Vaulting in the Big Leagues

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving <3

I really feel like I dominate this blog about useless stuff that no one ever wants to read about!  Just a random few updates…

• Two weeks left in the semester—yiiiikes!  CRUNCH TIME! Bring it home, baby!
• I learned a few weeks ago that I’m actually a little behind credit-wise.  Apparently with grade deletion/withdrawing from a few classes I’ve actually lost an ENTIRE SEMESTER!  You would think they would have told me sooner, but I’m technically a sophomore right now and start my junior year next semester. Greaaaaat.
• I got my wisdom teeth out…man, that was miserable.
• I’ve completely given up on dating. (That’s irrelevant though…)

Tonight, I sit here in shock.  I can’t believe that the first meet of the season is this Saturday AAAAAAND we had practice outside today! That’s a little crazy.  As much as I curse the unpredictability of New England weather, I’m thankful for today.  It was just warm enough to get some runway time in.  I was reminded today that “wind happens” (inside joke between us UML-ers) and I was hoping to gain the confidence to go into this season right.  My goal for Saturday is at least 11′.  That will FINALLY break the stupid school record I’ve been trying to get for a while now!  I don’t share.  Knock that name down already!

I have to keep reminding myself that I have already made some huge improvements from last season—so it’s just a matter of time before the heights start falling into place. (What? You know what I mean.)

This Friday we are having a “UML Track & Field Season Kick-off banquet” then it’s the first meet of the season @ Reggie Lewis Center.  I’m looking forward to seeing all the familiar faces at the meet Saturday

Hey everyone! So as some of you probably already know, I’m now a freshman at WPI! Yay This post might end up being pretty long with the first paragraph about starting college. If you’re not really interested in that or anything feel free to skip to the second paragraph where I’ll talk about my track experience so far. Enjoy!

Okay, so being a freshman is super exciting and so much different from high school. Right now I’m a biology/biotechnology major, but I’m thinking of switching because I didn’t really like my biotechnology class. However, I’m taking a couple more bio classes this year before I commit to changing my major to aerospace engineering. Big jump, huh? Starting college was a really unique experience and so many unexpected things happened that I don’t even know where to begin. Both of my roommates are fabulous and I’ve made a ton of friends, mostly the kids living on my floor, but also with a lot of track kids and girls in my sorority. Yep, that’s right, I just recently joined Alpha Xi Delta and I absolutely love it! Classes are pretty good so far; there’s a lot of homework and they’re so much faster paced than in high school but so far I’m managing everything fairly well. I’m also a member of the green team which is basically a club focused on raising awareness about sustainability on campus, and I’m most likely going to join Habitat for Humanity this year. So overall I’m taking class, doing track, a member of Alpha Xi, on green team, a part of habitat for humanity, and doing a little bit for colleges against cancer. Sound like a lot? To me it does, and it’s definitely more than I ever did in high school, but I’m learning a lot from doing so many things and I absolutely love it. After all, getting involved on campus is one of the best ways to meet people and have a great time. I think that’s enough of my freshman-ness for now, so on to the good stuff… track

For me track started with captains’ practices in September (I think). Basically three captains (the “sprinting” captains for the guys and the girls and the guys’ “multi-event” captain) met Monday through Friday on the track and held a small, semi laid-back practice where we focused on getting in shape for the season. These captains’ practices were great for me since I was pretty out of shape from the summer and it also allowed me to meet a lot of my future teammates. Not going to lie, the first few practices were kind of hard for me and made me question my abilities as an athlete: if I was having this much trouble pre-season, would I a good member for the team or would I just end up being the worst athlete? At any rate, a bunch of the WPI vaulters started going to Patriot practices twice a week after classes. I really enjoyed this because not only did I get to improve my vaulting (trust me, after plateauing at 9′ my senior year, I needed an intervention) but I also got to meet the other vaulters and get to know them better.

