ITA: The Interview

So, In The Arena wanted to interview a couple of it's athletes and asked me to be one of the chosen. After doing so it was suggested that I use it as a blog post, so here you go. I hope you enjoy (I really didn't see that last question coming and just about fell off my seat when I read it - good work ITA intern Kate):

1. What is the first sport that you ever played?
The first sport I was really into was soccer. I joined somewhere around 5 or 6 and was real into it until I got to high school. I was a goalkeeper (I was always tall) and was on a traveling team pretty early. That being said, I grew up in a "track house." My parents were coaches - my mom went into labor on the track during practice at UCLA while coaching and I saw my first USA v. Germany heptathlon when I was about 2 days old. Mom was coaching Jackie Joyner-Kersee at the time and had to break out of the hospital to go coach. Although I didn't start competing in track until middle school, it was always around (attached picture is me in the front yard with a hammer).

2. When did you first start participating in the decathlon?
I competed in my first decathlon the summer before my senior year in high school. It was 100 degrees plus in central california on a dirt track. The event I remember the most was the 11th: someone opened up the school's pool and diving board after the 1500m.

3. From your childhood, which of your coaches stands out the most in your mind? Why?
I've been blessed with great coaches. I was with my soccer coach, Tommy Anderson, for 5 or 6 years or so. He was great. I guess pre-high school he was the big one.

4. Who is your hero? What role did this person play in inspiring you to become a decathlete?
That's interesting I think. I didn't really have specific heroes growing up. I guess the closest thing was David Robinson: he was a great basketball player without the flash. He got his job done, he did it well and he didn't need to talk about it or tat up his arm to prove it. Blue-collar. Plus he was a bright guy - went to the Naval Academy. I didn't really get into the decathlon because I idolized anyone in particular. I got into the decathlon because I didn't have one thing I was great at but I could do many things pretty well.

5. What do you love most about the decathlon? What is the hardest part of being a decathlete?
My favorite thing about the decathlon is that there is room for everyone. There's guys with speed for days, they just might not be able to throw very well. There's guys that're big and slow (me) but work your butt off and become technically sounds and you can make up a lot of points in the technical events (throws, hurdles, vault, etc). There is no magic formula, there is no right way. I love coaching it for the same reason - everyone has a different path to becoming the best decathlete they can be, just like everyone has their own path to becoming the best person you can be. The hardest part about being a decathlete is that there is no magic formula, there is no right way... Multi-eventers are a different breed. Like all professional athletes you work your butt off day in and day out towards perfection, however, as a multi-eventer you will never get there. You can walk away from the best meet of your life and there's still a dozen things you wish you can do better. I talk with my athletes about this all the time: you can look at it positively or negatively and it took me a long time to figure this out on my own. You can walk off the track swearing and moping around with your head down because of all the "mistakes" you've made, or you can walk off the field with you head held high knowing that yes, you did a lot of good, but you there's also a lot of things that could have been better. You know what that means? That means you have that many opporutnities to be that much better the next time you step onto the track. It's a vicious addiction but it's also a great thing.
I also have to mention the people. Decathletes are a special breed and as such, the comraderie amongst the group is amazing. Yes we're competing against each other, but like no other sport I've been around, we're competing with each other. It's like this amazing club with a terrible entry fee: many many hours of pain and work. This picture was taken in Italy at Multistars this year. These guys are from all over the world (Germany, England, Kenya, South Africa, the US), none of them had met more than two days before, and hours earlier these guys were all competing against one another. Every decathlete has pictures like these from just about every big meet they've competed in. The 11th event is always worth the previous 10 and all it takes to get there...

6. Do you believe that everyone should try at least one sport?
I believe everyone should try 100 sports. Sport has so much to teach us - mentally, physically, socially, the list goes on and on. Everyone picks up a football, a baseball, or a soccer ball in the US and the majority of us are not going to be good at any of those. Just because you're not going to make $10 million a year doesn't mean you're not going to profit emenssly from the sport. In some form there is sport out there for everyone. Hell, even if you're born to be terrible at all of them, guarenteed the journey to find that out is going to teach you things about yourself and the world around you that you never dreamed possible. Sport is not about what you can be - everyone is so caught up on potential. Sport is about what you become. With your own two hands, feet, head, whatever, sport is about crafting yourself one trial, one error, one triumph at a time.

7. Are you superstitious in any ways? Do you have any good luck charms, lucky clothes, etc.? What are they?
I actually wrote on this earlier this year. If you want a more in depth answer check out my blog post here: http://in-the-arena-matt.blogspot.com/2008/12/superstitions.htmlBasically, no. I believe in preperation. The adage: luck is when preperation meets opportunity, I believe in that. I actually consider myself to be a pretty unlucky person. I believe that more often than not, I end up on the short side of lucky but as long as I work as hard as I possibly can and prepare as best I know how, there's nothing more I can do so the chips lie wear they fall.

