Trending Upward

Last year's NCAA Champion Jordan Scott did this scuplture for a class.  Click to enlarge.

The plan today was to go very easy with my 4m/13' 1" poles.  Sunday was so hard and this is a short rest rotation so I didn't want to flare something up that is almost well.  As expected I felt a little like crap.  I started on the 14.7 which is usually a pretty easy jump to make 12' (3.66m) from my six step run of 33' (10m).  It was too small.  I moved up to the 14.3 which can sometimes be a bit of a struggle and it was too small.  I finally moved to my biggest 13' 1" pole, the 13.5 and made 12' quite easily though at 12' 6" (3.81m) it also was too small.  No pains or problems.  I'm surprised but should I be?

On the way back to the hotel on the bus from Reno I decided that I needed to crank my butt off on my running, lifting and bars so that the poles I just struggled to get moving will feel comfortable or even small.  THAT was my mission.  Today my once dependable bigger 13' 1" poles were almost useless because they are too small.  If this trnasfers like I hope, when I jump on my cut 14' 7"s (4.45ms) on Saturday, the first one should be too small.  If it is then I'm on my way to accomplishing the mission I set in Reno.

My plan was to jump on my 14' 1" (4.30m) poles Saturday but Kris agrees with me; why bother?  I'm healthy and ready and will have between Tuesday and Saturday to stretch and feel rested. Needless to say I'm very excited about this progress but Saturday will tell me where I really am.  Thanks for being here!  Bubba

MUSICA

Here's a great song for today that I always play before meets by Oingo Boingo called "Dead Man's Party"  That's my humorous view any gathering of fossils like us to compete.  The lead singer, who looks somewhat like Carrot Top, is Danny Elfman who has become fabulously famous and wealthy doing music scores for tons of movies.  He is also the brother in law of actress Jenna Elfman.  The video includes many scenes from Rodney Dangerfiled in "Old School". Enjoy!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iypUpv9xelg