Vaulting in the Big Leagues

Well it finally all came together! On Friday at the New England Championships I finally got back up to what I was clearing in high school. I finally cleared 12′ which got me 3rd place and qualified me to compete this weekend at the ECAC championships. The meet was definitely a great kick off to my spring break. Even though that Saturday I got stuck selling t-shirts at the meet for 4 1/2 hours! But it was worth it to see Northeastern place 2nd overall. I got to go home after the meet. It was great to finally get to see my family. And I had Monday off of practice so I got to spend an extra day at home. Now, I’m on my way back to NU for practice. I’m going to go home for at least one more night after practice today. Tomorrow, when I go back for practice I’ll probably stay there. Spring break could not have come at a better time for me. The week off of classes is definitely much needed. My classes this semester have been kicking my butt!

Having last weekend off gave me time to adjust to my new run from 7 steps instead of 6. I felt great at my last practice on Wednesday, my last jump especially. I dropped my shoulders with confidence on the 13′ 155. It felt incredibly weird which caused me to then pull, but other than the pull it was one of my best jumps ever. So I felt good going into the meet on Friday, I was nervous but confident. I felt pretty good in warm-ups. I came in at 11′ and cleared that and 11′6″ on my first attempts. I was still feeling good, but needed to get on a bigger pole. Since the 155 had been giving me trouble Brenner was able to find a stiffer 150, from BU, for me to use. I guess that was what I needed because I cleared 12′ on my first attempt! It was probably the most relieved I’ve ever felt after a jump. I was so happy and my adrenaline was pumping like crazy. I had a little trouble staying relaxed and focused on my attempts at 12′4″. It would’ve been nice to PR, but I was quite happy with my collegiate PR of 12′. Now that I’ve gotten my confidence back and got some poles that work well for me, hopefully the PR will come this weekend. If not, I’m still happy with my first collegiate season.

I have completed indoor track of my “sophomore” year.

Last night I competed at New Englands.  Although I was ready to jump, I didn’t have the same mental-motivation as when I came into NE-10s.  I was surprised to see myself seeded so high (9th), so that helped–but the bottom line was: I was tired.  Excuses, excuses, I know.  I jumped 10′6″ and finished 10th–I’m okay with it.  I had a great season!  But I’m really more excited to just take some time off, train hard, and move on to outdoor track to make that season even better than this one!

But, at the end of everything I complete I get all mushy and reflective upon everything that has happened.   I always learn something new and of course this isn’t any different.  So I’ve decided to express my new wisdom:

• Relax. Coach Ken always told me in high school that the biggest problem with my vaulting was “between my ears”.  Well, it’s pretty unbelievable what happens when you can come into a competition with a cool and level head.  Guess what? I GET IT.  Dr. Hoogasian once told me, “I never step on that runway without telling myself I’m the best one there.”  My first meet of this season is a perfect example of what happens when your head gets in the way of the competition. (Yep, that was a big NH next to my name)
• Always find the positive. Okay, I kind of already knew this about other parts of my life–but since vaulting is a huge part of our lives, it shouldn’t be any different.  Sometimes I beat myself up and I mistake finding the positive for making excuses.  For example: Yeah, I only jumped 10′6″ last night, BUT last time I jumped at BU this season I only jumped 9′6″ (I have to credit Doug for that one).  You have to get rid of your negative energy…otherwise, life’s gonna start sucking pretty hard and fast.
• Smile. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but VAULTING IS FUN.  I found that I jumped my highest heights when I had a fun time, joking (still focusing though!) and having the ability to keep things light.  Sure, I’ll trip coming off the mats because my spikes got stuck in the top cover.  Yeah, I have absolutely terrible jumps sometimes–but instead of getting mad over it, just laugh it off!  Don’t take yourself too seriously.  If you need help lightening the mood, wait until I’m at a competition with you! I make a total fool out of myself
• Kill them with kindness. This goes along with smiling of course, but we are extremely lucky to be in an event where we have a HUGE network of support.  All of us have been in each others shoes at one point or another and can relate.  It takes a really sour vaulter on a very crappy day to be unable to give sympathy seeing a struggling vaulter or to not be excited for another competitor’s successful day.  I’m not just talking about competitors either: coaches, officials, parents & siblings, other teammates’ and competitors’ parents–they’re your biggest fans.  I’ve certainly learned this from over a year of showing up to meets with my one pole and no coaches to help.  Other coaches step in and help you, officials even help out!  Another example:  after one of my meets–I had a stranger come up to me saying, “You were so fun to watch. Congratulations!”—I had no idea who they were, but thank you.  It was very nice of her to tell me that.
  If you are polite, smiling, and positive–that energy will attract others to want to see you succeed, even enough to help you when you need it.  It’s vaulting karma, kids.  What goes around comes around.