8. What are some of your competition day rituals? Do you have a meal that you always eat before a big competition?
Before a big meet I wake up at least 4-5 hours before the competition for my "neuro wake-up." This often means very early mornings before a decathlon, but with a bit of a warm-up to get the blood flowing make me feel nice and loose coming into the meet when my competition warm-up begins. When the time schedule works out and soemthing is nearby I like to go to the movies in between days of a decathlon. This is a tradition started by Ryan Olkowski and I at our annual meets in Dallas. Otherwise I always ice bath in between days. I'm also a big fan of a cold shower before the 1500m if again, timing and facilities permit.My meals I keep simple - some protien, a decent amount of carbs. Usually I go wth some pasta and chicken or rice and potatoes type stuff.

9. What is your most memorable experience as an athlete?
The NCAA Champs in 2003 and the Olympic Trials in 2008. In 2003 it was the 20th anniversery of my parents winning their last national championships while coaching at UCLA. My dad was in the stands holding the phone up on speaker for my mom so she could listen to the 1500m. Yes I wanted to win, but I was psyched to place 2nd. Hearing everybody yell and scream for me during the 1500m and coming into the stands after that meet to my family on the phone and my teammates in the stands (we had a huge group of 22 qualify for the meet) congratulating me was awesome.The Trials in 2008 I will never forget. Some dissapointments, yes, but being in the spotlight during the pole vault, having 1,000s at a time clapping for me coming down the runway, running in that incredibly electric atmosphere during the 1500m, and hugging my brother during the victory lap, that was awesome. I get goosebumps talking about it still.On the whole though, what I will always remember about the decathlon is being part of that community. The movies in between days in Dallas, the jokes sitting around waiting to long jump, sharing rides, rooms, poles, you name it trying to make ends meet, breakfast in the hotel before Multistars in Italy, "What If" games the multis would gather in someone's hotel room to play the night after day 2. Multis are a whole different breed of people. We may only see each other a couple of times a year, but there's an understanding of each other that exists no where else. We're all crazy, but we're crazy together.

10. What is the pinnacle to your athletic career?
Man was I good in high school!! haha, just kidding.I guess this should be a much easier question that it seems to be right now. Is the pinnacle when I placed top 10 at the US Champs this year? Is being invited to compete in Italy at Multistars, scoring 34 points at my last collegiate meet, in high school when I placed 2nd in 2 events at sections within about 3 minutes of each other, or seeing myself highlighted on the scoreboard in Eugene, Oregon at the Olympic Trials along with Tom Pappas as one of the only 2 competitors remaining in the pole vault?You want the truth? The exact moment that is the pinnacle of my athletic career is reaching into the stands to hug my brother during the victory lap under the lights at the Olympic Trials as 20,000 fans cheered from their feet.

11. When did you determine that your dream of being a decathlete could become a reality?
I didn't really consider myself a real decathlete until I made my first US Champs in 2008. I had to run my butt off like never before during the 1500m at a meet in Dallas to qualify. I did and it was the best feeling in the world.

12. What has been your largest obstacle on the road to becoming an Olympian?
Support. Finding coaching, finding training partners, finding time, finding funding. In that order.

13. If you were able compete in any other Olympic event which would you choose and why?

We were talking about this after the meet at US Champs as we watched the rest of the meet. If I could be amazing at one event (other than my own) I think it would be the javelin or the pole vault...with leanings toward the javelin. I think it would be the most amazing feeling to haul butt down the runway and BOOM! launch a jav into the air, walk back, put my sweats on, and look back to see the sucker land 300 feet later. What a cool event. If I were to choose another sport? Basketball. Although I think it should still be college guys out there competing for us, I still think it's a great situation. The rules change: it isn't about contracts or conference champs or even March Madness, it's a coming together of guys that compete fiercly against each other regularly. They put aside their differences to work as a unit, their powers combined as best as possible in a limited amount of time in order to compete for their country. Take a sport that can be incredibly selfish in this country and strip it away until it's pure. That's what the Olympics are about....kind of like what the relays are about in track...but our sprinters have yet to figure that out so we're terrible at it.

[check out In The Arena's Mike Hazle establish himself as one of the best in the world at doing exactly what I wish I could as he drops bombs at the World Champs in Berlin in a couple days on the 21st.]

14. The decathlon is not a very popular sport here in the US. If you had all the power in the world for a day, what would you do to increase awareness of the sport?

Haha - something else that comes up often when sitting around in between events. We've got some great ideas too! How about running the 1500m in only 3 lanes with hockey boards around either side. The fans can be right there banging on the boards, plus the start would be staggered like a time trial in the Tour de France. If you passed someone in the race, you passed them in the overall standings too. We came up with that at US Indoors this year - lets see Joe Detmer get by me then! (he moved himself up from 6th place to 2nd in the last event alone - he holds the world record for that event).Honestly though, how about teaching the decathlon in high school PE? Everyone can benifit from such training. The decathlon is about using your strengths and balancing your weaknesses. It's about pushing yourself to your limits. Training for the decathlon has a funny way of teaching yourself about yourself. You're going to learn very quickly about what you can and can't do and what it takes to make yourself the best you can be, what it takes to make yourself whole. Everyone is so caught up on what they can't do. In the dec there is something you'll be able to do better than others, the trick is trying to figure out the rest of it in order to make yourself complete all-around. I think everyone can use some of that. Plus, as people understand what it takes to train for what we do and what it takes to do the things the top guys do, we might actaully attain some respect.Also the sport can do a much better job of presenting itself. American loves sports with numbers: On Base Percentages, Yards After Catch, the Triple-Double. Decathlon is all about the numbers - if people actually understood what they meant, I think that would go a long way to helping us out. All-in-all, I just think there's a lack of understanding out there about our event. I'm actually planning on trying to change some of that - we'll see.

