Vaulting in the Big Leagues

so i regestered for my classes for next semester alreadey because this one is almost over!!! However i am very excited because i am taking three classes, but also because i go on my first clinical affiliation, which means i will be in an athletic training clinic, working as an AT! My classes are also great because each of the classes has a lab to go along with it. while this is alot of work it is also great because it is all hands on. The three classes are Therapuetic Modalities (ultrasound therapy, e-stim, icing, heating, etc), Therapuetic exercise (essentailly basic physical therapy), and clinical physiology (more excerise and body movemnets).

So as of next semester i am buried to my head in athletic training, and i am pumped about it. One last thing the surgery on my knee is occuring december 9 at childrens hospital in boston, and is being preformed by sports medicine specialist Dr. Yen.

As guest lecturer Melissa Pennell, head UMass Lowell’s English department, steps into the room to speak about her specialty:  Ralph Waldo Emerson and transcendentalism.  She asks for us to share either a great book we’ve read, the most daring thing you’ve ever done, or the most beautiful thing we’ve ever seen.  “How did it change your life forever?”  she asked.  I don’t have much to say about great books or a sap for beautiful things, I decided to write a bit about the most daring thing I’ve ever done: starting to pole vault.

After hearing the stories of “How to Kill a Mockingbird made me want to be an English major” or “I went to Europe by myself last summer” or “I went to Hawaii and it moved me to tears”, it was getting a little predictable.  Being someone who likes to blend in with the sea of students in a classroom, I try to force myself into raising my hand to speak at least once a class.  I decided to share my story.

“I started pole vaulting when I was a freshman in high school. I can be very shy at first.  I’m very cautious and timid in a lot of decisions I make.  I’m not a very daring person and hate roller coasters, but I knew I really wanted to try it.  Pole vaulting has just enough danger for me.  I’m also very impatient and a perfectionist.  It reminds me to have patience with an event with so much technique involved, to take my time just to get things right.   Even the professional vaulters go back to the baby steps to try and fix their problems.  I think those skills overlap into other aspects of life and problem solving, not just athletics.  I’ve done it for almost six years now.  It’s a passion of mine and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.”

Dr. Marshall, my real professor, had her jaw on the floor.  Dr. Pennell did also.  I started to blush a bit, feeling embarassed that I shared so much.  I felt vulnerable to their potential criticisms and that they weren’t saying anything at all, until finally.  “WOW!”

I was bombarded with “How high do you jump?” “How did you ever get in to that?”  “Are you on the track team?”  “Aren’t you afraid to let go of the pole like that? Wait–forget letting go, what about jumping so high?!”  I started to blush a little more knowing the concentration wasn’t on transcendentalism anymore.  It was a  lesson in pole vaulting.

After class, Dr. Marshall pulled me aside.  She asked even more about pole vaulting and how I even got started.  I just told her how I saw it and liked it.  There really wasn’t a wonderful story behind it.  “I feel like I know so much more about you now.  After almost an entire semester, I now have a real insight into the kind of person you are.”

I’m not really sure what sort of insight it reveals about me as a person, but I guess I had no idea how the “outside world” views us as pole vaulters.  Even though I’m not the greatest vaulter in the world, I have to say it still feels pretty awesome.

I usually do homework in my work study, but since it’s Friday–no thanks.

This week was really stressful.  By the time Wednesday came around I wanted to pull my hair out.  It was mainly because of my second English literature exam that I studied really hard for and BOMBED.  Well, I feel like I did.  I didn’t get the grade back yet.  This class only has two exams, term paper, and a final exam.  I got a 64% on my first exam.  I’m in a panic over it because I only took 12 credits this semester to balance classwork between track & my work study job in the orientation office.  For some that may not know, 12 credits is the bare minimum to be qualified as a full-time student.  If I don’t pass this class, I’m not qualified for track season at all.  I could easily be getting ahead of myself and freaking out in my usual way–but it is starting to stress me out.  I’m waiting to get the grade back to approach her for extra-credit/help.

I can’t believe I’m registering for Spring classes next week!  Time is FLYING by!  I already made up my intended schedule and I have no classes on Tuesday and Thursday!  I’m really looking forward to that. :-)

Track is going well.  I’m still getting adjusted to doing my own thing at practice.  My coaches don’t really ask how I’m doing.  I can’t tell if it’s because they don’t care or they’re just not worried about me.  I guess that’s a part of being the only female pole vaulter–as well as the only VAULTER not a multi-event athlete.  I occaisionally wander into the track and field office to update them on how I’m doing, but it’s discouraging to get a blank stare and, “Okay.”  I guess shouldn’t worry unless my name suddenly disappears from the roster. Haha.

