Early Sled Feels Good

This is then 18 year old Amanda Bartrim who just represented Australia in the World Junior Championships in Canada. I think you can click to enlarge. I always tell our vaulters that your body needs to swing in one long lever until the hips hit the hands. Extend your left leg up the pole and pull without turning as the pole extends with your back to the bar and let the turn come as a natural result. She does it here beautifully. NOW, her PR is only 4m (13' 1 1/2"), so how much stronger and faster does a person have to be to jump this high the wrong way if she is this perfect? BTW - this is the pit in Sydney where I won the World Masters Games.

Ready to Jump Thursday

I was planning to try some very low level vaulting on Thursday and Sunday and apparently that will be the plan. Unless I feel something odd warming up Thursday I should be OK. I felt like I could have jumped Sunday and today my running felt even better. Of course I will be very cautious but it's nice that my body is getting back to accepting all training components again.

The Outdoor Season Officially Ends Today

August 31 is the official end of the outdoor season as no marks are accepted. I intentionally did not compete this year because I did not want to rush through a ding and turn it into something big. Also I didn't want to put up a substandard mark. I remember I went through a time where I got so sick of jumping 11' 6" (3.51m) and barely missing 12' (3.66m) that I made the decision that I would just start at 12'. It really made me step up my game and gave me some consistency at a higher level. My thoughts were that I can't get stuck with 11' 6" if I never jump at it. But would I rather no height (nh - fail to make a bar in 3 attempts) than to make 11' 6"? YES!! The result changed my thinking and expectations. I need to make 13' (3.97m) my start height if I want to reach my goals this year and right now that feels far away. But who knows; just follow the progression. Impatience means you have no confidence in your plan.

New Favorite T-Shirt

I'm wearing my Kamloops World Championships T-Shirt a lot and will continue to this whole year as a reminder NOT TO BE HURT AT BIG MEETS!!!! After National Indoors on March 5-6 I'm shutting down and taking my vaulting and training down and ramping back up slowly until the big meets. NO unnecessary risks. My old coach, DJ used to say that you can count on vaulters getting hurt with 1-3 weeks out from a big meet. I need to do the opposite like I did for Sydney.

Have a great day and thanks for being here! Bubba