Vaulting in the Big Leagues

Hello, boys & girls. Chrissy here. I am coming to you from Amherst, Massachusetts–my new home-away-from-home for the next 2 years.  I’ve been living here on campus for about 4 days now and I absolutely hate it.  This was the worst decision of my life.  I completely ruined everything.  Why did I even bother to come here? I changed my life for nothing. I HATE EVERYONE! THEY HATE ME! I WANT TO GO HOME!

JUST KIDDING.

I am already in love.  I feel more at home here than I ever did at UMass Lowell.  I’m still adjusting, of course, but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.  All I have to do is ask for help–and I’m the first one to admit that I’m new and I have no idea what I’m doing!  Plus, it’s a great way to meet people.  I think I’m more surprised myself at how confident I feel already on campus.  Maybe it’s because I’m older and experienced in college in general, but it’s really not that different.  Just trying to nudge my way around and find my place involved in the University.  I don’t know why I doubt myself sometimes, I’m obviously awesome. HAHA!

The biggest thing I think about in retrospect and take with me in my new adventure here is: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.  Throughout this entire summer I was just simply recovering.  From what you ask? Well, I didn’t realize how deep of a hole I dug myself into at UML being so overloaded, overstressed, overworked–just simply burnt out.  I think back more and realize I overloaded myself because all I was trying to do was feel an attachment to my university that athletics just didn’t give me.  Wow, that’s a sucky feeling.  I guess you just don’t see how low you were until you’re feeling back on top again. Here at UMass Amherst I’m restricting myself to only academics, track & field, and work study–okay, and a social life.  I’m perfectly okay with that.

There’s just more of an energy here that I haven’t experienced in a long time.  I actually feel like I have a purpose–a valued purpose.  Maybe it’s because it’s the beginning and everything is fresh, new, and exciting, but I’m so motivated and positive I feel like I can do anything.  I will admit I do miss Lowell a bit, but my friends are completely supportive and can’t wait to see the big things I’m going to accomplish this year.  And neither can I.

Hey everyone! Long time no blog! I moved back into NU yesterday. Move in went really well…only stayed up til about 4am organizing all our stuff haha. I’m living in a five person suite this year with my closest friends from last year so it should be a good year. Our suite is soo nice. 3 bedrooms, one and a half baths, a kitchen, and a big common room.

Basically I just wanted to give everyone a quick overview of how summer training went.  I ran about 3 miles 3 times a week. Or tried to at least…I’ll admit sometimes I let fun stuff get in the way of my training…like quarry jumping, or bridge jumping, or rope swinging, or beach trips, or rock climbing, or open gymnastics, or well you get the idea I had a pretty good summer In addition to the runs I also did strength and conditioning circuits 3 times a week. Unfortunately, I only got to vault a few times but a few is better than none!

I can’t wait to get the year started. I have a few meetings and such the beginning of next week, then classes start on Wednesday, and pre-season training starts on Thursday! I’ll keep everyone posted on how everything goes!