Dart Mouth

Been quite awhile since any type of entry. I have no legitimate excuse except that it's been chaotic moving into a new house......... I'm writing this from the very wet, Hanover, New Hampshire. Helwick, Lela V. and I have been up here since Sunday training and working on our throws with Coach Gordon and Wallen at Dartmouth. We've been staying with the Dodd's family. Tyler Dodds is a decathlete at Wake Forest and his family and welcomed us into their home and spoiled us rotten. We have truly been humbled by their selflessness.
The timing of the trip was such that we were able to stay and compete in a few events of the Dartmouth Relays heptathlon today and tomorrow.
I feel like all of us have made significant strides and heard a few new things this week that I feel will benefit greatly throughout the year.

60m - 7.28s - Felt like I executed and ran well. I just didn't have much turnover after a long week at the track and this early in the year, I feel pretty good about it.

LJ - 4.26m - The results will show 4.26m (somewhere close to 14'). We had no plans on jumping but to be able to continue in the competition, we had to make an attempt. Tried to make it a competition and see who could jump the closest to 4.77m. Helwick won that contest jumping 4.63m. All in good fun.

SP - 14.50m - After the hundreds of throws and turns we did this week, I felt a little burned out so took it with a grain of salt trying to focus on some of the cues and changes we made. Not being critical.

HJ - 2.08m - The plan was to take a couple scissor jumps and 1 or 2 5 step jumps and stop. I opened at 5' 10" scissoring and did the same at 6'. I then switched to 5 step jumping for a couple of jumps. I actually felt like I was getting pretty good "pop" dispite having tired legs. I decided to keep jumping and actually cleared 2.05m (6' 8 3/4") from 5 steps. I've only felt this good from a short run 1 other time in my life. I feel confident that the ankle is back to 100% and i'll jump well this year. After 2.05m, I moved back to a full approach, but wasn't really ready to handle that speed yet and could only manage 1 other bar before failing 3 times at the meet record 2.11m.

Tomorrow we'll run the 60m hurdles and possibly the 1000m. All dependent on the time schedule as we have to take off for the airport at 2:45 tomorrow.

It feel great to get back into a competitive environment again.