I’ve still got a couple weeks left on my recovery/active rest cycle before I begin my preparations for 2011 (and indirectly for 2012 too) but in this time I’ve been able to think back on my 2010 season.  If you’d asked me about the season after my last meet in Brussels I likely would have said that it was disappointing, but after some thinking I’m upgrading that “disappointing” to “not so bad.”

At the beginning of every year I list out my goals. This is usually a pretty long and detailed list that even gets into what weights I want to lift and how many times I’d like to jump particular distances. Judging from this list, which I made almost 12 months ago now, my year was pretty bad. There are a whole host of goals on that list that I wasn’t able to check off once the season was done. Fortunately for me, adding context to the season helps me come to terms with how it all went down in the end.

Law school…yea I completed that during the season but I was done before things really got rolling as far as the summer circuit is concerned; so that’s not really the context I was thinking of. For starters, it was my first season doing the professional track and field thing and while the runway, boards and pits don’t change the rest of “it” seems to. Rather than emailing meet directors and driving to and from meets I was flying over seas to compete two days later or flying to new countries to compete the next day. I can’t say that the changes that come along with making the jump (no pun intended) to the professional circuit are directly responsible for me not jumping exactly as well as I had hoped, but things were certainly different than I’ve been used to; I’ll say that much. Fortunately though, I was indirectly able to learn what it takes to succeed on the circuit and at that level and I’m not just trying to succeed, I’m trying to excel; so my approach in future seasons will change in a couple ways thanks to my experiences this past season.

The other thing I’ve mentioned time and time again in this blog is my approach, so I won’t spend too much time talking about how switching it up switched things up on the runway for me. You guys should be tired of hearing about that by now. But hey, if there was any year to make the change it was 2010 since the Outdoor World Champs are next year and Olympics are after that. I’ve now got a season under my belt with this new approach and it means I won’t have to spend next season or the season after that getting used to a new rhythm all over again especially since I could feel things beginning to click towards the end of the season.

At the end of the day, the average performance from all my meets this season is significantly better than any season I’ve had in the past. Of course that’s not saying too much because it wasn’t quite what I was looking for but it means that overall this was my best season to date and I’m happy with that.  I also came home from the CAC Games with a medal and used the meet to go over 17 meters again. Both of those felt great. On top of that the use I’ll get from the lessons I learned this season will pay dividends in the long run and make this season just as valuable as any future ones could be. All in all, I can live with how the season went, but I’m not at all satisfied and now want more than I even did last year around this time.