Week 9 (Sep 21st-27th)

After doing two weeks of quarters, 200m feels like a long approach run! Felt good most of the week until the day after lunges… my ass was LIT UP!! I had to adjust my schedule as a result. I switched Thursday’s and Friday’s workouts to give me more time to recover. (Ass hurt too much to run on Thurs!!) I’ve been talked into working out with the Wisconsin track team on Wednesday next week. They take a trip to Blackhawk (no idea where that is…) where they do a bunch of really intense stair work. I’m actually looking forward to it. Working out by yourself makes scheduling easier, but it’s nice to work out with other people now and then.

Week 8 (Sep 14th-20th)

This week was a lot nicer on my legs than last week. I still took it easy on the Olympic lifts and plyos, but the calves were far less sore. I’ve had enough of running 400s and I’m looking forward to more 200s and 150s. Next week is a new schedule with new running workouts and lifting workouts. Week 8 done!

Week 7 (Sep 7th-13th)

Well the first running workout of the year went really well. I felt amazing and running the 400's in 80sec just felt too slow at the time (So they were all run in ~70 sec). The only problem I had was that the next few days my calves were LIT UP!! I don't really understand why, but I could barely walk without limping. As a result, I took it SUPER easy on the plyos Wednesday and I couldn't run the second workout that I planned to run on Thursday. Instead I did a looooong shake out and iced. I also took the Olympic lifts really lightly and pushed Friday's lifting to Saturday.

Make note… do some calf raises early in the year next year!!!

September 15, 2008 – Remote, from Madison, WI!!

No, we didn’t misplace our training logs from December until now, we just didn’t write any….
I’m sure anyone who has things to do outside of athletics understands. The year gets busy during competition and I had to defend a thesis! That said, I want to make it a point to post a workout/training log EVERY week this time around. The goal is not to entertain the two people a month who visit the site, it’s to keep the guys down in Arkansas and B-burg up to date as well as to have something interesting to look back on after the year is over. Training post collegiately is an adventure and I’d like to have a record of it. So each weekend when I get some free time I’ll write up a really (REALLY) brief report on how the week’s training went and if anything particularly interesting or notable happened.

For those of you with curious minds, I’ll be posting a link in here to my schedule. The schedule itself will have links out to my lifting/running/core workouts. I’ll update the schedule each week (at least through Dec.) with what ACTUALLY gets accomplished.

I also want to make the point that the VAST majority of these workouts are NOT ones that I have personally made up. These workouts come from coaches, friends and fellow pole-vaulters as well as me. (Of course, most are from Virginia Tech – Go Hokies!!)

THE MASTER SCHEDULE:

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jsamaniu/Workout%20Links/Master%20Schedule%20wks%201-20%20(.xls).xls

(I will be updating the schedule for weeks to come; so much of it is missing.)

Here’s to a new year!! Last year was an amazing experience and all of us accomplished something. With our brand new member (Erin Mahony) it ought to be even better. Go Vertical Technique!!!!!!

 

December 11, 2007

Since my last post its been training as usual except for the fact that we had our first meet December 1 st. I thought I’d comment on the fact that my leg is very near 100%. Every practice I have to struggle with the decision to either move my run back or just cut my steps at the end (90% of the time my step is under). I suppose I could always use quicker steps at the box, but as I regain my speed the beginning of my run changes and I continually have to push my starting point back. If I got to choose one thing to have fixed by January it would be getting my take off to a comfortable spot around 12’. Other than the struggle with an under step I’m jumping well enough and I feel healthy enough to push back to a full run (currently I’ve only jumped off of 7 steps).

At Liberty Univ. we had our first meet and I think we all did well for how early in the season it is. I only jumped off of 7 steps (my full run is 9) and I managed to clear 4.85m (15’11”). I pulled 4.85m out on my last jump. The combination of jumping off of 7 steps and not having my full speed really limited the poles I could get on. In addition to that it was everything I could do to get my step outside of 11 feet. As a result I had to use a small pole at 4.85m, get my step to 11’4” and jump the hell outta that pole to get over the bar. Looking at tape of my attempts at 5.00m (16’4”) I can see that I had plenty of height. I managed to go up a pole from my attempts at 4.85m, but I couldn’t get my step out to where it needed to be. I ended up just a little bit too shallow on all of my jumps.

Adam and Brian both had a good meet as well. I don’t think any of us cleared what we COULD have cleared, but that’s how it goes in the pole vault. You learn something and you move on. My next meet will be in January. Until then it’s all about getting my step out and pushing back to a competition run. Bring on the season!!

 

 

October 27, 2007

This is my first training log entry of the year. Seeing as how I’ve been broken for the better part of two months all my training up to this point has involved copious quantities of ice, stretching and ibuprofen (hmm, maybe we can get Motrin to sponsor us…..haha). I’m finally getting back to running and jumping and it’s really exciting. When you hurt yourself you spend most of the time thinking about getting better and about all the time you’re losing. You forget about how much fun it is to pole vault when you’re care free. Now that I know I’ll be 100% this year I’m stoked!

This past week has been a “rest week” for us in both the weight room and concerning our running workouts. This has worked out really well for me since the “rest week” has coincided with the healthiest week I’ve had to date. A little rest this weekend will lead into some strong training next week. Starting tomorrow we’re moving to two vault practices a week and I’m looking forward to getting back to 5 and even 6 left approaches. Our first meet is coming up in December ( Liberty) and I plan on knocking around some of those poorly placed air ducts they have on that ceiling!!

Since this is the first log of the season I want to mention how excellent it is to be a part of this team. Occasionally in life people are brought together because of time and fate regardless of their likes and dislikes, similarities or differences. Adam, Brian and I all have different goals, different reasons to train, different habits and all around different views on life. Despite all these differences, after 5 years of training together I consider our team to be one of the strongest, most driven groups I’ve ever been a part of. Call it fate, blame it on time or force of habit, but when the three of us show up to practice there isn’t a single difference that stands between us.

We are pole-vaulters. Need I say more??