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.
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