15. What will you do as an individual to bring about these changes?

Ha, well, I'm glad you asked. There some major problems with the way the decathlon is run in the US: there is a lack of opporunitites to compete, a lack of opportunities to train, a lack of understanding of the event, a lack of support.I want to create more opportunities to compete. Most track athletes compete once every week or two for about 5 months a year. A decathlete competes max 4 times a year because of the effort a single meet takes and there are very very few (like 1 or 2) that are good enough to compete in single events at elite levels. Competitions enable opportunities: opportunities to test yourself, opportunities to test your opponents, opportunities to be seen. It's very difficult to try to drum up support when you only compete a couple times a year. Who wantst to sponsor someone that they see on the track three times a year? It is very difficult to know where youre training is and what you need to work on when you only have a couple chances to test yourself. You wont realize something is off until it is too late.It is very difficult to create a community when there are so few that see each other so often. Through competition and commradery is the only way to build a base to grow upon.I want to start a national league for multi-eventers. I want it to be team based. This way we can have multi-eventers at major track meets doing mini multis: 3 or 4 events at a time. They can team up and sum scores to try to compete against each other. This will encourage athletes to find each other to creat bonds through team work, this will put decathletes in the national spotlight of the sport rather than simply a weird offshoot you see once or twice a year, this will encourage coaches, managers, sponsors, etc to become involved as the spotlight grows.

16. The decathlon is an exhilarating sport to watch. Does it bring you a sense of thrill and excitement, or a sense of calmness and peace when you compete?

You learn to be a "flat-liner" as one of my football coaches called it. You want to be steady throughout, you can't let yourself get too high or too low. When one event is over, you must put it behind you and move on, good or bad. You can't look ahead or behind without losing sight of the present. This is something I'm getting much better at. This year at the US Champs I couldn't let my horrible 1st day get in the way of day 2. Last year at Trials I missed my first 2 (of 3) attempts at opening height in the pole vault almost ending my meet there. The year I did the same thing in the discus. If you step onto the runway or into the ring with anything on your mind but doing your job, that's when thing go wrong.That being said, you have to enjoy yourself. Momentum is huge and you have to be loose. In the end it comes down to pushing yourself over and over again.

17. If you had the ability to change one rule regarding your sport, what would it be and why?

It would be interesting if we had a mulligan. If we could do over or throw out one event. Some form of contact would be cool too. I was a football player and always enjoyed the contact element - the sport could use some sort of way to compete directly versus another person rather than simply the tables.
Jokingly I always thought it'd be interesting if each athlete was allowed to use a springboard in one event of their choosing...

18. So, you have pretty much made it to the top of your sport. What is the next goal you have set for yourself?

I've always wanted to represent my country by wearing a USA jersey.

19. What is the driving force that motivates you to volunteer so much of your time to the community?

it reminds me that there is more to this than me. My college coach used to say: "there's nothing more selfish than an elite athlete." The is so true - you're always worried about your training, your rest, your nutrition, how the weather effects you, how the travel effects you, it's always me, me, me. This actually used to eat me up quite a bit. I hated that, but since working with The Jets I realized how much good my training could actually do for others as an example or a source of knowledge.

20. What is the most rewarding aspect of working as a mentor?

See above, #19.

21. What one personality trait or attribute has allowed you to excel; and do you think it’s a sufficient condition for success when rooted in today’s at-risk children?

We are all given certain genes and traits, I was given the ability to work my butt off. I was given patience and determination and a stubborness against doing anything improperly or in part. I have the gall to believe that anything can be accomplished through hard work and time.I think this is the largest trait missing from today's at-risk children.

22. You have spent a lot of time working with kids. What is your most memorable story?

The day Devonte talked. Devonte is our 6 year-old superstar. Rememeber his name because he's going to be amazing someday (already is), but I never heard him say a word. A year in a half after joining the Jets he randomly turned to me at a practice to say "I got the new Madden." Simple words, but words none-the-less. It was when I realized that the kids actually have taken me in as one of them.

23. What advice would you give to someone just beginning to work as a mentor to kids?

Be yourself and be patient. Your a special person for being there in the first place. Kids see right through a faker, so just sit back and let things happen rather than trying to force anything.

24. What experience working as a mentor made you laugh the hardest?

Seeing Devonte run at the Boston Indoor Games blowing by kids twice his age and size carrying a baton the size of his femur.

25. If you were to choose a quote which sums up your life or represents who you are and what you believe in, what would it be?

