Better!

At this point I will take baby steps and be happy. My legs felt much better and the right hamstring was very close to a nonfactor. I was able to use the cut 4m-13'/167/16.3 from 22' 6" today and easily made 11'. It felt too small but I didn't think I could get on on the full length 4m/15.9/171 so I moved back to 33', skipped the 15.9 and made 11' 6" on my first jump on the 15.5. It too felt small so things are starting to get back toward normal. It should feel small as I have jumped on my 2nd 14' pole from that run before - that's seven poles up from where I was on that jump.

I stayed at 33' and moved to the 15.0/176 for two jumps at 12' and it was too small also. I took two on the 14.7/176 and was close. The 14.7 is the pole I usually make 12' on from 33' for my baseline. I'm guessing I'm back to that on Monday. I resisted the urge to move my run back to 44' and go to the next pole just to make 12'. My baseline is 12' from 33' and I've done that countless times so it makes no sense to get impatient.

A couple of illustrations as to how my thinking played out in real life today. The first premise is that I can jump 6" higher for every stride added. Today I made 11' from 22' 6" and then easily made 11' 6" from 33'. The other premise is that for every stride in on a particular pole you can jump 6" higher. I made 10' 6" from 32' at my last practice and 11' today on the same pole from one stride in. These two premises are why I work off of my baselines. I have made 12' 6" from 33', 13' from 44' and 13' 5 1/4" from 55' but not with the frequency that they could be called a baseline. They are predictable and dependable. That's the next goal - increase the baselines.

Running afterwards was better even though I still only ran 10-20%. The hamstring didn't have much of a catch left on the extension so that will continue to get better. I will continue vaulting every third day until next Saturday when I vault and add all of my lifting back in. Right now I am doing my running and bars on jumps days - just no lifting at all. As my ortho used to say, "if your training is injuring you and your event is not then you need to change your training". So I've dropped out the lifting until I reach my baseline comfortably.

I feel close to being back in a groove as I had pretty good control of most of my eight jumps today. I used a big pole from 22' so now I'm done with that run. That means I will start at 33' and be allowed to move to 44' if needed with the understanding that the next time I take the pole from 44' and use it at 33'. Hope that makes sense. Have a great day! Bubba

PS - as of today I only have three more 13' poles to get through so hopefully I'll be back on 14's in a week or two.

UPDATE - I just realized that I vaulted on Wednesday. I went out today thinking it was Tuesday that I had jumped. I guess I will try again on Sunday since we have rain on Monday and Tuesday. That will put me back to regular full training on Wednesday. This makes me feel better to have a decent day on only one day of rest. COOL!! Bubba