try to put videos up tonight but you know from the past how successful I am at doing that. Things usually don't slow down much after a comp till the next day or so. But I'll do my best!
I've been resting my body from the last trip and had one vault practice earlier this week on Tuesday and then had some other little practices since then. I'm looking forward to this meet, being so rested and fresh. All I need to remember is DRIVE WITH THE CHEST. And drive hard. At this point in my vaulting career, that is pretty much my main objective and it usually is a sure tell whether or not I'm gonna have a good vault or not. So if you read this and you got a second around 2 o'clock, if you could send some brainwaves over this way by saying "drive your chest! drive your chest!", I think that would be very helpful ha. I'll let you know how it goes as soon as I get a chance. Wish me luck!

P.S. Here are a few pics just from the drive out here...

Sweet Waterpark!

Nothing but cornfields in Illinois...

Reefer Wash-outs?? Ha, I could name a few...

Velocity Hip Hop Clothing... just awesome.