Vaulting in the Big Leagues

I apologize for not posting in forever. It has been an extremely stressful semester. My classes were insane; I’ve never studied so much in my life. I ended up with a 3.667 GPA for the semester though, so I was happy with that. I was not so happy, however, with how vaulting went this year. That’s another reason why I haven’t posted in forever. I didn’t want to just be a Debbie Downer. So I’m going to try to keep this post as positive as possible. My season PR this year was 3.82m (about 12’6”), last year’s PR was 4.06m (about 13’4”). This year 3.85m qualified for regionals and 4.05m qualified for nationals. Needless to say, I was disappointed. If I was vaulting like I was last year I could have potentially made nationals this year. Instead, I didn’t even make regionals.
Honestly, I screwed myself over the second I heard that Brenner was leaving. Once I got over the initial shock I remember my very first thought being, “Well, there goes my season. So much for clearing 14’ before I graduate.” Well with an attitude like that, nothing is going to go well. Unfortunately, I learned that the hard way. All season I knew it was just my head holding me back, but I just couldn’t seem to shake it.
But next year is a new year. It’s my last year, so I’m not going to let anything hold me back. The coaching situation for next year is still entirely up in the air. But I’m not going to let that bother me this time. I know I know how to vault. And darn it all, I’m good at it. So regardless, of who we have for a coach, I’m just going to have fun and jump high!
Moral of the story: attitude is everything. I know it’s cliché to say, but it’s true. We vault because we love it. And this summer I’m going to enjoy vaulting again, regardless of how high I’m going. Good luck to all you high schoolers going into championship season!

So when I was first planning this blog post my big piece of news was that I got hurt. Nothing significant but it was my first trip to the trainers EVER, and my first time missing a practice due to injury since freshman year of high school. I subluxed my shoulder. Which basically means I dislocated it, but it’s not as bad as a dislocation because it pops out and right back in on its own. And of course I did it doing a drill that I have done 3 million times with no issues, a straight armed back extension roll (a backward roll to handstand for you non-gymnasts). So I was out for two weeks back in November.

That brings us up to our first meet. Which I felt no where near ready for. But really, nobody ever feels ready for their first meet. I jumped 11’6″. I was not at all happy with it, but I was definitely behind schedule as far as training goes because of my shoulder. I jumped 12′ at our second meet, which I still wasn’t particularly happy with but it was progress.

And that brings us to winter break. Which didn’t really exist for me. Since I was on co-op I had work every weekday up until December 30th. So I was only able to go home on the weekends; I had long weekends for Thanksgiving and Christmas at least. Since I was in Boston the whole time, I trained through the two weeks that the majority of the team was home for. So it was nice to get some extra practice in. The rest of the team got back January 2nd for practice. That week I only had practice to worry about since I was done with work and classes hadn’t started yet.

And now for the big news. Brenner is no longer our coach; he is now coaching at Harvard. We found out that he was leaving on January 2nd and that was his last week with us. It was certainly an emotional week of practice ending with an emotional meet. I only jumped 12′ again, but I’m trying not to worry about heights so early in the season. I don’t blame Brenner at all for leaving. It was a great opportunity for him and he had already turned down several great offers over the years. And I know he felt bad leaving us too. It’s still really tough to deal with though. Brenner got me a huge PR last year and I can’t help but think that I won’t be able to progress as well without him. And on top of that Brenner was not only a great coach, but a great person in general and he will be missed a TON! But everyone has to move on at some point. Our weight coach made a good point: All great coaches are replaceable because they actually taught you something. So our new pv coach is our very own Brian Daly; he has retired as an athlete and is now an assistant coach. I have a lot of confidence in Brian as a coach, it’s just really different and is going to take some getting used to. Being coached by someone that you’ve been a teammate with for so long is just so weird. Anyway, I’m trying to stay positive about all these changes, but it is a lot to deal with.

Welp, it’s only the 2nd day of classes and I already have a ton of work to do. I have 2 clinicals this semester so I’m going to be super busy. So I best get going on the loads of reading I already have. Hope everyone else is having a good indoor season so far!

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!

Yep, it’s hard to believe, but my collegiate track and field career is already half way over. It’s crazy how quickly this year went by. Overall, it was a great year filled with multiple PRs, which was a huge confidence booster after not PRing for over a year. But that’s just the way it is with pole vault sometimes. You get stuck in a drought. It can get frustrating but often times whether you realize it or not form improvements are being made even though height improvements are not. But as frustrating as it can be we keep vaulting because we love the sport. And eventually persistence and determination pays off and PRs start flowing again.

I finished off the year well, vaulting fairly consistently right around 13’. I ended up placing second at both the CAA championships and New England championships. And at the D1 regional competition I was one height out of qualifying for nationals. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t make nationals but going into this year I didn’t even think I had a chance. I didn’t even think I’d qualify for regionals. So I’m very proud of how far I got and I still have two years to go to nationals. I’m very happy with how my year went and all the improvements I’ve made.  Now I’m looking forward to some summertime vaulting in Westborough!