It’s interesting to see that a lot of these things I’ve learned have to do with your mental preparation instead of training your body to get it in shape and working on technique.  Of course, that is extremely important–but without taking care of your attitude…how are you going to get any better? How are you going to stay motivated enough to keep coming back for more if you don’t create a positive place for yourself in pole vaulting?  I know that’s what keeps me coming back for more—and it makes working hard a little easier.

ALSO, I had no idea how many people actually read my blog.  I’ve had multiple people come up to me at meets saying that they’ve read my blog.  I just want to say, thank you.  I’m glad that I could help in some way, entertain, or just kill some time.  That’s pretty darn cool.

Good luck to all those continuing in more championships and meets! I’ll see you guys in outdoor season!!!!

Well, I guess there’s no other way to say it.  I’m the 2010 NE-10 Women’s Pole Vault Champion.

I don’t think it’s actually sunk in yet and it’s been 24 hours.  Last night’s meet was an absolutely amazing night.

I was actually way more nervous than I thought I would be.  It’s one thing to come in ready to work your way up to the top, but if you’re already there you have nowhere else to go but down.  I definitely didn’t want to be that girl.  Thankfully, Ingrid was there to help out among all the commotion.   After warm ups, I felt a lot better and was ready to come in and give it the best I had.  Well, that resulted in a new personal best/UML school record of 11′2″ and winning the conference championship. The jump was pretty ugly, but hey–that bar stayed up. Haha.

I know I probably sound completely stupid, but this is actually the first time I’ve been “champion” in anything since high school, and my first time ever being a “pole vault champion”.  It’s so silly. I’m completely happy with the results and how the night turned out, but I’m surprisingly more excited for what is going to happen in the upcoming years–I still have 2 years of eligibility left!  There’s only going to be improvement from there (I know this because I won’t let it happen any other way! )

Also, UML Women’s team captured the title for the entire meet again this year!  I’m really proud that I contributed points to our team score.  Just kept on adding to the excitement!

(Photo swiped from the Northeast 10 Conference website)

Goriverhawks.com Write-up about the meet

NE-10 Conference Meet Final Results

On to New Englands next weekend.

I don’t even know what to say. It seems like I’m getting worse instead of better. I felt great after Tuesday’s practice. I got on poles bigger than I ever had before. Once again, I thought this meet would be the one. Then I got there and there were sooooo many vaulters. There was about a 15 minute wait between warm up jumps and then over two hours between the time warm ups ended and I actually took my first jump. I was tired before I even got started. Part of that could be because I was up late almost every night last week studying and doing homework. My warm up jumps weren’t great but then I felt good on my run through so I thought this meet could still be the one, but once again I was wrong. To take away the positives, I opened at 11′ and I got on a 13′ 155.

Last night I jumped at the BU Valentine’s Invitational—I did not receive any flowers or chocolates so I think they should work on that for next year.

ANYWAY, not gonna lie I HATE that meet.  I understand they want to make the most money they can and give everyone an opportunity to jump–but there are WAYYYYYYYY to many people.  Sitting around for that long of a time can really wear on you while your jumping.  I only came in at 9′6″ with the meet starting at 9′ and I was there for 2 hours!  That really wore on me. I don’t know how other jumpers wait so long to come in at their higher heights.  I would get so bored.

I jumped my lowest height of the season.  My warm ups felt way better than my actual attempts.  It’s a meet I’m just gonna have to shake off.  At least I’m back after my injuries & being sick.  I’m VERY excited/nervous for next week though.  Next Thursday is the NE-10 Conference Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center.  Right now, I’m seeded first (unless that changed as of last night) with my height of 11′1″ back from Tufts and I have two Southern Connecticut girls behind me with 10′11.75″.  SO that should be a really fun meet.  I would love to add “NE-10 Women’s Pole Vault Champion” to my resume, but if it’s not in the cards. It’s not in the cards.  I’m ready to have fun though!

I can’t believe that it’s already that time of the season again…

Well so far second semester has been way tougher than first semester. Having anatomy and physiology along with microbiology is really difficult and gives me quite the work load. I’m still doing well grade wise. I probably won’t still have my 4.0 GPA at the end of the semester, but I’m pretty positive I won’t have anything below a B at least.

