Typical night before a meet in the hotel. I'm falling asleep at 7:15 but still wide awake at 10:15. That said I slept great until 4:45 when I woke up to pee and decided I'd better go ahead and get my banana and protein drink going since I was leaving for the track at 6:30.
Everything went smooth. Got to the place and checked in, entered the raffle to win some poles, said hi to a bunch of friends and got to see Becca from http://www.polevaultpower.com/. Her website is the glue that holds our community together.
Warm up went good as I cleared 12' (3.66m) from 44' on my smallest pole (14'/169/17.2) and then on consecutive jumps from 54' on my 17.0 and 16.5. As I wrapped up my warm up I checked the list to see how many other vaulters were jumping. I'm always the first on the runway when there is no crowd. That way if something is a little off I can work through it rather than stress that I'm running out of time. I also feel better the 2nd time around after my warmup. For the record, all of my 14' poles are cut to fit my carrying case and so they won't knock the bar off when they come through to the pit after the jump. My grip range today was 12' 10" (3.91m) to 13' 3" (4.03m).
The list showed five guys and only three of us showed up. I knew Don wasn't coming but Steve Warr in the M65 was also a no show. Hal Theodore looked great but on his last jump in warmup he pulled a hamstring and withdrew. So with me and M70 stud, Don Islet as the only jumpers we knew it would go fast.
Don started at 9' and made 9'6" also before a heartbreaking last attempt miss at 10' (3.05m), where he easily cleared the bar but his pole knocked it off. Hence my cut poles. Always sorry to see that happen.
I started at 12' (3.66m) and made that easily on my first from 54' on the 14/173.8/16.5, as you can see from the photos below. Next I moved up to a bigger pole but stayed at the same run and made 12' 6" (3.81m) easy, also as the photos show. Actually I can't get the order fixed so the 1st photo is 12' 6" (3.81m) and the others are at 12' (3.66m).
The plan Kris and I had was to get to the 14/178.3/15.7 for 13' 1/4" (3.97m) from my 64' run. I know if you're not a vauter this seems like an odd height but here's what happens if you jump 13' in a meet - in the national/world rankings it gets rounded down to 12' 11 1/2" because there is no exact metric equivalent to 13' so I specified 3.97m or 13' 1/4". I made that on my first jump as well but no photos as the guy had moved over to the girls pit. Do we blame him?
I took one at 13' 4" (4.06m) but the pole was too small so Kris had me move back to 75' and up to my biggest pole, the 15.4. I've never left the ground on this pole and haven't gone from this run in over a year but it felt pretty good. The 2nd jump I bailed out because I was too under at take off but I caught a pretty good ride and had a nice attempt on my 3rd jump. Surprisingly this pole also felt too small on the last jump. This is what we were hoping would happen as I move my run back.
I don't feel I jumped as well as I could have at the higher bars because I was rushing the top of the jump. This is very fixable in practice on my smaller 14' poles from a 44' run. I think some big jumps are coming but I have to keep it in perspective - if I don't vault technically the same on the bigger poles it negates the benefit. Fortunately you fix that in practice as I have done many times before.
SO, two meets and two new indoor PRs (Personal Records). Can't argue with that I guess. Now back to the gym hardcore tomorrow and try and get a real quality vault session Wednesday. My next meet is in Belton, north of Austin on 1/2. Like Kris says, "you're easily on those poles now so let's get back to fundamentals".
On top of feeling like I'm making some progress, I did not get hurt today even though these are easily my highest level jumps since I returned in 2005. BTW - I had the flu Monday and Tuesday. I feel very fortunate and somewhat lucky how things turned out today. Nothing spectacular but signs of progress. All the best! Bubba
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