Day 2 for hep consists of long jump (my first love!!), javelin, and the 800m (my 7th favorite event! ;)). The dec has 100m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and the 1500. Dec started at 2pm so we thought for sure we were going to be there until at least 830pm. There was the possibility that we were going to have to be back home by 9am the next morning so Josh could coach pole vault for his high schoolers, meaning he had the potential for having a mere 12 hours to cool down, drive 6 hours home, sleep, and wake up in time to go to the meet. Luckily, the high school pole vault was pushed back to the following week so we were able to go into the day not worrying about leaving quickly.
No videos of my day this time. (Video from above is a random one from shot put practice a few weeks ago.) The way the day lined up, Josh wasn't able to film any of my events, and lets be honest, watching me run the 800 is really only helpful for the pure hilarity of the whole thing. But first things first....
I felt a little sore that morning, but probably still stiff from the drive down. However, at some point during day 1, I strained my quad on my right leg and also tweaked my hamstring on that same leg (which is my lead leg for hurdles, take off leg for high jump and long jump, and my power leg for both throws). I think it was while I was warming up for hurdles. This has happened before when I'm not fully warmed up before I put strain on my legs. (Maybe our 15 min warm-up really isn't sufficient, but that may be for a different post...) So, I decided to heat my upper leg prior to warm-up, but I waited too long to ask the trainers if they had any available and had only 10 minutes before I had decided I was going to warm-up, so that idea was out.
I did have a 3-in. ace bandage from when I tweaked my leg before and decided that wrapping it during warm-ups might help. It still hurt a little during warm-ups and really hurt when I was walking around and stretching, but somehow, once I starting running, it felt relatively fine. My first jump was a solid opener at 5.72m (about 18'9"). I slowed down a bit coming into the board (which is bad because you want to carry speed through the board and almost accelerate into the plant. Failing to do so just converts less speed into distance, meaning a shorter jump.) The wind was also really gusting so it was hard to figure out a starting mark. Next jump was solid; 5.93m (19' 5.5"), which ended up being my best mark for 828 points. I lost about 25 points from last year, which meant I was still up over 100 points.
Javelin, oh javelin, how you are not my friend yet. Josh and I really have very little idea for what to do and it has so far resulted in us getting hurt and we both wear supportive braces on our elbows to try and limit the damage we've probably already done. (Because of how the javelin is thrown, if you throw it incorrectly, it puts a lot of strain on your elbow.) By having a few sessions here and there with people who know what they're talking about, we're starting to understand some concepts, but they aren't integrated quite yet. I seem to be putting a few pieces together, but there are huge gaps, such as my plant position, blocking correctly, not bending at the shoulders too soon, pushing my hips through, keeping my shoulders back to create a whip action; you know, small stuff ;)). I ended up throwing 109', which was 7 ft farther than my PR, for 50 more points making me about 150 points up from last year, meaning...
As long as I didn't bomb out completely in the 800, I was going to have an overall PR. Certainly, not at the same level that I was hoping for at the beginning of the season, but still an improvement. My goal was to run 2:30, which would have been a 2 sec. PR. Game plan was to run a 35sec first 200, maintain through the turn, push slightly for the next 200, and focus on increasing my turnover as the pain hit. I kept with the game plan through 500m; went out in a 35 for the first 200, came back in a 36 for the next 200 (which is by far the fasted 2nd 200 I've ran), and pushed it through the next 100. However, my downfall started with 300m to go. Prior to the race, Josh and I were talking about the game plan and he said, "Push it through the turn after 400m and then you only have 300m to go!" Great advice! If only I'd listened. Instead, with 300 to go, I told myself, "Oh man, 300 to go!!" and just gave in to the pain. As I came around the last turn, I could hear Josh saying, "Stand upright. Bring your hips through" (Which meant I was sitting too much). I ended up with a 2:34, which was pretty disappointing. However, it wasn't much off from where I was last season!!!
All in all, I ended up with 4858 points, a 147 point PR!!! As I said before, it wasn't what I had hoped for, but an improvement is still an improvement!! :D
After no-heighting in high jump the day before, Josh decided he was going to shift his focus to the middle three events of day two. He decided to DNF (Did Not Finish) the hurdles for this reason. So his day started out with discus. His first throw was into the cage around the ring, which was unusual for him. His next throw was really good, but outside the sector. The video is of his 3rd throw, which was 115', below average from recent practice, but at least it was a legal throw.
Next up was javelin. Competition started after my 800 was over so I was able to film lots! Prior to the event starting, one of the other competitors (Mike, the pole vault coach at UCSD and UCD alumn) gave Josh some pointers and things to think about. Knowing that it would probably make his throws worse during that day, Josh practiced some. Some of his attempts were pretty... interesting. His first two were fouls because they didn't land tip first. His last throw was about 10 ft less than last year. Not sure if he wants me to post his videos so here's a video of one of the Chico guys instead... He did feel like the pointers he got during warmups will be helpful in the long run though, he said he thought he understood the event better and had a better idea of what to work on during practice.
Next up was the 1500m. Josh's past life as a distance runner really helps him in this event. Josh decided he would see if one of the guys wanted to be paced through part of it. One of the guys wanted to break 4:30 so Josh paced him through 1000m and then dropped out. The guy ended up slowing down a bit for the last 500 meters and so only ran 4:30.04. So close!!
Here's the link to the full results: http://www.cmsathletics.org/meetresults/track/classic/classic14.htm
Anyways, that wrapped up this season. Josh plans to focus on pole vault only for the next few weeks and compete at the PA meet in the pole vault on June 1st. I'm toying with the idea of either competing in hurdles and long jump or seeing if I can learn to pole vault in 3 weeks. :) Then there's a decathlon in September, that we're both thinking of doing, depending on how pole vaulting and disc goes for me. I am really not looking forward to running a 1500 though and I've never run an open 400 so it will certainly be interesting. We'll keep you updated if that happens, but we would probably be a bit out of shape, so we would be trying to see how well we could do only with improved technique.
Either way, our main focus for events for the summer will be Javelin and high jump for me, and those two plus hurdles for Josh. We won't be doing a lot of running though, so we will be spending a lot less time at the track than during the season.
Thank you so much to those of you who have supported us through this. I know that it is not easy to understand why we are so unavailable sometimes and why we are tired all the time. Hopefully, we can maximize our summer months to seeing everyone and enjoying life outside the red oval. :)
Looks like you both had fun!
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