“I’m going, going back, back to Cali, Cali…”

I’m ready.

I used the few meets I competed in this past indoor season to get some quality training in at full speed but I’m ready for outdoors to begin. I’m ready to get the ball rolling on the “real” track and field season and I’m ready to put all of my training to use so that I can begin making adjustments. Honestly, a part of why I am so ready is because I am so confident in how my preparations have gone to this point and I am excited to see how I can use this season to build upon the modest success I had last season. What’s more, I also look forward to fixing some of the mistakes that I made last season as I know that doing so will pay huge dividends at the World Championships in Moscow this August.

I haven’t competed in almost two months and since the indoor season my training has gone remarkably well. Of course, it doesn’t mean much unless I do what I have to do in a competition and the first opportunity that I will have to do so will be at the Mount Sac Relays next week in Walnut, California. I haven’t been to California or competed at Mt. Sac since 2010. That year I won the competition and got my season of to a great start with a 16.92m showing. I expect to exceed that performance this time around. I’m three years wiser, stronger, faster and better as a triple jumper. On top of that, I just really have a great time competing at Mt. Sac whenever I’m able to make it out there. The weather is typically beautiful, the crowd is engaged and the competition itself is top notch so there isn’t much more I can ask for aside from being in great shape, which I am.

I’m ready to get this season off to a great start.

I did mention that I would be blogging a bit more frequently and I meant it.

This past weekend I competed at George Mason’s Last Chance competition in an attempt to get a quality training session in. Considering the fact that my training group no longer makes use of George Mason’s indoor facility, the few indoor competitions that I have taken part in have been opportunities for my coach and I to get quality triple jump workouts. There is only so much you can do outside in the cold. My best jump of the competition went something like this –

The jump was measured out to be 16.60m which I am actually mostly satisfied with. My coach and I have been working on some changes, particularly in my approach which is now longer, and those changes seem to be paying off. I can see some very obvious aspects of the jump that I will work to improve as the season progresses like my speed, my posture in the step phase and my jump phase as a whole. Something tells me though, that I’m going to be in for some great performances when those things are cleaned up and that is always encouraging. As the weather improves here in Virginia I also know that my training sessions will end up being that much more beneficial and we will be able to focus more on speed and technique as opposed to endurance and strength as has been the case since the fall.

16.60m is the second farthest that I have jumped indoors and though I always prefer to jump farther and my personal best is a good bit farther (16.91m), I’ll take it for now. There’s also the fact that I didn’t jump 16.60m or farther until the middle of June last year so this is a great indication of where I am at this point in the season. The warm weather can’t get here fast enough though. Bring on the outdoor season.

Also this weekend, the Harvard women’s track and field team won the indoor conference championship for the first time in 13 years and the men battled to finish 3rd. At the same time The Texas men’s team won its sixth indoor conference title while the women finished in 2nd. Congrats to everybody who competed hard in all instances, I’m definitely a proud alum. Go Crimson and Hook ‘Em Horns.

SL

It’s been a long time, and I shouldn’t have left you…

My sincere apologies on taking this long to update my blog. I have been a bit more active on my Facebook fan page and on Twitter but I know that some people prefer to read over more detailed updates/blog posts and that’s my reason for having a blog and website to begin with. So I’m back and it won’t be several months before my next blog post, I can assure you of that. I won’t make this post too long though. Thanks to my law school classmate Kenny Alce for motivating me to get back to updating my blog as soon as possible.

2013 has been great thus far and my training has been on track. I’ve competed at a couple indoor meets near my training base in Northern Virginia just to work on some things at full speed and the results weren’t too bad. I have to admit that I fouled nearly all of my jumps though. Good thing we were looking to get some work and training done and weren’t too concerned with winning the competitions. My coach and I have changed some aspects of my approach and it should result in some significant gains outdoors if for not other reason than I’ve eliminated the stutter stepping and deceleration issue that plagued me even in London at the Olympics.

Training aside, life is good and I have been doing some public speaking which is always a great way for me to meet, reach and hopefully inspire people. Also, I am just about finished laying the ground work for my foundation, Jump for Haiti, which is very exciting. We’re expecting to launch in the near future and I’m looking forward to making a positive and more tangible impact in the lives of children in Haiti as soon as possible.