Altius ibunt qui as summa nituntur. They will rise highest who strive for the highest place.

26. What was it that made you choose the decathlon over focusing all of your attention toward one specific event?

I always loved sport and I hated choosing one and giving others up. Decathlon is like trying to be good at everything at once. Plus I was never very good at winning anything but I could rack up 2nd places like nobodies business. A lot of 2nd places makes a pretty good decathlon.

27. How far west would you have to travel from Boston, MA to get a decent tri-tip meal?!

AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! I didn't see that one coming.Although I have found out that Trader Joe's does carry tri-tip, you said decent: my parent's backyard is about 3,100 miles away. It still kills me that no one on the east coast has even heard of Tri-Tip, aka, heaven in your mouth. It's the first thing I request when I go home - it's the first thing any of my friends from out here request after they've visited just once!

hello again...

So, it's been a while.

For those of you (or that one or two of you...) that have been following this blog for a while, you may notice a simple trend: when things are flowing well, so does the blog. When I take a little break on the track (usually forced), the blog does the same.
The US Champs were an interesting experience for me this year. I honestly had big hopes for this year and for the most part I thought all was on course for all of my big goals. For some reasons things didn't seem to click when they needed to - with really the usual suspects being the weakest links. The first day, all the speed stuff, just seems to elude me. I worked more towards my speed than I have ever before, I finally started building great confidence in the long jump, shot was going to places, my high jump was great early in the year, and even my quarter workouts were going well.
I did again come back with a solid second day. Hurdles were a great start with my fastest decathlon time ever and my fastest race outright since college and disc was the length of half my toe close to being great (twice). Again, I came back with a solid pole vault. Although I'd been jumping higher recently, jumping 5 meters and having no one in the competition jump higher felt great. The Jav was decent (workouts in the two weeks after Eugene showed that I was actually capable of some real great things), and the 1500 was a solid event for me. The second day did a ton for my psyche and outlook, plus im increasingly proud of how my maturity and metal abilities in the event have improved in the last year or two - VERY big pieces of the decathlon.

My goal for a long while has been to break into the top 10 at the US Champs. The score may have not been what I expected, but reaching a goal is reaching a goal. Making the Thorpe Cup USA versus Germany dual meet team has probably been the goal I have sought after longer than any others. Coming into the meet I thought for sure a top 10 finish would put me there, but a missunderstanding on my part on how the team is chosen (5 from placing, 2 at-large coaches choice) meant that I was the first alternate. After a couple weeks of training and no call back I was forced to face an early end to the season and some time off. I was fortunate to spend much more time at home in California with family and friends than I have in a while which was awesome. Something I have learned in the past few years is how important taking advantage of the time you do get with friends and family is. We all have things that drive us and it may take us many places - the key is to be able to roam while still keeping your roots in.

All in all, however, it has been a great year. A great dissapointment to end it, but I accomplished many many things. My first international meet was an amazing experience and means the accomplishment of another of my very longtime goals. I competed and placed in my first US Indoor Championships and I broke through the top 10 at outdoors. Above all, I continued to grow in everyway. The decathlon can be so difficult because you have such limited opportunities to show what you have. With a usual maximum of 4 to 5 meets a year (on the very high end), you can be doing great things all year long with maybe none of it showing on those particular weekends. I feel that I took leaps and bounds in my training in every single event this year. Some of it came out very well - others remained to be hidden. Above all, I continue to be impressed with how I'm growing mentally within the sport. I've always heard that it takes a deceathlete so long to reach a maturity in the event - often not until the late 20s do you really start gaining a real understanding of the sport. I can see how guys like Tom Pappas and Kip Janvrin have been so successfull at such late ages. Even Bryan Clay is far from young now by general track standards, but he's really not starting to really attack the big pieces of the sports (American and World Records). I've been a decathlete for over ten years now and I feel like I'm just not starting to understand what the sport is about and yet every meet I go into I feel like I'm learning even more than I am mastering.

For now I'm just keeping busy in as diverse ways as possible. I'm keeping in shape with everything from rock climbing, to golf, to yoga, mountain biking, lifting, basketball, and this weekend I within 14 hours of one another I tried to learn how to surf and competed in my first 4 mile road race (a friend's charity race).

Hope you're all enjoying a great summer.

Day 1

Day 1 was a tough day. Many in the field would say something similar (or worse), but there are a couple of guys having great meets as well.
Again for some reason my jumps were all over the place and my legs just didn't quite have much pop. We had some gusting winds that didn't help much, but overall the weather was decent at just below 70.
Hopefully my legs come back ready to roll tomorrow and i'll try to put together the day 2 i've been looking for for a while.

