Scared?

I'm a little concerned about the project of only jumping on 14' 7" (4.45m) poles tomorrow just because I don't know what to expect. The first one should be fine from 12 or even 14 steps if needed, but we will see. I play this game called "getting to know you" where I start at 2 steps and move my hand up one grip at a time until I am at a grip I can vault with. If the pole isn't moving fast enough I move back another stride. The scary part is that at some point I will be in "no man's land" where the grip is pretty high, but the pole doesn't really bend. I just have to use all of the tools I know to make the pole move, big angle, reach out of socket, stiff body, etc. Once I'm past that I will be fine.

When I was in high school we got a new coach who had a kid who had jumped 15' 6" so he brought me over my NEW pole - a 1665. I had been on a 1555 so this is a MASSIVE pole for me. He says that we are going to play this little game called "getting to know you", and that he would be standing there with his paddle and that if I failed to leave the ground I should just come over to him, and bend over for my reward for being a coward. Not surprisingly he was also the head football coach. Not being afraid to be called a coward, but afraid of getting swatted, I took off no matter where I was. I think I climbed down the pole about 15 times that day and made the pit three times. Three days later at a meet at Rice University I vaulted 14' 6" by a foot. My PR had been 13' 10" so now I'm a believer that I could always do more than I thought I could. Thanks Coach Hart!! Ended up loving that guy. He was tough but he would never ask me to do something he didn't know I could do. It was then MY job to believe in me.

I've always done this game when I get a new key pole in a series. In the meet a few weeks ago I felt that the first 14' 7" twisted a little so with a low grip I can isolate and mark that pole properly. I also NEED to warm up by HAVING to jump up and reach up so I see nothing bad that can happen from these efforts. Oh, except for that mentally weak thing. I don't really have that issue but it will certainly be challenged tomorrow. I'll report back afterwards. Have a great day! Bubba

Strong Day

I missed one lifting rotation last week because of the meet Sunday and the result was that I felt considerably stronger than usual. I once read that at age 60 if you do not train for three months that you lose 40% of your strength. I can believe that because it is so hard to get going again, even if you just miss a week. Still, nice to get a one rotation break every now and then.

Thursday I'll try to jump only on the 4.45m (14' 7") poles only. If it works it does. I figure even if I have to go 12, 14 or even 16 steps with a lower grip I can get the feel of them. I blew through the first two at a meet a few weeks ago so I'm nervously excited. I just don't want to have to run fast enough to hurt myself at first so that means I need to run further. Should be fun. Have a great day!! Bubba

Warning - This Will Seem "Out There"

Cycles of Life
Yesterday my intellectual cycle was way down according to my biorhythms. Those are the types of days you put your car keys in the refrigerator, or go to a big meet without your field bag, or to the gym this morning without my ankle weights. My physical and emotional were both peaking which explains feeling good and not being overly stressed that I would take only one jump. Though I don’t pay too much attention to this anymore, there was a time I was deeply into it and with great success.

After my senior year of college and my 2nd national championship, I was asked to give a lecture to a coaches association about application of biorhythms to athletic training. This theory says your physical cycle is 23 days, emotional is 28 (moon cycles/women periods) and the intellectual is 33. So when your body is consistently trashed it will go down, next it will agitate the emotions and finally the brain will give up trying to reason with the physical exhaustion, emotional frustration and the declining reasoning ability. Half of the cycle is above the "critical line" and half is below in the recharge. These are graphed in sine waves and you can see yours online by Googling "free biorhythm calculators". These cycles begin the day you are born and intersect each other in different patterns throughout life.

So is this hocus pocus, horoscope or just another crutch? Beginning in my junior year of college I began to assert that I would not accept a bad day just because my biorhythms said it should be. I would look ahead and label my training days with an "I" for intensity or a "Q" for quality so that I could get the most out of each day. Gradually I began having very good performances on what theoretically should have been a bad day. As my good days got better, my low days became consistently even with what used to be a good day.

Let’s take it a step further. I started studying dreams and working with a sports psychologist at the university who would hypnotize me and a discus thrower. We were asked to keep a dream journal where we woke up and immediately wrote what we had dreamed. We went over this with the psychologist and the hypnosis session addressed these issues.

The psychologist loved what I had done with biorhythms so he suggested that we try to use the same approach to make us mentally stronger. The result was he could take us under deep hypnosis and condition us to be highly focused even when our intellectual or emotional cycles were crashing. It got so far that we, as a team, could even influence what dreams we had. So we applied our technical goals through this process and then actually saw ourselves successfully complete perfect attempts both under hypnosis and in our dreams. Cool!!