As far as vaulting goes, I’m beginning to get really frustrated. My jumps feel and look better than they ever have before form wise, after watching the films from the Boston Indoor Games, Brenner even told me that my last attempt at 12′ was the best jump I had ever taken. But I’m still not getting the heights and I’m not quite sure why. At the Battle of Beantown, I felt really good in warm-ups. I started warming up on the 13′ 140 and started the competition on the 13′ 150. I came in at 10′6″ (I’m pretty sure I’ll change my opening height to 11′ next week at BU for the Valentine’s Invitational). I cleared both 10′6″ and 11′ on my first attempt and with quite a bit of room. I was the only one to clear 11′ so I got to choose the next height. I went with 11′9″ because that would qualify me for ECACs and would give me a seasonal best. I really thought I was going to get it no problem, I was still feeling really good. Three attempts later I was feeling anything but good. I was so frustrated I had to go to the bathroom to get myself together. I’ve definitely doing a lot better this year with staying positive and not getting so upset if I didn’t do well, but I sorta lost it at this meet. It certainly wasn’t the worst I’ve ever been after not doing well at a meet though, I’m pretty sure I’ll never be that bad again. Thankfully I have great teammates, they were all really supportive of me, saying not to worry about it, I’ll get it next week. But it just seems like I say that every week. Keeping the positive attitude is getting harder and harder (after reading Chrissy’s post I felt a lot better though…so thanks Chrissy ) Hopefully something will click and it will all come together soon.

Other than the stress of all the schoolwork and the frustration of vaulting lately, life’s been good. Sometimes its tough to make time for a social life but I still manage to have a lot of fun! I’ve made a lot of great friends. I’ve actually become best friends with Susie Janik from Wachusett. It’s so weird to look back on all that time in high school that we knew each other but barely talked; now we spend pretty much all of our free time together! Even though she hasn’t been able to compete (she broke and had to get stitches in her finger), she still goes to all the meets and is always there for me when I’m upset or frustrated. I don’t know what I would do without her, especially at the meet yesterday!

My ankle is much better, but sadly I still couldn’t compete at all this weekend.  I was entered in both the Yale meet & the Tufts meet—-they decided to send me to Tufts. Well, the morning of the meet I woke up with a fever of about 100.  I was still dressed and ready to go! But, I was sort of laughed at and sent home.  It’s a good thing too. Probably wouldn’t have been the greatest time competing anyway…and what’s the fun in that?

I’ve been trying to keep this pretty quiet, but a huge stress in my life is the fact that my step-father has been in the hospital since January 20th fighting cancer.  He was diagnosed pretty late in the stage a few days before Christmas.  My mom’s been at the hospital with him too.  He’s doing better, but it’s all relative to the day before.  I’ve been trying to remain positive–but if I had competed at Tufts I would have had the opportunity to visit both of them at Tufts Medical.  But that didn’t work out either.  I know it’s probably flowing over into ALL aspects of my life and making them just a little harder to do, but I’m just going to pray really hard.

BUT, sticking to my New Year’s Resolution I’m only going to focus on the things I can control.  Meet at BU on Friday—hoping I’ll be ready to jump.  This is the last meet before our conference championship and I’m the top vaulter right now for NE-10s.  I don’t really want to go into that meet without getting some more practice/competitions.

Well, I don’t want to be a downer anymore.  But I’m glad to see that everyone is doing well.  I know it’s that time of the season of injuries, sickness, stress, getting run-down (we’re almost to spring break! we’re gonna make it! and next is outdoor track!).  But I want everyone to remain positive.  Don’t focus on the roadblocks standing in your way at the time.  It might be hard not to focus on it for a little bit, and go ahead and do it. It’s healthy.   But look at the bigger picture.  Maybe we just can’t get our vaulting down just the way we want to yet, or maybe that class is really kicking our ass—or we just can’t stay healthy!  Sure, we’re all our toughest critics–and I know that about myself too–but we are in the toughest most frustrating field event.  If we take these fundamentals of perseverance, determination, and problem solving we use on the runway and keep them with us off the runway too–we’re gonna be the strongest most resilient people on the face of this planet.

I’m sure everyone knows that already, but sometimes a little reminder doesn’t hurt.