Do you see that children? No need to look closer or squint, your eyes don’t deceive you. Yes, that is Sean Busch, aka Buschleague, aka the Imperator, aka the Impervious, aka Juan Carlos Delgado (says my New Mexico driver’s license, long story) writing his FIRST blog entry. Take a moment to savor the occasion, put on some party hats and crack some bubbly! You will have to excuse my year and a half absence from blogging as I’ve been trying hard to fight off a bad of the nerds, a little known disease which includes a tumorous growth from the chest known as a pocket protector and an unsightly swelling of the brain due to extreme engineering. Without further adieu, let’s get on with the blog shall we?

In light of previous blogs, I would like to declare myself the undisputed worldwide IMPERVIOUS of the pole vault as I am the only person bombastic enough to make this claim and the only male vaulter at Umass. Being the black sheep of the track team, I don’t really have someone train with, but I like running sprint workouts with the rest of the team and vaulting 2-3 days a week with the infamous coach Hoogasian. Each week’s workout is a mixed bag of running shenanigans, usually consisting of a bunch of hills, 300, 200, 200 x 2 (like brian said) amongst other sprint workouts, abs and plyos days, and 3 days of lifting a week . Suffice it to say, college track makes you faster and stronger and makes the occasional candid flex-in-the-mirror that much better (shameless!).

The vaulting has been good, but is about to get even better as the festivities are moving indoors for the winter. Christmas came early today as coach Hoogasian hopped off his sleigh with a sack of toys on his back, including some of Patriot’s “cannons” like a 15′ 170 (you can have it back as soon as we’re done, Mariah). Injury free, and full of youthful exuberance(!), I’m ready to test the waters of huge poles and get myself ready for some PRs indoors. The vault is now coming to the forefront of my training as I’ve spent most of the fall focusing on increasing my speed and refining my stride in anticipation of the winter.

Vaulting here has really made me miss all of you Patriot vaulters, as the experience is totally different now. Instead of getting to hang out for two and a half hours just vaulting and watching other vaulters, I have significantly less time to “chill” and I really need to condense my workouts to fit in my schedule. Also, I miss having the opportunity to mentor all you little cherubs and the rewarding, intangible sensation it gives me. The older vaulters I know tend to be really set in their ways and don’t react the same way to observations that you guys do. It has been nice, however, to give pointers to the “pro” (quoting “Mind Warp”) Kristin Bakinowski and watch her blast off.

Seeing as I’m getting a little verbose and my fingers are tired from all this typing, I think it’s about time to wrap it up. Thank you to all who have read this (if anyone actually DID read this) and i hope to write again. One last thing, if you want to stay aliiiiiiiiiive BE COOL ABOUT FIIIIIIIIRE SAFETY (be cool!)

so i talked to the surgeon today and the results are ine. The problem is officialy a torn meniscus with a strained MCL due to the syst. The plan  of action is to do orthoscopic sugery. With this sugery two things could happen depending on the condition of the meniscus when they go in. The first (the better option) they are able to repair the meniscus, they do that and clean everything out. This would put me on crutches for about 6 weeks, and full recovery will take 4-5 months…. the other option is a minesectomy (i think thats how you spell it?) where the meniscus is to degrated and the cut it the injured part out. This recovery is one week on crutches and maybe a month full recovery, however i am gauranteed arthritis and pain would remain.

As for now i can not do any impact training(including lifting) and i have to wear a hinged brace. This means alot of pool, bike, and elipitcal for me. The surgery should be within the next couple weeks. I will keep you posted.

brian

I hate to keep all this injury crap going, but I’m kinda injured right now also.  I was just doing some stuff in the weight room and popped my shoulder out of it’s socket somehow.  Got it back in, but still hurts though it’s kinda fading, after a week.  Hopefully just a minor injury.  Anyway, Lane, my world class pole vault coach, is now in charge of the whole track team’s workouts, which is pretty sweet.  I’m actually learning and doing running drills that should help my running mechanics a lot.  Trying to turn over a new leaf in track this year, as I wasn’t too great last year.  I think I’m already close to how many practices I went to last year.  I’ll try to post more often.