Our indoor season finally started in early November. The first practice wasn’t too hard, and that helped to boost my confidence about my abilities as an athlete as well as convinced me that I could be on this team. Unfortunately, the workout was a lot (and I mean, a LOT) harder then next day when we had an actual workout, but after a couple weeks of conditioning coupled with our biweekly vault practices I could tell that I was getting better. The workouts weren’t as hard as the first week and my vaulting technique was slowly but surely getting better (or at least I like to think so). Granted, we’ve only been officially practicing for four weeks, but our first meet is this coming Saturday at Springfield College and I am absolutely PUMPED! Honestly, the WPI vault crew this year is looking fabulous and we are gonna be pretty awesome on Saturday!!!

Sorry for the super long post, but I couldn’t help trying to say everything that’s been going on in the past three-ish months. Hopefully my next post will be a (short!) synopsis of our meet and the week of practices leading up to it. Hope you enjoyed reading this!!

Oh, and just for anyone who’s interested, here’s a quick overview of our workouts for the past couple of weeks:

Monday – Warm-up = 800m, 6 x 100m strides; Sprint Drills = A skip, B skip, high knees, butt kicks, lunges, etc.; Workout = 10 x 120m sprints; Cool-down = 400m

Tuesday – VAULTING! <3

Wednesday – Warm-up = 400m, 6 x 100m strides; Sprint Drills; Workout = 4 x 60m, 4 x 80m, 4 x 90m (2 sets of all 3); Cool-down = 400m

Thursday – VAULTING!

Friday – Recovery Day: Warm-up = 800m, 10 x 100m strides

Saturday – Warm-up = 10 x 100m @ 50%; Sprint Drills; Workout = 5 x 30m, 5 x 60m (2 sets of both), 1 x 400m stride; VAULTING (optional, later in the afternoon)

I love Stevens! I don’t know another way to say it. It is a small campus, with only about 2000 people, and there are still so many people I haven’t met yet. I met a lot of amazing people really fast too. There are the first people I met, when we went camping back at the end of august. We nicknamed our group the polliwogs.  And there are the people I met in the first couple days at orientation. Then, there is the track team!

I love our track team. It is a very small team, but it is nice because we are all going to get to know each other really well, and we will be a close team. Sprinters and jumpers practiced together for the first few weeks, and this is what a typical practice looked like: 4 girls, 20 guys. We have a saying, “Stevens…where 1:4 isn’t just a statistic, it’s a way of life. The amount of guys is kind of overwhelming. They are everywhere, but it is still fun.

The Stevens Ducks are a division 3 school, and I was able get onto the track team with no problem. And, I will definitely hold the record here! For some reason there is a pole vault record for one season and not the other, but it is only 5’2”. Not really sure how that happened….so my goal is to double that record in my first meet! My first meet is Dec. 6th, a relay meet, at Yale I think. Apparently I am going to be in a relay by myself.

Well, anyways, practices have been a lot easier than I thought. I was expecting to go to college track practices and be so overwhelmed, but the opposite is true. At the beginning of the season my weeks would consist of speed work and lifting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and tempo on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tempo turned into pool workouts because of the weather. Our speed work was mostly repetitive 60s, and last week we did three 120s all out, with 10 minute breaks in between each one. One thing that is different from high school is that our speed work is all out and in spikes, with lots of rest, sometimes what feels like too much rest.

Now my weeks are going to be a bit different because I vault on Tuesday and Thursday nights at the New York Armory, which is a really nice place to vault! Wednesdays and Fridays are going to turn into tempo days, and Saturdays and Mondays will probably be speed work. We have to share the runway with whomever shows up to the armory and wants to jump, so on Tuesday there were about 30 people on the runway and by the time we warmed up we only had 45 minutes to vault. I got some one-handers, and three step jumps in and it just felt good to be in the air again. Our coach is supposedly really good too. He got a guy last year at Stevens from 13’ to 15’9” in one year. I have vault  practice again tonight, but our coach, Matt, is not going to be there.

