Vaulting in the Big Leagues

Apparently the trend right now is to be talking about preseason training. Technically we’ve moved into our regular season, but since our first meet isn’t until December 5th and our first real meet isn’t until January 21st, regular season is a bit of a stretch. Except, it means we can have coaches at practice. And that means throwing!

It’s amazing how you look forward to something so much and then once you get it, you wonder how you were excited. Or if you were experiencing memory loss. All I wanted was regular season to start so I could throw (even shot put, I must be crazy) and then it started, and I’m back to being super frustrated. But sometimes still excited. There are just so many things that can go wrong and often they do (sounds like pole vault to anyone?). Luckily I have a fantastic teammate that I made a positivity pact with. Yeah, it sounds kind of stupid, but the worst thing you can do is get into your own head. Plus, with one teammate who spends all practice pouting like her puppy died and two people that just started dating and are super giggly/PDA/why would you do that when I’m holding a twenty pound weight in my hands and have pretty good aim, it’s nice to have a close friend. One to push me and remind me to stay positive.

And it’s working. We’re lifting partners, and I’ve started lifting above my weights. We’re going to be maxing out again in December, and I can’t wait to see how much they go up. I’ve never felt this strong or this comfortable in the weight room. It’s amazing what a new coach can do. Plus, I had two really good practices this week. Shot put actually went well and I was consistently hitting 36-38 off a nice easy full spin. And I’m starting to figure out my feet in the weight throw. Which is good. Plus, I started 2-turning there and got a few decent throws (BU, here I come???)

And then this happened.

I mean, it’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Completely snapped the bolt so Coach is going to have an interesting time reassembling the weight. Our only competition implement by the way. What I’m actually angry about is that it was going to be a rocking throw. I have never felt so good-fast, powerful, balanced, in control. I hit all my steps, I got a push with my left hand, and then suddenly I was flying out of the ring. And my entire team was laughing at me.

But like I said, it’s fine. I picked up our back-up weight and started 2-turning. I suppose there’s a lesson in there about perseverance and pushing through adversity and getting back on the horse, but I’m too tired to care. And really, I was just angry that it had to break on one of my good throws.

Hello all! I hope everyone had a great summer and start to fall! My summer went well. After my season ended I took a couple weeks off then started running again to get back in shape for preseason. I started off small and increased my mileage each week. By the end of the summer I was doing about 4 miles 3 times a week. Which is quite an accomplishment for me considering I’m about as far from a distance runner as you can get.  In addition to running I did a conditioning circuit twice a week. Nothing too intense but just enough to stay in shape. I went down to Westborough when I could, but it was a bit difficult to get there very often while working. I was working at the place where I did gymnastics. When I did vault I mainly just had fun with it. After vaulting competitively for 6 months it was nice to not stress about vaulting and just have fun; remind myself what a great and fun sport it was, even though it can get extremely frustrating at times.

But anyway, I felt pretty in shape heading into preseason. During preseason we run a timed 5k on Mondays, trying to beat our time each week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we do a conditioning circuit or prisoner squats. As you can guess by the name, prisoner squats are NOT fun. It’s basically jump squats up a set of bleachers, run down and do the same for the next section of bleachers. I did the math out to over 200 jump squats. The circuits are pretty tough too, but not as bad as the prisoner squats. Wednesdays we usually did just a 25 minute recovery run. And Fridays were captains practice and we’d just go for a slow jog. We also do abs after practice everyday and lift twice a week. So preseason is not very fun. But now we are vaulting again and life is good! Now we have sprint practices on Mondays which are usually pretty miserable. This week we did 400, 300, 200, 400, 300, 200; it was pretty awful. But then Tuesdays we vault! Yay! Wednesday we do drills usually. This week we did a ton of baby hurdle running drills. Thursdays we vault again. And Fridays vary. This week we did pole runs and short sprints.

It felt amazing to get back on the runway this week. Even though we just did 3 steps on Tuesday and got back to 4 on Thursday, it was still great.  We still have a month until our first meet so there’s no rush in getting back to full runs. We’ll just be really working on form for the next couple weeks. But I look forward to seeing some fellow patriots at the first meet!

As far as life outside of track, I’m currently on co-op. Which basically means I’m working full time instead of taking classes. It’s a great way to gain some experience in your field before graduating. I’m working at Children’s Hospital and love it! I’m super busy during the week. Work 7:30-4, then straight to practice. But nights and weekends I have some time to relax since I have no homework. It’s pretty great!

Well that’s it for now! Hope everyone else’s training is going well!