Goals & Poles - 2nd Monday Post

Let's start with the Texas weather. It was 72 yesterday and is supposed to snow tomorrow. Go figure.

I've been working with Kris and Essx owner, Bruce Caldwell about a special set of poles for me and they are now finished. Bruce always makes my poles special including different colored tape so I can tell them apart. Tough to read those little numbers without glasses. This series is 14' 7" (4.45m) and has a higher sail/reinforcement piece to make the carry weight lighter/balanced and to help pick me up a little more at the take off. My style of vaulting works with a higher sailpiece so I'm thrilled.

Kris has a flex machine at his facility so he took all of my 14' 1" (4.30m) poles and flexed the new 14' 7"s on a 14' 1" scale so we could compare apples and apples between the 14' 7s and 14' 1s. All poles will have 2" removed off of the bottom and the tops will be trimmed to just above my grip heights so they don't come through and knock the bar off. Due to getting one comped, and the others based on trades, I'm actually only paying for one of the six new poles. YEP - SIX new poles. The grip on the first one (15.5 on a 4.30m scale) will be 13' 4" and go 1" higher per pole ending at 13' 10". The new poles are 15.5, 15.2, 15.0, 14.8, 14.6 and 14.4.

My goal is to clear 14'+ (4.27m) and that takes higher grips, longer runs and bigger poles. The first pole is actually .1 weaker than the one I jumped 13' 1" (3.99m) on at Belton on January 2. The same pole was too small at 13' 7" (4.14m) and that was from a 65' run. On these poles I will run from 76'+ to 87'+. I think Wolfie runs from like 105' and grips over 14'.

My objective is only to use the new poles at meets but train on the 14' 1"s. When I'm jumping well I always have a "meet series" and a "practice series". Too hard to jump on big poles in practice and get much done. Plus there is a bigger chance of injury. To meet this objective I will make sure to get in my three running days and four lifting days. Looking forward to beginning this mission. NOW I have something to look forward to. Bubba