I apologize for the lack of bloggage lately. And I apologize for the long, rambling entry I am about to write. I’ve been super busy with classes. It was a tough semester but now it’s over and I ended up with a 3.7 GPA. Yay! Now I have 4 weeks left on campus for practices and meets. Yay again! I have grown so close with my teammates this year, especially the vault crew. I love being able to spend all this time with them, getting even closer and having time to just goof around, have fun, and explore Boston. It’s great

But anyway, I finished up my indoor season with a PR of 12’6″ which I cleared at my last three indoor meets: Battle of Beantown, New Englands, and ECAC. I won the Battle of Beantown, came in second at NEs, and 4th at ECACs. So I was quite happy with my indoor season. I started outdoors off with another PR of 12’10″ in NC. And then another PR of 13’3.75″ in FL which also ties the outdoor school record! Since then I’ve hit a bit of a lull. But as people have pointed out to me I have been stressed and not really getting enough sleep because of classes and we haven’t really had great weather either. As most of you know, though, I tend to be pretty hard on myself. But I’ve been working on that and trying to stay positive. I’ve watched the videos from FL countless times and felt really good at practice this week (I was getting my hips over a 14′ bungee). So I’m feeling pretty confident going into our conference championships this weekend. I’m seeded first so I feel like there’s a lot of pressure on me to win, which makes me nervous. But I’m just going to try to just go out there, have fun, do what I know how to do and whatever happens happens.

So how have I made these improvements this year? You younger vaulters aren’t going to like hearing this, but short runs really do help to make huge improvements on your form. I have been doing 4 step runs just about every other practice lately really working on my swing. And believe it or not, since doing all these 4 steps, I’ve been able to get on bigger and bigger poles too. At meets, I’ve been vaulting on a 13’7 150 or 155.  Turns out having a fast trail leg and allowing your shoulders to come completely underneath moves the pole even more and thus allows you to get on bigger poles and get bigger heights. The hardest part for me is doing practically nothing with my bottom arm once the swing starts, having no pressure on it during the swing and not pulling to turn once you are upside down. I think it’s tough for me to wrap my head around the fact that you can go higher by doing less. Right now I think I’m subconsciously trying to guide the pole with my bottom arm. Once I learn to relax upside down and allow the pole to unbend by itself and just ride it up, even bigger heights are headed my way.

So basically, I’ve just been working on relaxing. Whether it’s de-stressing from classes, having fun with friends, taking pressure off myself at meets, or literally relaxing my body during the vault. When you relax good things happen! Good luck to everyone in all the championship meets coming up!

Well it’s finally happening, my form improvements are finally transferring into PRs! All of last year I was getting so frustrated because based off of video, my form was improving a ton, but it wasn’t transferring into heights. Well that’s finally happening now and let me tell you, it was well worth the wait. For those of you are beginning to get frustrated or feel stuck, let me reassure you that it will get better, you just have to keep with it. I felt like I was stuck at a plateau, but my persistance has finally paid off!

I had a lot of hope going into this season since I started the season off with two meets clearing 12′, which I only did a few times all of last year. At my third meet at Yale, I cleared 11’9″ then had plenty of height over 12’3″ but knocked the bar off on my way down. Then my next meet at Reggie, the Boston Indoor Games, I cleared 12′ on my first attempt and actually had some height on it. My other clearances of 12′ this year, I was lucky the bar stayed up. Then I chose to put the bar at 12’4″ and cleared it on my second attempt, finally PRing after over a year and half lull (my last PR was at New Englands my senior year)! And after watching video from that meet, I noticed a lot of things I can still fix. My 12’4″ jump wasn’t even with my best form, so I knew I had even higher heights in me. The biggest things I need to work on is getting my top arm fully extended in my plant, allowing my shoulders to come under quicker, and then just sticking with it. I also noticed that 11′ is getting to be a pretty low opening height for me, “a waste of time and energy” in the words of Brenner.

So yesterday, at the Battle of Beantown at Harvard, I opened at 11’6″ (higher than I ever had before). I cleared 11’6″, 12′, and 12’6″ (well 12’5.5″, stupid metric conversions haha) all on first attempts! At both the Boston Indoor Games and Battle of Beantown, I ended up on a 13′ 160, a heavier pole than ever before. I know my form is continuing to improve too since I cleared 12’6″ on a 13′ pole, which means I was clearing higher than my hand grip which is quite exciting to me.  I can’t wait to look at video of it.

We have 2 weeks before my next meet, so until then I’m going to work on getting on 13’7″s. Since I was vaulting on a pole well over my body weight with standards at 80, I think it’s about time to get on the 13’7″s!

Well classes started yesterday and I’m already swamped with work. So I figured I’d take a reading break to write a quick entry.

I came back to campus last Sunday and had practice all week. It was kind of strange being on campus pretty much with just other athletes and without having classes. But it was nice only having practice to worry about. It was a pretty rough week of practice, though. Sprinting on Monday was really tough, and vaulting on Tuesday and Thursday didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped.

