Goals & Mixed Signals

I had a friend a few years ago who I was helping at a meet at Texas A&M University. Huge tailwind, feels great, big pole, ties his PR of 17' 8 1/2" (5.40m) and moves to 18' 1/2" (5.50m) and up a pole. Sounds good but his year is over. Why? His standards were already at 40cm (16") and now they need to come in again. He's at the end of his present ability. He can't get in enough on the next pole to turn up to complete a jump yet everything else is perfect. Sorry but that's it for this year. Go back to work and come back next year with an upgraded body and technique because this is the end of the road for this year. Present potential reached.

I felt this way a little bit when I looked at my video from last weekend. But then it hit me, this is my 2nd meet on these poles and I have already jumped higher on smaller ones in the same series than I have in those two meets. I have tons of height on every jump and with a little clean up I will move through to the next bigger poles and start leaving higher bars up. My standards are on 80cm (31.5") and two weeks before that pole was a little too small. Basically I'm way ahead of myself by feeling discouraged. I have three more poles and another stride or two to get through, and my little technique clean ups will give me even more blow off the top of the pole.

My goal is to jump 14' (4.27m) this year. To do that I have to clear the lower heights by more as I progress through poles far more quickly than I do in practice. I've made 13' (3.97m) on pole #2 from 10 steps yet I was on pole #4 attempting it in the meet. Lots of height but nicked it on the way down on my best jump not on video. That means 13' 6" from 12 steps, which is clearly going to happen from the video. That gives me 14' from 14 steps but my plan is to get to 16 steps.

So, I need to show patience. I'm on track. I'm not at the end of my year in December. Back to work - I can get much more powerful and faster over the next seven months. Thanks for being here. Another odd topic for tomorrow. Bubba