SL

I wish I had been able to provide an additional entry or two during my time here in London to give you guys a better glimpse of how it has been and to also save you guys from having to read a single diary entry crammed with far too much information to be adequately digested. I’ll try to avoid that though but still attempt to give you a feel of how this adventure has been.

I arrived in Paris early on Sunday morning and after spending just one night in my new home at L’Institut National du Sport, de l’Expertise et de la Performance (INSEP), I hit the road and hopped on a train from Paris to Rouen. Tuesday night I competed at the Meeting International de Sotteville les Rouen jumping 16.74m (my second best performance of the year) and on Wednesday morning it was back to Paris.

I am literally just about to hit the road to leave Paris once again though, this time to head to London to compete at the London Aviva Grand Prix which will be my last competition before the Olympic Games. I competed at this Diamond League meeting last season and certainly enjoyed the competition and the atmosphere. This time around though, I’ve got a meet under my belt since arriving in Europe and considering how good I feel, I’m looking to really put down a great performance in this last tune up before the games.

After the competition it’s back to Paris/INSEP before making the trip to London again in less than two weeks and of course then, it will be to move into the Olympic Village. This weekend should prove to be a pretty good rehearsal though.

- SL

May was an amazingly busy month for me as far as competition is concerned, probably my busiest to date. I competed 4 times, in 4 different countries within a little less than 3 weeks. I started the month competing in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe, bounced to Kingston, Jamaica then to Ponce, Puerto Rico and finally to Shanghai, China. In the interest of full disclosure though none of my competitions were really up to par or an accurate reflection of the shape that I’m in, even though I fouled a couple respectable jumps down in Guadeloupe. I’m perfectly fine with how things went at these competitions though because none of them was the Olympic Games and that’s what 2012 is ALL about.

Some poor timing and big techinical adjustments may be to blame for the way my competitions have gone since mid indoors but if the last two weeks of training are any indication not only will I be ready come the Olympic qualifying round (we already knew this) but my final 3 competitions leading up to London are going to put people on notice. Next up will be Edmonton, Canada on June 16th followed by the Bahamas Olympic Trials on June 23rd. This will be my 5th straight year competing at the Bahamian National Championships and they’ve just opened a state of the art new national stadium in Nassau, so I have no doubt that it will be a spectacular event. I’m looking forward to getting back on the runway and making up for May but I know patience is a virtue especially since I’ve been getting in some amazing work in training.

One day at a time…

P.S. Definitely going to be updating more frequently, for real this time!

Yesterday marked the 100 Day mark until the opening ceremonies of the London Olympic Games. This will be the city’s third time hosting the games, making London the only three time host and it seems the world’s anxiety is building; just like that of the athletes. The motto for the games was also revealed as “inspire a generation.” I can definitely buy into the motto the organizing committee decided to run with.

Still, a hundred days is something like a life time with plenty of competitions and countless hours of training to go until things are just right and July 27th or August 7th (qualifying round of the Men’s Triple Jump) rolls around. I’m excited about how prepared I’ll be when those dates come!

I opened my season at George Mason last weekend and did some things well and others not so well but at least I now have a point of reference and can build from there. Next up for me is the Guadeloupe Invitational in Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe.

We’re full speed ahead to London now and I’m working hard to ensure that all of my weaknesses are addressed even before the outdoor season begins for me on April 14th. Training has already shifted gears though and it feels good because outdoor track and field is when it’s time to really let things rip in my opinion.

When I first thought back on my indoor season though, I immediately believed that it wasn’t as successful as years past and from a results/distance standpoint, that is the case. However, it makes me feel good to look back and realize that I am faster and stronger at this point in the season than I ever have been before and that is in spite of not truly focusing on any sprinting so far this year and being in a different phase in our lifting than we were at this point last year. I also fouled some jumps this season in two early meets that would have had me very pleased. There’s no such thing as big fouls though, only big jumps…

The World Indoor Champs were a different issue entirely and I’ve left them in my rear view to say the least.

I’ll be ready my next time on the runway in competition and certainly when it counts, and the way I feel at this moment in training is very encouraging.

My 2012 London Olympic Games train left the station last Saturday. In other words, not only did I begin my 2012 season but I began down the final stretch towards London and the Olympics. Considering that I missed qualifying for Beijing, this has been four years in the making. With that said, and although every track and field athlete has their eyes squarely set on London, I try and will continue to try very hard not to get ahead of myself. I’m still committed to taking this year one day, one competition, one training session, one lift and one jump at a time. Still, it was fun to get the ball rolling even if it was only slightly in the grand scheme of things.