24 hours til Go Time

We've got a day to go until start time at 11am PST. Today's a super easy day for me on the track so got a great night's sleep last night and a nice big breakfast with the family before sitting in 2 hours worth of lines for credentialing. If anything it is kind of cool to realize that at least at some point everyone here is exactly the same. You've got arguably the world's fastest man, skinny little distance folk, and huge throwers all bored in the same line.
In talking though I realized I do love being a decathlete. I met John Smith yesterday on the track. One of the premier sprint coaches in the world with some of the most prestigious athletes in our sport under his charge, as we were parting he had to correct himself: "enjoy the meet," he started "actually, I know YOU'LL enjoy the meet. You guys [the decathletes] always have a great time and get the crowd nice and fired up." Great to hear from someone coming from the end of our sport that can at times seem so far away.
It was definitely great running into a bunch of the athletes and coaches I haven't seen since this time a year ago. Makes it finally feel like Go Time.

Here.

We made it in. The ride was decently long yesterday but felt real easy. It's been a while since I've taken a long car trip, but I'm glad we did it this way. Thanks in part to the many stops we took every couple of hours to shake out, the ride felt a lot better than a plane ride would have. Last night we checked into our hotel across from the track and have gotten a couple walks and shake-outs in since. The place doesn't have quite the same pomp as last year's Olympic Trials, but it's still a great facility that I'm sure they'll pack in without much trouble here in "Track Town USA." As one of the directors was quoted in the local paper today in comparison to the Trials: "I liken it to more of a backyard bbq."

However, whereas Eugene maybe a notch down, we've stepped it up at Team Chisam Headquarters. Head over to mchisam.com for your official Team Chisam US Championships 2009 fan kit. There're links to DecathlonUSA's Media Guide and even a score sheet complete with my PRs so you can keep up with the meet to see how I'm doing event to event. Thanks to the Team Chisam CCO (my brother) we're going to use Twitter for live updates throughout the meet. You'll be able to keep up, event-by-event, throw-by-throw, jump-by-jump. Subscribe to the TeamChisam page and you'll be sent web or sms text updates during the meet.
Also, check out the usatf.org for their Nationals Champs homepage where they'll have the entries (im coming in ranked 10th) , schedule & results (we start Thursday 11am PST), and even live streaming video during the meet (we'll see how much decathlon they show).

150 to go

We're now in Oregon and on the homestretch. We've seen our fair share of rest stops (and have been getting great looks from people on out shake out jogs) but the trip has gone great.
150 miles to Eugene.

eugene or bust

The final prep finished today with a final dad's day workout the Chisam way: me and training partner Kasey Hill in the blocks, papa Chisam with the starting gun at the local high school. I've been fortunate enough to make it home for the past few days to re-connect with my original coaches (mom and dad) and enjoy some California sunshine. Keeping with the throwback theme, tomorrow we wake up early and load the truck up for a drive to Eugene for the US Champs. When things get too complicated - go back to the basics.
The decathlon is Thursday and Friday but in the car I hope to finish the revamping of mchisam.com complete with how you can keep up with the meet and even some score cards for those of you really keeping up.

Talk to you soon,
Matt

Less is more

Its always an interesting experience explaining to someone that I am a decathlete. From my experience when asked what I do, the responses fall into one of 3 catagories:

1. Someone who actually knows the the decathlon is usually responds complementary or with a story. For instance, my downastairs neighbor the other day asured me of some knowlwdge of the event with, "wow, you've got to be really well-rounded." Ok, he's got at least a pretty good idea of the event and didn't have to ask any further questions (see below).
The "storytellers" will show you their understanding with a tale of their days high junping or running the mile in high school - often beginning with something along the lines of "I used to run track."

2. For flow of this blog I'm going to skip ahead to the other end, those with no idea what a decathlon is. Usually far from athletically inclined, I think these are the people that do whatch the Olympics here or there every four years but probably have very little understanding of track and field. Although at times frustrating, these encounters can be entertaining.
I think it's the "athlon" part of the name people do recognize which brings association with the olympics, but its about there the recognition ends and you get questions like "wow, how much do you swim?," or my personal favorite, "so that's like with the horseriding and shooting, right?" Such encounters provided for a funny story, yes, but this makes me sad more than anything. No offense to you modern pentathletes out there, but if there's a significant population in the United States that knows more about the modern pentathlon than something you devoted your young life to, well, I'm not evengoing to finish that thought. Good work on that Olympic coverage NBC. Single tear.
3. In the middle is the group that has some recognition of the event but not a great understanding. They can make the track & field association and, if they're older (as apparently I am too), they may even recognize a Dan & Dave reference. These people usual go with "wow, so how much do you run." As recreation runners, fans, or retired gym class mile run heros this is a simple and fair enough question that shows some level of understanding. In reality, however, its actually the most difficult question to answer.
I know that to most, proficiency in running is demonstrated by ability to run a lot, ability to run FAR. Coming from a professional track athlete, a "professional runner," they'd love to be awed by my 200 mile weeks or my double days of intervals and mile repeats. I'm 210 pounds dude, I don't actually like to run. Yes it feels great to run fast and I do like the feeling I get when I am DONE with a workout, and yes, I do love what I do, but I don't consider myself a professional runner. I am a decathlete, running hurts. My long runs rarely top 20 minutes (my new personal long record as of this summer is a whopping 5 miles - but I did do it 2 days in a row) and the majority of my "running" throughout the year is based around training for the 400m - and therefore sucks. On top of which, I am not fast - relatively speaking. Thus, even when I am running in competition I'm not exactly having
the time of my life, its more like hanging on. I'll never forget one of the dutch coaches in Italy: he looks across the table to Jake Arnold and I at breakfast and says, "I thought Americans were supposed to be fast."

