NCAA DIII Championships

Last week I had the opportunity to compete at the NCAA Division III national championship in Nebraska, representing University Of Dubuque (Spartan). I was very confident heading into the Championships as my vault practice sessions prior to the championship went well. I was hoping to finish on top of the podium.

At 4.90m/16'0.75" there were three vaulters remaining. One cleared the height on his first attempt. I missed my first attempt at 4.90m/16'0.75'' and cleared it on my second. The other competitor made 4.90m on his third  attempt. The bar then moved up to 4.95m/16'2.75''.

Looking back, as I sat in 2nd place, I would finish no worse than third and with a personal best of 5.10m cleared just weeks prior, I should have passed at 4.95m and taken the time to refocus for the following bar at 5.00m. In the meantime, if things remained the same, I would have watched the two other vaulters fall out and at 4.95m while I would be vaulting for either a clean victory or a bronze.

However, after Michael from University of Chicago and Rob from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse missed their first attempts at 4.95m, I decided to attempt the bar as I could have taken the lead at that height with a clearance on my first attempt (I had one miss at 4.90m and Michael had a clean scorecard which gave him the lead). Unfortunately, that didn't happen and all of us fell out at 4.95m. I ended the meet in the silver medal position. The lesson I learned after reflecting on the meet, is to trust my gut feel and pass the height when it's necessary.

Nonetheless I had my best indoor season ever. From a conference championship to runner-up at nationals, I couldn't have asked for a better indoor season as I had two lifetime best marks at 5.03m/16'6'' on February 1st and a 5.10m/16'8.75'' jump at the last chance meet in Platteville.

I am stronger and faster than I've ever been on the runway. My vault technique has improved to the point where I sit and watch my vaults after practice or after a meet and I can't believe I'm the one doing it. I worked hard over the fall and it feels nice to see the results show.  

Two lessons learned throughout indoor season:

1)Trust my gut feeling when I'm on the runway.

2) Focus on myself and not worry about the other competitors because at the end of the day I am trying to raise my bar, not theirs.

Nevertheless it's time to go back to the drawing board to break things down and come back fresh to dominate outdoors. My goal for this outdoor season is to keep improving on my vault technique and consistency on the runway. When I take care of these details, the higher bars will come.

Once again I would like to say thank you to my coaches, teammates, friends, fans and family for all the positive energy going into the meet and throughout the season. If all goes well outdoors and I keep raising the bar like I did throughout indoors I should be right on track to make the 2016 Olympic team for my country (The Olympic B qualifying standard is 5.60m/18'3''). Your continued support to meet this goal is deeply appreciated. Again, thank you.

There's a link on how the Pole Vault Champ felt coming into the meet.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/trackfield-indoor-men/article/2014-03-14/chicago-sophomore-michael-bennett-surprising-winner
  

Cornell Invite, life time best (5.03m)

Before the track season started, my coach and I sat down and wrote some attainable goals for the events I would be doing for the year, he also did that with the everyone on the team. My goal for the pole vault was 5m which was my life time personal best, and 6.95m in the 60m dash. That was a brilliant idea on my coach side, as none of my previous coaches sat down and made a hard copy of my goals. Writing down goals focuses you to be specific about what you want and how you are going to achieve it.

February 1st was the day I had to bring my goals to life. I was very confident heading to the Hilltop invitational at Cornell College Iowa to compete. I had a solid week of vault practice working on the basics, for example, working on a consistent approach and getting to vertical on the pole. I was also hyped after vaulting an indoor best of 4.95m at the previous meet in Nebraska, which is now my favourite place to compete. Nonetheless, an early road trip to Cornell was worth it. On arrival at the indoor facility, the first thing I noticed was the pole vault pit. It wasn't the brand new UCS or Gill pits I've been vaulting on this year, the pole vault pit was smaller and way older than the standards pits we use now, It reminded me of the old pole vault pit we have home in St Lucia. However, that didn't affect my performance. Cornell invite was a very small meet compared to Nebraska, Cornell meet had 10 vaulters verses Nebraska's 28. With only 10 vaulters at Cornell the wait after warm up was a little over an hour which was wasn't too bad.

