Circular Logic

As I settle into the grind my body feels fairly crappy yet is still responsive to the training demands. Of course I will make adjustments if I feel I am at risk of a ding, but I still continue on with the main base of the grind. This is normal when you train to try and get to the next level of speed and strength/power.

When you feel this way you can't vault at a high level. Once you rest to vault you can't seem to progress physically anymore. To make this work I try to cycle into hard training, and then have a meet, and then cycle back to training. The problem is that if you have three meets in a row you suddenly feel like you are stuck physically and need to get back to training. Almost like I got out of shape by jumping in too many meets and not practicing enough.

All of this said, I have jumped less this year than any other year yet my average meet vaults are about 4" (10cm) higher than last year. I have many more meets than practices this year. In fact I haven't jumped in practice since early November. We have a new pit and I've never been on it since I have only jumped at meets - 4" higher. WEIRD!!

I'm comfortable with my technique but it needs some cleaning up. I plan to vault at four of our All Comer meets spaced two weeks apart. That will give me a little over three weeks left before the National Senior Games and another 3.5 weeks until Worlds. If I go to Nationals in Cleveland that will be 2.5 weeks after worlds. So the way it looks I will jump only 6-7 more times this year - NONE in practice. Again - WEIRD!! But whatever works. Never done this before.

To put this all in perspective, I have ONLY been on 14' 7" (4.45m) poles since mid October yet last year it took me half the season to be able to practice on my 14' 1" (4.30m) poles. Sure I would love to jump more but I think it's more important that I jump less but at a higher level. Seems to be working so far. It seems you can either vault in practice or raise your level physically because you can't do both at a high level at the same time at this age. Nice to know. NOW, I'd like to ramp up to being able to and I'm sure I will try to jump two days a week along with my other training - next year.

Next year I will jump 2-3 days a week starting back at the lowest levels and run 4-5 days a week. THAT will be fun!! Have a great day and thanks for the support. Bubba