This is actually why I enjoy this part of the year so much. It's getting towards Championship season with USAs on June 24 and thus everything is geared towards topping it all off. The bulk of the work is done, now is a lot of fine tuning. Some of my college coach, Deanne Vochatzher's favorite sayings (second only to "KNEE!!" when we're hurdling) are "the hay is in the barn," or, "the money's in the bank.". Although there's still a little more work to be done, a lot of it now is polishing.
Case and point, if you really want to know just how much I run as a "professional runner?" On Sunday I ran for roughly 69.5 seconds. That's it. If you only took that long to brush your teeth your dentist would be pissed. Even worse, the whole workout took me about 40 minutes and I ran a grand total of 600m. How's that for tough? I'm on pace for about a 90 minute mile if I keep it up and dig down for a big kick finish.
The workout was actually 4 x 150m with 10min for recovery so they're all out. The security guy gaurding the tent on the infield for graduation definitely thinks I'm crazy (it doesn't help that it was raining), but that's the great part about this time of year. Every practice you're going for it. You're hitting new bests in the weight room (I'm just trying to keep up with Ben Affleck who can be spotted in our weight room), finding yourself in new places in the jumps, and reaching new territory in the throws. Even the sucky workouts (3 x 300) make you feel good. It's actually a hell of a lot of fun and pretty damn addicting.

On the other end this time of the year is a bit of a bummer because I don't get to hang out with my Jets. I've been traveling a ton both for Harvard and for my own competitions (I've spent the last few weekends in Italy, New Jersey, Greensboro, and now Dallas) and the Jets have taken their practices outdoors and off-site so it's been impossible for me to get to them. I'm gonna try to check in with em next week, but hopefully they understand. Don't get me started on the social life. If it wasn't such a mess I'm sure my roommate would be thinking about subletting my share of our apartment.

I am excited though. In about an hour ill be back in Dallas for what I hope to be a great summer of competitions. Ill try to keep you posted on how TGA goes this weekend and for those of you in CA, I'll be coming home for a little training camp before the US Champs in a couple weeks.

-matt

TGA

Im planning on putting some time into some posts soon (re: im traveling a lot so finally have some downtime in airports and on planes), but in case I slip I wanted to give you guys a quick update. I leave tomorrow for Dallas and the Texas Greatest Athlete multi.
The plan is to use this as a tune-up for the US Champs at the end of June, but as this is the first time in as long as I can remember that i'm going into a meet without a qualifying mark hanging over my head on top of the fact that I've PR'd at this meet a couple of times before - this might turn into a bit more than a simple "tune-up." We'll see. The plan is to compete in 8 or so of the events but really we're just looking to go into it loose and use it as an opportunity to take some chances and raise the bar.

I'm actually a little (well... A LOT) anxious as this is the first time I've had to ship my poles since having them destroyed coming home from this meet last year, so bypass any good luck wishes to me and send them to my poles!! Thanks to the incredibly gracious help from many of you i'm flying a tube full of beautiful new poles so it feels a little like parents must feel the first time they let their kids go to a sleepover...

Better

No matter what the outcome, its always amazing how different I feel after my first decathlon of the year. Yes there are multis indoors, but at 7 events even those meets seem like practice. The fall and winter, now even most of spring as my schedule shifts (and I get better), feel like endless training. Just when it starts getting a little tedious and I start to wonder a bit about what I'm doing it all for, I hit that first meet and it all becomes clear. You're body remembers, "oh yeah, this is what its all about." Yes there's definitely a recovery period in which you basically feel like trash for a couple days, but recently I've been noticing a huge jump in confidence and even sense of strength coming out of these opening competitions. Even outcomes under expectations, as this past meet, finally knowing what pieces are there and what others need more work gives a huge boost to my
training both physically and mentally.
I tested my legs out with what was suppposed to be some easy 200s last week but after the first I was able to put together one of my best workouts of the year. In Friday's long jump session I finished an hour of jumping with a jump 40cm (and 100pts) longer than anything I jumped in Italy - off an approach 4 strides shorter than my full approach! The day before I took some of the best feeling high jump training jumps I've had all year.
I still have a lot of work to do before USA's at the end of June, which is coming fast, but it feels good to know I'm still on track.

This actually leads me to a pretty good point. Obviously in Italy I did not handle all the travel well. Despite feeling fine on thursday and friday leading into saturday's competition, my jumps showed that I must have left my legs somewhere in the states. I think for one thing I need to manage my sleep around my flights better as well as do much more moving around in flight to prevent the blood pooling in my legs (I had legitimate "cankles" post-flight), but would anyone like to share any advice for handling extensive travel for competitions?