So i had my MRIs done yesterday, they printed them on film right away so i could bring them back to my team physician (Dr. Corrado, an amazing doctor) and within an hour of the MRI being done i had my diagnoses. There is no MCL tear, however there is a slight meniscal tear, in addidtion to a degenartive misicus that essentialy has a tunnel through it with a large syst pushing out on my MCL. In other words… surgery. I am seeing the surgeon tomorow about what they are going to do, but hopefully the surgery will happen next week or the week after, and it is just going to be a scope (minimally invasive) to carve out the syst and repair the damage to the meniscus. hopefully recovery will be about a month.

Apart from the surgery and recovery time this is actually a very good thing. The syst is aparently an old injury that i ran through all last year, which would explain the constant pain i was in. So with this surgery i am hoping to improve drastically. I did jump for the first time this year after my MRI because i figure i having a surgery why not get in at least one jump session. In basic two steps drills my form is much better then last year, an i am pumped fo the time after my recovery.

i will keep you posted about the surgery

Brian

Hello, Hello.

I think I’m finally past the midsemester stuff, as far as I know.  As much as I enjoy writing papers compared to taking exams, I guess I didn’t think of how many I’d have to do at once as an English major.  Silly :-P  English Literature is kicking my butt.  Camelot? Knights? Arthur? Lancelot?  I guess I don’t really like that crap. :-X

Track is going well.  I’ve been going to practice every Wednesday night @ North Andover High School–myself and the famous (or infamous?) Sam LeBeau represent UML.  We could either be a good representation or bad, haha.  All I know is pole vault practice is my favorite part of the week.  It’s the perfect way to beat the mid-week blues.  Last night we put up a bungee and had a little fun.  I was clearing 9′ with three steps.  I couldn’t believe how long it had been since I had actually cleared SOMETHING.  I’m excited, but I’m having a hard time seeing an improvement in technical stuff.  I can’t feel a difference.  Am I supposed to?  All I know is I can feel my arms and shoulders today!

I’m hoping next week to get out to 5 steps.  I’ve never gone more than 5.  So silly.  I’m glad I can work on it though, unlike last year.  Knowing how injury prone I am and having a better idea of how to take care of myself, I can see a difference in my attitude, moods and well-being overall.  I’m still lifting, but it feels weird not having running workouts.  I’m not saying I’m fat or anything, but I’m just used to seeing myself more in shape with running.  It’s a different kind of strong I guess.  I’m taking good care of my foot, biking, and SOMETIMES pool.  As the weather gets colder it’s a little harder to get me in the pool…

Hi all, I’m at school now and I guess I’ll finally write here since Ingrid gave me the passwords a few weeks ago.  So I go to Colgate University in upstate New York.  It’s going well so far!  Classes are hard…especially Calc 2…but I guess other than calculus things are great.  I walked onto the track team here.  It’s a small group of girls but everyone’s really nice and workouts are manageable so far (well its only our 3rd week of practice).  There are 2 other vaulters on the team but they are both studying abroad this semester.  So here is this weeks workout plan…

Monday: warmup (it’s really long, lots of strides, lunges, squats, etc.), stairs, and we were supposed to do hill but those turned into short sprints on the football because we were really crunched for time), lifting, pushups, abs

Tuesday: 16×100 around 18-20s, core

Wednesday: 3x(100,100,200,100), idk the pace, lifting

Thursday: 300, 400, 400, 300, 200, 200, 200 (ahh that doesn’t sound too fun!) at 22s 100 pace, core

Friday: we just do something fun after a plyo circuit and lifting (last week we did basketball). and then the weekends we just need to get in some physical activity.  So we’re still not in season so the practice hours are limited for now. But I’m getting lots of nice free stuff. I’m getting antsy to actually vault!!

Caroline

okay so that last post worked! yay! ill briefly rewrite what i lost…

schools going well…its really tough but i love my classes. they are all really small and my professors have been great so far! i just finished up my midterms so hopefully ill get a little break from this craziness!

track has been really fun!! the workouts have been picking up as we approach our first meet in 5 weeks but it’s been really rewarding as i get faster and stronger today we didnt get to practice because it was snowing (YES there was 6 inches on the ground + white-out conditions on october 28) so football got priority over the field house

ill write more when i dont have so much homework,

Caroline