Only about 3 weeks of classes left until finals! I can’t believe I’m almost done with my first semester! It went by soo fast! I miss Patriot PV though and wish I was around to practice.

Hello Everybody! Sam here. Just logged onto my brand new blog here on Patriot. I’ll use this first post to tell you a little about myself and my vaulting history, the role it plays in my life, etc. Growing up, I didn’t play sports at all. I learned how to play a bunch of different musical instruments instead. When I was a freshman in high school, I was first offered a position on a track team. I considered myself a fast sprinter so I decided to give it a shot. I showed up my first day in Chuck Taylors and sweatpants. After the first week of track, my coach noticed that I was showing promise in the high jump because I was sitting over the bar at 5’2″ and the other freshman and sophomores weren’t popping up like I was. Sometime within the next month, I was attempting 5’2″ again, cleared it, and landed off of the mat. To be fair, my calves and heels hit the mat but the rest of me was on the tile in the exercise room at the old Auburn High School. The next day, I went with the hurdlers. I found this event to be more suited to my style since I was flexible and fast. Over the next four years, hurdles became my thing. I qualified for the divisional state meet the next year as a sophomore. Track went well for me throughout high school and I saw a lot of success in the 55 and 110 hurdles. After winning the 55m hurdle final at districts my senior year, I was introduced to Doug. Doug was my coach’s coach in high school and coached him to state champion status is the vault. Doug told us that he had a full pit that we could take care of for him during the outdoor season. That march, I went to my first vaulting practice at Hit-Quarters in Shrewsbury. For some reason, I couldn’t hold onto the pole my first time planting. I was a piece of work. But, that night my coach and I drove the pads back to my high school and set them up in the dark. My first week pole vaulting got me over 9’6″, but when we put it up to 9’9″ I was stuck. I was at that plateau for what seemed like the longest time and I wanted to clear an even 10″! My first competition was at the District Relays for the CMASS boys. It was quite a debut because I was vaulting against the entire Central Mass District. Two boys on my team helped us stay in the competition by clearing 7’6″, the opening height. I cleared 9 feet on my first attempt and was beside myself. I celebrated at 10 feet on first attempt. at 10’6″ I turned and faced the bar for the first and only time of the season. When I cleared 11 on my first attempt everyone’s jaw dropped. I was the only vaulter from my class to clear 11 feet that day, winning individually and bringing the relay team up to 2nd place. Nobody believed I had only been vaulting for three weeks and my PR was 9’6″ prior to the meet. At the end of April 2008, I was 18 and almost done with school when the District Class Meet rolled around. I showed up at Fitchburg’s Crocker Field and started hanging out by the pole vault pads. Someone handed me the seed sheet and I found myself at 3rd place in the 110 hurdles and 2nd in the vault. I thought it was funny that I had been vaulting only a month or two, didn’t practice alot and was still doing slightly better than my main event of four years. I ended up getting third in the hurdles after hitting hurdle six and losing my rhythm, so I wasn’t too excited about the day. It was probably the most “meh” race I’ve ever run. I went to pole vault, opened at 10′ and didn’t make it the first two times. from 10′ to 11′, I was incredibly shaky, making it on 3rd attempts, and falling heels first into the plantbox. I cleared 11’6″ and just became indifferent. I had this attitude where I was like “alright, I cleared 11’6″ and ran a gross time in the hurdles. What do I have to lose? I really don’t care if I make it, this is my first time attempting this height.” First attempt, I squeezed over twelve and everyone there, not just kids from my high school, erupted. It was one of the coolest things. I broke my second school record that day. One that was set in 1975 and tied again in 1981. I didn’t do much after that in high school, but the Worcester Telegram and Gazette wrote a cool two page article about me that was published on my graduation day. I started to practice with Doug after I graduated a few times and moved into Umass Lowell in the spring. I met with the track coach and told him my stats. He said I would probably do well in the pole vault, although I had though my other events were more impressive. I guess 12′ is a good mark, even if you vaulted all throughout high school. Since we don’t have a coach here, my freshman year only boasted a 12’1″ and a 12’3″ clearance during indoor. Now, as a sophomore at Umass Lowell, I’m getting higher hopes in the vault, since Doug and the club has been running open clinics on our home field. I’m one of two and a half vaulters here at UML. Chrissy and I are the best of friends. She’s like my big sister when it comes to pole vault cause she’s been doing it way longer and she’s been driving me around to all the practices off-campus. The other vaulter is a heptathlete who doesn’t get excited about pole vault practice like Chrissy and I and is a bit stubborn when it comes to learning form, so we’ll say he’s a half-vaulter. So that’s my story. I’m a new kid on the block here, and I’m new to the event, but since I started, I feel really welcome in the Patriot Pole Vault Community, and you’ll be hearing more from me. 14? is my goal for this year so we’ll see!

