Off Day

A little sore from my first rotation back to training. Today is my normal travel day but it got moved to Friday due to a change with a lunch with a physician partner. Tomorrow I'll be back on to my regular schedule so that is great. Though it always seems to get changed I function better on a schedule. I still get everything done but a schedule is nice.

Yesterday we had a major, but pretty short storm come through right about the time I was going out to the track to meet the kids to vault. The temperature dropped from 99 to 79 in 20 minutes and then wind picked up the pole vault pit and blew it up against the fence. I haven't seen it yet but one of the coaches called me and a kid posted it on Facebook. I'm guessing it's back together by now, but that was some excitement for us.

In 1973 I was at outdoor nationals my freshman year of college, and we had a storm delay/tornado warning during qualifying. We were under the stands and I saw pieces of the pole vault pit flying by and rolling end over end and two of the sections jumped a fence. Thirty minutes later it was clear and the pits were put back in place and we continued qualifying.

Speaking of that day, a turning point in my vault career, I learned that even though I had won my first six college meets, that out of 40 guys, I wasn't good enough to even make the final. I was very disappointed and disillusioned. The next day I looked up all of the vaulters I had watched and hung out with them, talked to them about their training, technique, etc. In 1975 and 1976 I won that national meet back to back. So this "shocking crisis" was either going to be the end of my career or the beginning. I chose the latter.

Have a wonderful day and thanks for being here for me! Bubba

PS - the guy who won the meet in 1973 was kind enough to spend a lot of time telling me his insights. He was quiet and kind of shy but was very nice and answered everything graciously. That guy was Steve Hardison, who I still jump with in masters meets today.