Thanks all for your support,
Matt

live + learn

It seems that just when I start feeling older (wiser?), it seems I am always quickly shown that I still have a lot to learn.
Although there were some good things to take away, Multistars turned into an ugly meet for me thanks to ridiculously poor jumps. Maybe it was jetlag and lack of sleep - Jake and I were both wide awake staring at the walls at about 3:45 the morning before the meet, maybe it was just one of those meets, but it's interesting how things turned out. It was actually the jumps I was most eageer to get to coming into this meet. I finally felt like I was grasping the long jump, my high jump has been getting more consitantly decent, and my vault had been going really well. My sprints were untested, my throws felt ok but still also felt untested, and I was actually really nervous to see what my 1500m fitness was like.
Although not amazing, all of my runs were real solid, my shot was good, my disc ok, my jav a work in progress, but I have no explaination for those jumps. It was real interesting dealing with the time change (6 hours ahead from the east coast) and travel (one 7 hours flight, one 5 hour layover, another 1.5 hour flight, one 2 hour car ride), but I actually felt pretty decent during my pre-meet shake outs on thursday and friday.
Thanks however to both Jake (Arnold), his brother Tom, and our new friend Joel Tull (decathlon massage master) I did learn a ton about competing internationally as well as had a great time. I'm still in Italy on my hotel's slow internet service thus I will save pictures and video for later, but I return tomorrow so I'll get some of the good stuff up asap. Heck, even Jake scored 7500 points here last year before coming back this year to score near 8000 for the win. Much like the contrast between my two times at the NCAA championships I guess I just need to chalk this first one up to experience, learn from it, and move on.

I did make a trip all the way up to Austria today which was pretty cool. I know some of you guys love the adventures of traveling with vault poles, so you'll like this one. Jake is competing in the Gotzis decathlon in 3 weeks and is going to stay in europe to train in Austria in the meantime. His ride up (the parents of an austrian decathlete) there kind of fell through so he was a bit stranded. He definitley couldn't bring poles on a train and we learned that despite advice from someone else, we couldn't rent a car one-way in between countries. We banded together and I volunteered to go up with them on the drive and bring the car back. Thus after a ton of running around (both literally and figuratively) we got a rental car delivered to our hotel (it's not easy finding decent sized rental cars in Europe), packed it full of 4 dudes (Jake, Tom, Joel, and I), Jake, Tom, and Joel's luggage, squeezed in Joel's massage table, strapped poles on the top and headed for the border. We got plenty of strange looks and even got pulled over by some non-english speaking cops just before the border (they don't like large objects roped to the roof of cars), but we eventually found our way to the town of Leinz where Jake is staying with a coach friend. After some Brats (which are amazing), I turned the car around and retraced the 4 hour journey back to Desenzano and got here relatively well considering I had very little idea what any of the road signs were telling me.
Now, in a couple of hours I get to see just how bad the Milano airport is going to freak out when I show up with pole on my shoulder expecting to get them on the plane...

wish me luck!

-matt

day one down, gots work to do.

Hey guys,

A quick post as I have to get to bed. Day one was a little rough. I actually "got to" compete in 6 events as the timing didnt had a malfunction in my heat of the 100 so we had to re-run it. It was actually a decent time, but when I got to the long jump my legs felt terrible. I don't know if it's some travel catching up to me, just one of those days, or the terrible time sleeping I had last night, but I had some real bad hydration problems early in the meet. I recovered well in the shot with the 4th best throw overall, but by the time I got to the high jump I felt like I had somehow gained 40 - 80 ilbs and had been skipping out on practicing the last couple of months. I struggled over a couple heights before an early exit, but again came back with a decent 400m for this early in the season.
Overall Im down a just under 200 points from PR paces so I've got some work to do tomorrow, but I'm anxious to see what I can put out there.

-matt

Ciao!

hey guys,

I made it safe and despite the travel, the legs actually feel pretty good. I think ive adapted pretty well to the time shift as well with a solid night sleep last night and not too much grogginess. We got in late weds night so just had time for a quick jog around town to shake the legs out and scope things out then get some dinner.

Yesterday we (Jake Arnold (the other american) and Susan the Canadian) made it over to the track to get some more quality work in before doing some site-seeing around the lake. Today was another shake out at the track for some pre-meet but it was a lot more crowded as the rest of the athletes started to show. Theres about 30 guys and as many girls from 29 different countries.

Ive got to make it quick because im at a cafe on the way back to the hotel, but im pyched for the start tomorrow at 10:15 our time (4:15am east coast time). We are gonna see if we can do some damage for the US. You can check meet results, pictures, startlists, and updates at multistars.org.

Ciao!

Matt

Multistars

Woo-hoo! This time tomorrow I will be over the Atlantic on my way to Desenzano, Italy for the Multistars decathlon. More to follow and I'm going to do my best to keep you guys updated on my trip and results from the meet, but until then, wish me luck!

The official meet website is Multistars.org so you can find info and hopefully results and pictures there as well.

I also have to really thank In the Arena for making this all happen - No way I would be able to put this trip together without their support.