 

I entered the competition at a low height to give me some warm up vaults before the bar moved up to a decent height. Not forgetting that it's Feb 1st and the goal was to be over 5m. I cleared 4.35m on my second attempt. I had first time clearances at 4.57m, 4.72m, 4.88m and made 5.03m on my second attempt, which was a life time personal best. After clearing 5.03m I attempted 5.19m, but I didn't have any successful attempt at that height. 

 

I also had a successful day on the track I placed third overall in the 60m dash with 7.04sec a tenth of a second better than I ran at Nebraska. I have not achieved my goal in the 60m dash however I know 6.95sec is well in my reach.

Despite not clearing the bar at 5.19, I took away a few key learning points from those three attempts. These included: Swing my trail leg aggressively and driving my hips up into the sky to avoid flagging out into the cross bar.

  

Overall, the first month of the indoor season has been a success. Looking back, I think the biggest things I've learned that have led to this success have been, Making the right adjustments at the right time, Working on consistency and trusting myself on the runway.

Looking ahead, I've sat back down with my coach and we've reset the goals for the indoor season to 5.30m.

Overall, I would like to thank my friends, family and people back home in St. Lucia for the moral support as they have followed this journey.

There's a link to the vaults.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIKWNtRczD8&list=UUmF_IBixrXVzvwGQh-CJPvA&feature=c4-overview

Nebraska Pre Nat's

Competing at University Nebraska this weekend was a dream come true, I always wanted to set foot in that facility but I never made the cut when I was in Junior College. 2 years later my dream finally came true.



My first event of the day was the 60m dash preliminaries, 7.13sec was fast enough to secure me a spot in the finals. The finals was ran back to back with the preliminaries so as soon as I was done with the prelims, I had to line up for the finals. Being the underdog entering the finals I know I had to run anything better than 7.13sec to finish in the top 3. However I ran a better time in the finals and finished 3rd overall with a time of 7.05sec.

The Pole Vault was my highlight of the day. I only took four warm up vaults two from five lefts running from 71' to work on technique and two full approach vaults running from 100' to get a feel for the runway and to see how consistent my run was. Warm ups went well, after four jumps I was ready to for the competition to start. With 30 vaulters registered I knew it was going to be a long wait for before I got a chance to enter the competition. Waiting for two hours I finally got a chance to take my first vault at my opening height 4.50m I cleared on my first attempt, made 4.65m on my second attempt and cleared 4.80m and 4.95m on my first attempt, 4.95m is a new indoor personal best for me and also good enough to win the vault. I had one solid jump at 5.10m but I didn't make it.

Nonetheless there's a lot of room for improvement for the up coming meets, me and my coach will sit down and watch the videos to make some adjustments.

 

There's a youtube link for the Pole Vault

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVwt8F0SdBM

Wartburg Relays Season Opener

After a wonderful off-season getting stronger and faster in the weight room, the time finally came for me and my teammates to put our hard work to good use. Heading to Wartburg Relays, I was very excited for my first indoor meet, I felt like a baby that was grounded from his favorite toys for a year, given the fact that I took a year off from college. However, the icy road trip took approximately three hours to Wartburg Iowa. Thank you to our professional bus driver, when we arrived at the indoor facility we warmed up as a team and everyone went to their individual events.

Wartburg relays was a meet for everyone to get the monkeys of their back and to set a benchmark to see where they were physically, technically and emotionally on the track. Both the men and the women team place second overall at the meet. I had a decent meet, I started my indoor season on a good note I won the pole vault with (4.70m 15'4'') my winning height was also a school record and surprisingly I had the fastest time of 7.03 in 60m dash which is a personal record for me.

My second indoor meet will be at home next weekend I am looking forward to great meet on home soil.

Things I want to improve on throughout the season.

• Consistent run and takeoff
• Swinging a straight trail leg  
• Vault at least an inch higher every meet.

There is a link you below to my winning vault.

Pole 15'-180lbs 7 lefts 101'

http://www.ubersense.com/video/view/OKi0KXBN?e=11796