Long story short, I knew as good as I felt yesterday, and as calm as I was, that my physical and emotional were peaking at the same time that my intellectual was crashing. Had I taken a few seconds to look this up I would have taken a little more care in my preparation for packing for the meet. If I see my physical would be down I would give myself a little more rest, and if my emotional was crashing I would take a little more time and make sure I diffused any distractions.
OR, I could just say, "I just had a bad day", except that I would know differently. Have a wonderful Monday! Bubba

Strangest Meet of My Life

One jump for the win and I qualified for next year's National Senior Games. Huh?! I got a call from the meet director asking me if I could officiate the vault. Dangit!! I asked Don and he agreed. The meet director would officiate us at 7:30 AM and then we would run off the rest of the competitions for the other 32 vaulters. Here we go;

• We arrived at 6:45 AM after meeting at 5:45 for the drive.
• The pit was put out last night and not covered so it was soaked.
• They had no crossbar but we had brought ours just in case.
• We started our part of the meet before the sun came up, in very wet conditions and under the stadium lights.
• Due to some shifting of stuff in the garage because of our bathroom remodels going on, I somehow got to the meet without my bag that contains my knee brace, tape, spray to make the pole sticky, etc.
• I cannot jump without my knee brace because of a hyperextended knee condition that flares my hamstring.
• I could not grip the pole without the spray, especially in the wet conditions.
• The pit was set up too close to the box so my pole bend was hitting the pit and straightening out before I could complete the vault. It requires many people to move the pit and we had three so we dealt with it.
• All of this wasted because I felt absolutely spectacular like this was going to be a huge day.
• I took a jump at 12' (3.66m) and made it very easily and moved the bar to 13' 1" (3.99m). Running down the runway I felt my knee start to click (hence the brace) so I stopped. No pain, just the warning that I acknowledged.
• When my group jumped at 11 AM it was warm and there was a massive tailwind and the pit had been moved back so the poles could roll through. So would my jump now hold up?
• My friend Bob Crites started at 10' 6" (3.20m) and worked his way through before making 12' (3.66m) on his 3rd and last attempt. I win because I made it on my first. Had he made it on his first I still would have won because I had only one vault to that point and he had six.

So that was my day; one jump for the win and stop. Dang maturity. It was the smart and safe thing to do but very hard since I felt so great. Oil well as they say in Texas. On Thursday I'll move to my 14' 7" (4.45m) poles and then go back to my 14' 1" (4.30m) poles on Sundays. It was and remains the plan for after today. Tough to swallow but that's life. Thank you for being here and have a wonderful Sunday! Bubba

Tomorrow

When I go to Butler Stadium in Houston tomorrow for the Texas Senior Games, it will be the first time I have jumped there since 1978. I opened that day at 16' 6" (5.04m) and failed to make anything higher and was not happy. Later that year I cleared 18' 1" (5.51m) and retired at the end of the season. Contrast that to the fact that I also got my first 10' (3.05m) vault in that stadium and you can see a lot of history.

Bill Halverson told me that the Bell Curve of life is similar to the Bell Curve for vaulting. In life, if we live long enough we start and end drooling with no hair or teeth. In the pole vault you digress back through school. I vaulted 13' 10" (4.22m) as a junior in high school so I hope to exceed that this year. I vaulted 12' 9" as a sophmore so I certainly don't want to fall below that.

In any case, it will be fun to go back there 32 years later. Of course there will be a full report and hopefully I can get someone to video. have a wonderful Saturdy and thank you again for being here. Bubba

Taking It Easy

The same can be said for tomorrow as I get couple of easy stretch days in. This morning felt fine and I expect tomorrow will feel a little better.

Lots of vaulters entered Sunday as it is the qualifier for the National Senior Games. Of course that is always a busy year but with the Games being in Houston it's REAL crowded. Only the top four go to the big meet so some good jumpers will be left out. Have a great day!! Bubba

Old Lesson Revisited

I believe that anyone who has ever done anything at a high level understands what it takes to do the same no matter what the event or goal. My wife, Nancy is a retired Principal of an elementary school. I relate well to her because I know what excellence it requires to reach and succeed at that level.

Today the kids got out early to vault because they had midterms. The first kid asked how long we would be and I said as long as it takes. He told me he was tired from class. I asked what he would have done had he been required to go the whole day today like every other day. Another said he was tired from his track class and another said he had already run sleds. To the group I told them that this is a club event, not a school event and therefore not required so if you aren't ready to be here please go home. I'm here to help only those who want to be the best. Not only do I do this for free but I actually pay to use the field in order to help them. So go away if you're not really into it. I asked where one guy was and they said he didn't want to come out today. I said great, tell him not to come out next week.

The reason I am telling this story is because there was a rather heavy kid in the middle of the football field and he was walking and banging a drum stick on a wood block in rhythm so that his friend, a little skinny band guy, could practice his marching routine with his horn. They went over and over this for nearly an hour. My first thought was my original point, that this is what it takes to be at the highest level of anything and this kid clearly gets it. His performance and improvement are so important to him that he is practicing alone on a field when everyone else has gone home. I liked this guy. Wonder if he would be interested in pole vaulting.

We have such a weird sport in that we would do it whether anyone ever came to see us in a meet or practice. We don't care who's there, where it is, etc. We just want to vault. Because I train almost always alone I know the fitness walkers pretty well. Don't know their names but we wave and speak to each other. I've seen them keep showing up and losing weight, listening to their music. I guess my point is that this is what it is all about; a lifetime activity that you can do forever that doesn't really require anyone else to be involved. I've got a lot in common with the band guy and those walkers and I like that. I bet they are really successful in other areas too.

That's it. Just random thinking out loud. Enjoy what you do or go home and find something else that you enjoy. Life's to short not to have fun every day. Have a great day and thank you for being here. Bubba

PS - ran my 5 X hill/sleds and felt pretty good. Big stretch tomorrow and Saturday. Texas Senior Games on Sunday morning. Top four go to National Senior Olympics next year at the University of Houston.