Mass Improvement

I was going to go ahead and do tomorrow's running today while I'm out watching the kids but I think I will wait and stay on the proper work/rest schedule. When I woke up this morning nothing was sore, including my groin on the right side. I'm guessing it is maybe 10% of what it felt like yesterday. I'll still skip the jump day tomorrow as a precaution but keep everything else on schedule.

My training partner, Don Curry, may be just around the corner from being able to be a vaulter again. He has been bothered by lower abdominal flaring for the past two years. We think it is a deep hernia but the docs keep injecting it like it is osteitis pubis, an irritation of the abdominal attachments to the pubic bone. I've had both and still think it its a hernia but Don's not quite so sure. Apparently the doc hit the right spots when Don was under on Wednesday and when he woke up he had no pain in the area for the first time in months. So he will begin a slow ramp up and hopefully start jumping in some meets soon. He has been able to vault at a very low level for a while now so he has been picking up on my hand pressure technique. The 2007 National Senior Games Champion, I'm hoping it gets back rolling at a high level soon.

Texas Relays is going on in Austin. Back in the old days the elite jumpers were there but now it's mainly college and high school. In 1972 Kjell Issakson of Sweden became the first vaulter to clear 5.50m (18' 1/2") on North American soil when he cleared a then World Record of 18' 1". I just saw his teammate Hans Lagerqvist in Kamloops. While the crowd and press were mobbing Kjell my brother and Frank McMurray pulled the tip off of his pole and Frank had it encased in a plastic box. The next year Frank (15' 6" in high school) would drop dead on the track after his relay leg at a high school meet. Twenty years later Sergey Bubka gave me the plug off of his pole after getting the first 6m (19' 8 1/4") in Los Angeles at the Sunkist Invitational. So we have the first 5.50m and 6m plugs in the family. Odd but fun trivia.

Hope you have a fantastic weekend and thanks for your support! Bubba