Worse

My cold has turned to full blown flu so I'm dead for the day. The curse of rarely being sick is that when I am it's bad. Sucks! Have a great day! Bubba

Late Update - I got out of bed at 4:20 and tried to catch up on email. The fact that it is POURING rain outside lets me also think that this is another case of me being protected from me. I was afraid to do too much on Thursday but felt good Sunday. Would I get too aggressive and blow it up a little tomorrow if I went out as planned? Rain and sickness will keep me from being able to try. Thank you!

Labor Day Rest

I got a pretty good cold throughout the day yesterday so I will skip my lift today. Too much going on this wake to prolong the cold. I rarely get sick so wen I do it's usually a little worse than the average cold or flu. I also want to jump Wednesday before I go to San Francisco on Thursday. Laying low. Have a wonderful day! Bubba

Jumping Again

At the 17 day mark since my little left hammy ding I was able to easily clear 10' (3.05m) from 4 steps (23'/6.5m) without feeling anything. I would never use those three poles from 4 steps because they work well from 2 steps but I didn't want to push my run. I'll move it up a little and jump from 6 steps on Wednesday on small poles. After that my Sunday should feel normal again. I have a small meet three weeks from yesterday so I should be fine for my smaller 14' 1" (4.30m) poles.

We do a lot of short run jumps and progress to longer run jumps after three misses. At some point a vaulter feels like he/she is gripping too high, or the pole is too big or they have little room for error to get enough height to make a bar. I would rather get over that feeling from 2, 4 and 6 steps than back at a longer run where there is true danger. We call it "facing our demons". Because what we do wrong at a low level is what we do wrong from a high level. If you put yourself in that position right away, you have a lot of jumps in you to get past these sticking points and really make progress. Most vaulters get too tired and quit right about the time they face these issues so they take much longer to work through.

I was told that Alex Parnov (Russia/Australia) has his kids stay at 4 and 6 steps for 2-3 months at a time. Anything to strip away speed. As Bubka's coach Vitaly Petrov says, "all vaulters are strong and fast so I must take this away from them". Maybe that's why Steve Hooker jumped 18' 6 1/2" (5.65m) last year from 8 steps and then almost became the second man in history to jump 20'. More jumps, more fun, more learning FASTER!! Have a great day and thanks for being here. Bubba

Kids

Nice "last week" of summer practice for our regulars. I'm letting them run from 6, 8 and 10 steps on Saturdays so they are all already near their PRs, with all getting or tying six step PRs this week. FUN!!

I'll be out of town most of next week but then we start back and everyone can come out. If you were in the summer program you still vaulted this week. If you were not then you wait until the 14th. Pretty simple. I'm not letting progress be interrupted by people who also has the option to be here all summer. In fact, they will have to pass a series of tests and progressions to even be allowed on to the main pit with the others. We're out to improve this year. No more social networking on the runway. Already seeing results and breakthroughs and that is exciting. Have a great day! Bubba

Day by Day the Opponent is Me

You often hear football coaches talk about not looking past an opponent. Well for a masters pole vaulter with any significant meet months away, each practice is an individual opponent. You can't just slog through it half way and the turn up the intensity when you get closer to something important. You have to focus on every set and every rep of whatever you're doing or you simply won't get better. The calendar pages are flipping but you're not improving. This happens with a lot of high school vaulters who think that by taking some jumps a couple of days a week that they will get better. You won't, and it's frustrating.

So I face my biggest opponent every single day in practice and I'm sad to say that the opponent is me. I'm busy, I'm sore, I'm tired, I'm thinking about something else I need to be doing, I'm thinking it would be OK to cut this short, etc. I think I'm full of crap and won't listen to me. I just keep showing up every day and doing what I can to the best of my ability without risking injury. That's all I can ask of me. I certainly can't trust the "me" that's constantly in my head. I can only trust the one looking at this next individual component. Todays add up to be yesterdays, and if you have enough good yesterdays behind you then you will have many good todays. That's all I'm after. Thanks for enduring the rambling! Bubba

Staying Within Myself

I took off about six times and felt pretty good. I stayed about 20% under what I thought I could do so therefore chose not to jump at a bar and risk stepping over that line. Everything feels really good. I should be able to do more each day as I will try again on Sunday and Wednesday before I go to San Francisco.

The very hard part is to take your time and do all of the stretches and other supporting exercises. It takes about 30 minutes a day and because they are easy, you can talk yourself into skipping them or cutting them short. Can't do that. It's the difference between SAYING you have a goal and ACTING like you intend to reach it. Got past that temptation today! A small victory. Have a fun day! Bubba

Off Day / Travel Day

Nothing special. Will try and jump tomorrow. Bubba

Actually, Ken Stone at masterstrack.com posted this National Senior Games preview -
http://masterstrack.com/2010/09/15410/