After such a rough week of practice I was a little nervous going into the meet. But I’ve gotten used to that; seems like the practices before meets never go well for me. The bus left for Dartmouth at 7:15, luckily I was able to sleep for most of the 2 and a half hour ride up to Hanover, NH. Then we had to wait until about 11 before warming up since the women’s vault went off at noon. Originally I was planning on opening at 11 and I felt pretty good after warm ups, but I couldn’t get the past weeks practices out of my head, so I decided to open at 10’6″ to be safe. I started warming up on a 13′ 140 then started the meet on a 13′ 145, same as last meet. I ended up clearing 12′ on a 13′ 155, one of the biggest poles I used all of last year. So, so far this year is going much better than last year. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season, hopefully some bigger poles and a PR is in the near future Next up is Yale this weekend, I plan on opening at 11′, for real this time.

For now, it’s back to the books though!

Hey everybody! Okay, so last time I wrote we had just started events practices. So I’ll give you a quick update on how practices have gone the past few weeks. Monday sprint practices at Reggie are really tough, but they’re definitely paying off. I’m getting much faster and my running form has improved a lot too. Hopefully this will get me on some bigger poles later on in the season! Tuesdays and Thursdays we vault. The first couple weeks we just did 3 steps and then slowly progressed up hand grips and back to 4 steps, then 5 steps, and eventually 6 steps. As I’m sure all of you know, the 3 step drills get boring; but trust me, they work! Wednesdays we do drills. Sometimes pole runs, or slide box drills, or running drills, or hurdle stuff, etc. And Fridays, we do a light sprint workout, usually going at about 60-70% speed. Except this Friday, since we had a meet Saturday we just did 10 minutes on a bike.

And now the meet. I was very happy with how things went. I ended up clearing 12′ for second place. A great start to the season, especially since 12′ was my best all year last year; clearing it in the first meet gives me a lot of hope for the rest of the season! I was a little nervous going in to the meet since my last vault practice on Thursday was definitely not my best. But I think that may have been partially getting used to my brand new spikes But I felt good and ready to go after warm ups. I came in at 10’6″ with my standards at 65. My first attempt I was inside. Second attempt I moved my step back and cleared it by a lot. For 11′ I moved the standards back to 80 and cleared first attempt, cleared 11’6 and 12′ on first attempts too! I got really lucky on my 12′ jump though, I was really surprised that the bar stayed up. But I think I probably could have cleared it cleanly on a 2nd or 3rd attempt because my attempts at 12’6″ were pretty close. Throughout the meet I had to keep moving my step back because my run was getting faster and more aggressive (I decided I liked the new spikes haha) Overall, I was very happy with the day and can’t wait for the rest of the season

It was also great to see so many patriots there! Hopefully I’ll get to see more of you over winter break at some indoor practices! It’s crazy to think that this semester is already almost over! Just 3 more days of classes, 1 quiz, 2 finals, and maybe an extra credit paper left! And then I’ll be home in 2 weeks! It was great to be home for Thanksgiving, and then I got to see my parents and little sister again at the meet, and then I’ll be home for two weeks very soon! We get three weeks off of classes but only two weeks off of practice. So I’ll be back in Boston a week before classes with nothing to do but practice…yay! Well I guess that’s about it! Hope to see you guys soon

Hey everyone! Last week we had our first week of events practice (finally!) so I figured I write a quick blog about pre-season. It was definitely tough, but I felt much more prepared for it this year than last since I knew what to expect. I was usually one of the top finishers for all the long runs we did whereas last year I was always middle of the pack. So I was really happy about that. Our pre-season work out schedule, more or less, was long timed run and abs on Monday, circuits Tuesday, long recover run and abs on Wednesday, Thursdays and Fridays (captain’s practice) varied based on how everyone was feeling and how tough the workouts throughout the week were. We also lifted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We had weekends off. The first week of pre-season my butt was sooo sore, but the following week we did almost the exact same workouts and it seemed a lot easier. So it was nice to see that the workouts were actually working and we were getting stronger and in better shape.

But like I said last week we finally began doing actual event practices. I vaulted for the first time in months last Tuesday, it was great. We did a lot of pole runs and vaulting drills first. And then got to do some one handers, 3-steppers, even some with swings. I felt really good doing them, so hopefully that will continue and it will be a good season!  Our regular season workouts will usually be Monday sprint work outs at reggie (ugh). Tuesday and Thursdays will be vault days. Wednesday will be drills. Fridays will be active rest. And weekends are recovery days. Our first meet is December 4th at Reggie, hopefully I’ll see some of you there as well!

As for the boring part, school…it’s going pretty well. It’s hard to believe that it’s already time to register for spring classes though! This semester I am taking Anatomy and Physiology II, Chemistry, Medical Ethics, and Influences in Health and Illness. A&P is my only super tough class. I’m doing pretty well though. Overall, this semester is much easier than last semester was. Next semester though I am taking Pharmacology, Pathophysiology, Developmental Psychology, Nursing intervention/Assessment (with lab), and Professional Development (which is a class where you learn more about co-op and the application process). So next semester looks like its going to be pretty tough. If I get into all the sections of the classes I want to though, my schedule will be great. It won’t interfere with track at all which will hopefully relieve a lot of stress.

I’ll keep ya posted as the season continues! Good luck to everyone whose indoor season practices are starting!

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!