So after a season lost to surgery, a summer full of work with some training, and a crazy preseason, i am finally back to jumping. With a whole new attitude towards training things are starting to come together. Even this early in the season i am on bigger poles then i ever have been, and i have not gone back farther then five steps. With the way things have been going it could be a good season. The main goal for this year is simply to stay healthy.  

this is just a quick update for now. there will be more to come throughout the season

-Brian

I’ve written a draft to update everyone about 80 thousand times.  Just me venting about how stressed I am with the duties of being a student, an RA, tutor, and athlete.  It’s very hard to juggle.  I also mentioned how grateful I am now that Patriot PV has had practices at UMass Lowell this fall!  It has made practice much easier–since it’s a short walk over University Bridge. I still drive though…

BUT TODAY something extremely exciting happened.  After being sick for the past two days (oh, so surprising! Chrissy’s sick again), I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang.  It was Coach Doug.  (I meant to call him earlier, so I was happy he called first.)

Coach Doug: “Hey, Silvar! I’m here with two of your biggest fans.  They read your blog and wanted to talk to you.”

(*me thinking that it’s some of our younger members of the club—or a silly prank and it was actually someone I knew)

Voice: “Hi, Chrissy! How was school today?”

Me: “Good, I was out sick today though…” (starting to get very confused if I was supposed to recognize who this was…)

Voice: “Aww, that’s too bad.  This is Jenn Stuczynski…”

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!  I seriously thought it was a joke!! I started to sweat and started tripping over my tongue and stuttering my words.  I probably threw in a few, “OH MY GOD!s”  I probably hurt the poor woman’s ears–sometimes I can’t control the volume of my voice when I get excited.  I also spoke to her coach Rick Suhr–he mentioned how Jenn was getting treatment for her achilles in HAYVER-HILL.  Although I had to be a total M*ssHole and correct him asking, “Oh, HAYVRILL?”, I came out of my shock and remembered how close Haverhill, MA is to Lowell, MA. They are staying there a couple more days and mentioned stopping by practice—WHAAAAT?! Oh my god (see? I’m doing it again!).  I’m sure they’re super busy, but even just the idea of it is pretty amazing.

You would think that I would act MUCH cooler over the phone, instead of how I’ve acted the past two times I have met her.  I’m sure she doesn’t remember, but I’ve met her both trips I’ve made to Boston Indoor Games.  I’ve had pictures signed, and taken pictures (you can see the pics in earlier blog entries).  Each time I’ve met her I’ve flubbed my words, completely forgot what I had planned to say—basically sound like a fool.  Man, I really should get better at that…

It couldn’t have happened at a better time.  Even though our first meet is about a month away (Husky Invitational, December 5 @ Reggie Lewis Center), I started getting really nervous about the season.  This certainly motivates me to work even harder and AMPED for the season.  Hope to see them again this winter at my 3rd trip to Boston Indoor Games.

(*Side note–what’s even weirder is that Bill Romanowski called my brother a couple weeks ago. No joke.  What’s up with famous athletes calling the Silvars?  I’ll have my people call your people.)