Well, things haven’t been going as i wanted for my first indoor season. Since the meet that i broke the school record in, my shins are back to hurting, and worse than ever. I have jumped in 3 meets since then, each time barely making my opening height. My heights keep getting lower and lower. After 9′ 4″ i went 8′6″. Then the next meet i went 8′ 4″, and at empire 8’s, despite coming in 4th and getting 4 points for my team, i only jumped 8′. I have seen the sports doctor that visits campus, and he has sent me for x-rays, that came back negative, and now i am going for an MRI this week. I am on anti-inflammatory medicine as well as pain killers. The doctor says he will not medically clear me until we figure out what is going on and i am pain free. And, it is definately more than just shin splints. Considering the doctor has no idea what could be wrong, and the fact that he will not medically clear me to run, the chances of me competing again this indoor season is very slim I am upset because i wanted this to be a great first season, and i wanted to keep re-breaking the school record. I may just have to wait until spring to set new records :/

However, the girls team came in 3rd at Empire 8’s last Sunday. It was a fun meet. We took a bus up to Rochester, a nice 7 hour drive each way, and the meet was at RIT. I got to see my cousin Rachael, and my aunt and uncle. The girls broke many school records at this meet…5 i think…and we had the best showing ever in school history. And, I was the first women in Stevens history to pole vault at Empire 8’s. haha.

Well, I am hoping the MRI shows what is wrong with me and hopefully I can get back to vaulting pain free asap. Until then, good luck to everyone else, and maybe I will see you at some meets…

BTW…I am most likely going to watch our team at a meet in Springfield on Saturday. If anyone is going, let me know. It would be exciting to see some Patriot vaulters. It has been tooooo long!

and…i just remembered…at the meet there was this woman who was sitting on the bench at the pole vault pits and my cousin Rachael looked over, and said to me “Rebecca, is that Jenn Stuczynski over there?” I looked over and was like, “no that doesn’t look like her”. Although the man sitting next to her looked very much like her husband Rick Suhr. And after thinking about it, she did slightly look like Jenn Stuczynisk…So i may have been 5 feet away from her on Sunday. haha!

Things aren’t exactly going my way in the pole vault department right now.  I’ve had a “high sprain” in my left ankle (because my left foot doesn’t have enough problems as it is!) and I had to take last weekend off.  With our detective work, we all think that I rolled my ankle a bit on one of my take offs at Tufts.  I’ve been going in for treatment and icing as much as I can.  It’s much easier to walk on, but jumping off of it is still a problem.  So I’m working my way back to that, but I keep saying “I’m sure it’ll be fine by this weekend.”

Not only is the ankle a problem, whenever I seem to want to get to pole vault practice–my car won’t start.  It’s been difficult to get to practices without a car…haha.  I’ve been meaning to go practice with Brenner’s club since Dartmouth Relays — and I have my paperwork all ready and filled out!– but it keeps getting pushed back more and more.

But other than that the first week of classes went well, my 21st birthday was a blast, and I start being a PAID tutor today.  So even though pole vault and I are in a fight right now, I’ve stuck to my New Year’s Resolution to “not sweating the small stuff”.  A lot of things I don’t have control over, but I’m doing the best I can with the things I do have control over.

Now just crossing my fingers that my ankle will be okay to jump at Yale this weekend.

So I’m finally getting used to the late class and late practices. The last 2 weeks of classes and practice went really well. Having last weekend off was nice. I got to go home and having two weeks to prepare for the Boston Indoor Games was great. I feel like I improved a lot form wise in the past couple weeks. My swing has improved a lot; I’ve been collapsing in my bottom arm sooner to be able to get upside down in time to catch the ride with the pole. Now if I just stop pulling at the top, which causes me to fall away from the pole, I should be clearing some big heights. Unfortunately my form improvements aren’t transferring into height improvements yet. I know the height will come with time but its definitely frustrating in the mean time. But I’m trying to stay positive. I cleared 11′6″ again at the Boston Indoor Games and was again so close to 12′. The bar went from 10′ right to 11′ so I was unsure of where to open. After talking with Brenner, I decided to stick with 10′ for this meet since I’m kind of going through a transitional phase. I cleared everything on my first attempt until 12′ which was nice. I warmed up on a 13′ 140, started the meet on a 13′ 145 and ended up on a 13′ 150 and still blew through it. I guess my big poles from last year are becoming small poles this year. Next up is the Battle of Beantown at Harvard. From what I hear, this meet is kind of a big deal so hopefully I’ll have some good news to report next week!