To start the day on Saturday, I ran the 60 meter dash for the first time in six years. That fact alone should really let you know that this was little more than a ‘training competition’. To be honest though, while I didn’t run under 7 seconds which was my goal, the race was a lot of fun and I can live with 7.05 considering we haven’t actually done any speed work yet in practice and probably won’t for some time. I’m hoping coach will let me run it again before the indoor season is out though and I’ll be shooting for something in the 6.80s. Check out the race below and try not to laugh to hard.

My transition out of my drive phase was horrible so my hips were too low and a bit behind me, and I definitely didn’t run through the line but I suppose my sprinting is even more of a work in progress than my triple jumping.

Over on the runway, I planned to take only two jumps and ended up taking three because my first jump (which came out to a respectable 17.05m, give or take a bit, when my coach measured it after the competition) was just barely a foul. If I were the official, I would have thrown the white flag though — you check the tape. Not only was last Thursday the first time coach and I had truly worked on my approach since Daegu in August, but as you can tell from the fact that I switched technique between jumps 2 and 3 and the jump phase on my first jump looking a bit crazy, I haven’t done any technique work at all since August either.

Believe it or not, I’m pretty satisfied with my jumps. You guys know that is pretty rare. I didn’t continue pushing my approach through the board, my timing was off and I was impatient on all three of my phases and I have no idea what was going on with my arms in my hop phases (I should probably figure that out FAST) but the jumps felt easy, my speed wasn’t too bad on the runway considering how early is it and I came away healthy. As far as shaking the rust off goes, there isn’t much more that I could have asked for!

Next up is the Collegiate Invitational at the Armory this weekend where I’ll be taking just a couple jumps like last weekend and then it’s looking like I’ll head over to France (Liévin) for the Meeting Pas de Calais which will be my last time jumping in competition until the World Indoor Champs.

Full speed ahead.

“Yeah, I thought it and I achieved it…“

‘Doing’ is very distinct from ‘trying.’ It’s so distinct, that the mindset you decide to approach an undertaking with, that you’re going to do or you’re going to try (to do), can make all the difference in the outcome of that undertaking.

My approach when it comes to competitions AND training is to be a ‘doer’ as opposed to a ‘trier’. If coach has a killer workout penciled in for the day, I never get to the track thinking that I’m going to try and get through or survive the workout, but rather that I’m going to manhandle it; period. That goes for every workout, regardless of what’s on tap or what day it is. If I’m at a meet and I’ve outlined a goal for myself beforehand then my mindset is that it’s already a done deal. In many respects getting on the runway just becomes protocol mostly because I’ve already accomplished the goal and rehearsed my jumps so many times in my mind that the execution takes care of itself.

It would be incredible if my attempt to be a ‘doer’ always resulted in the achievement of my goals an aspirations (whether in triple jumping or otherwise) but as you might imagine, this unfortunately isn’t the case. I’m certain that it isn’t the case for anybody, regardless of how solid they are at mental preparation or how accomplished they may be overall. Still, the only way to get a running start down the road towards your dreams, whether Olympic gold or absolutely anything else, is to do, not to try.

Ralph Marston had a superb post on his own blog/website last Thursday, The Daily Motivator, so call me lazy for piggybacking on it but I couldn’t have written a better post on the topic if I tried so I’ll share it here. Of course, these aren’t my words –

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The way to achieve is not to try. The way to achieve is to do.

The difference between trying and doing is all in your perspective. That difference makes all the difference in the world.

When you see yourself as trying, you are burdening yourself with the expectation of failure. Instead, put all your energy and focus into doing your very best, and into expecting the best results.

Merely trying is itself an excuse, and it gives you permission to make all sorts of other excuses. Doing, on the other hand, gets results.

If you’re going to make the effort, then make it count. Let go of any thoughts that you’re just trying, and embrace the most positive expectations.

You are absolutely capable of making a real and valuable difference. So forget about trying, and with well-deserved confidence, go ahead and get it done.

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On that note, I like how my New York Giants got it done last night especially considering that, to a man, the entire team went into the game to claim victory and nothing less. Super Bowl here we come!