Hopefully talk to you guys soon,
Ciao,
Matt

A Week

So, with all this whining from me about not having any time to post to this blog, I thought I'd keep a summary of my minutes for you. Below is what my week was like this week - a pretty typical week unless I had to travel with the Harvard team (then it gets messier).

-matt

Marathon Monday:
7:30 breakfast (950 cal)
9:00 office work
11:00 cheer on Amy and Erik
1-2:30 w/u + starts
2:30 -3 meeting
3-4:00 finish workout
4-5:30 Harvard Practice
5:30 - 6:30 Lift (power clean, jump squats)
6:30 - 8:00 Jets practice
8:30-9:00 Grocery Store (meat, fruits, veggies)
9:00 - 11:00 cook, eat, CSI, research Desenzano
Midnight bed

Tuesday:
8:00 breakfast
8:30 - 11:00 office work and meetings
11:30 -12:30 w/u
12:30 - 1:30 high jump
1:30 - 2:15 disc
2:30 - 4:00 office work and harvard practice (coaching)
5:00 - 7:00 Vault and Jav @ Northeastern U.

Weds:
7:30 breakfast
8:30 - 9:30 lift
9:30 - 10:30 coach
11:00 - 12:15 bike to Chiro appt
12:30 - 3:30 office work
3:30 - 5:30 Harvard practice
5:30 - 6:00 finish lift from the morning
6:00 - 7:00 client (personal coaching my little high jumper)

Thursday
7:30 wake and breakfast
8:30 office
9:45 - 11:45 w/u + High Jump
Lunch
12:15 - 2:00 hurdles + sprint work
Lunch #2 + Ice Bath
2:30 - 5:30 Harvard Practice
5:30 - 7:30 Office work
7:30 Home early!

Friday
9:00 sleep in + pancakes
10:30 - 2:30 w/u + jav workout + intervals (4 x 300m)
3:00 - 5:30 Harvard Practice
5:30 - 6:30 Lift
6:30 - 7:30 Jets Practice
9:00 - 11:00 A big ol' pizza, some ice cream, and a movie (Golden Compass)

Saturday
7:00 Breakfast @ The B Club (Basket Case + Oatmeal)
8:00am load the bus @ Harvard
10:30am - 4:00pm UMass Invite (coaching)
6:30pm arrive back in Boston

Sunday
7:00 Breakfast
8:30 drive to Rhode Island
9:30am - 3:00pm Brown Springtime Invite:
100m, Pole Vault, Discus
Drive home. Done.

We All Fall Down...

This is a broken hurdle...
Yesterday, I broke it with my face.
Completely my fault - I set the hurdles specifically close and accidentally set up the final hurdle twice as close as it was supposed to be and didn't check them before full speed hurdling through them - I actually learned and (inadvertantly) taught a couple of good lessons at the cost of this poor hurdle.

1. We All Fall Down. A number of our Harvard athletes were on the track to witness my grace (what fun is an epic fall if ther's no one there to share it with? I mean, if a hurdler trips in the woods with no one there, there's still a sound, it's just not nearly as funny to talk about later), and I think it was actually a good thing for them to see. Possibly due to the completely fabricated stories I tell them about my training or the incredibly wise and all-knowing reputation that has been built up around me as an athlete and coach (please read sarcasm here) but I'm not sure they all realize that I still make plenty of mistakes. Just about every one of my hurdlers has gone down in a workout, and although it has been a while for me and I definitely don't like it to happen often, I hope they realize that its something we all do. Its just a part if hurdling. Again, I'm not a fan of
falling, nor do I coach my athletes to the point that I think they might fall, but to be honest, if you haven't fallen, if you haven't FAILED, as far as I'm concered, you're not trying hard enough. In order to get better you must go somewhere you've never been before. Until you step to that line and dare cross it, that line becomes a wall. On my new lift card from Coach P (now at Duke - good luck to him, we miss you around here) there's a quote attributed to Anthony C. Clarke:

"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossoble."

True, its best not to use your face to seak such limits, but hey, different strokes for different folks...

2. Commit. This could have been much worse, but fortunately for me, this hurdle came of the incident much worse than I did and I attribute that to one thing: I was 100% commited to hurdling it - despite ridiculous circumstances. I use it all the time in coaching, especially the field events (ie pole vault), but its the old football rule: the moment you let off, as soon as you drop below anything but 100% commitment, that's when things go wrong, and that's when you open yourself up for injury. If you are staring down a 250 ilb linebacker running full bore for your spleen, or hauling but down a vault runway with a 16 foot long fiberglass pole in your hands the size of a telephone pole, or if say, completely hypathetically, you find yourself 3 hurdles deep and running at full speed into a 39" hurdle 3 feet closer than you expect, if you're not commited or trusting enough in your own
athletic ability to blast through and you try to bail, that's when you set yourself up to do something your body is unprepared for, when you set yourself up for disaster.
Hell, to tell you the truth, I'm damn proud of myself. I fully believe that a year or two ago, had I found myself at that speed that close to a hurdle, the "oh sh*t" mechanism would have kicked in and I would have spazzed out and done everything I could to avoid that hurdle. For the drill the hurdles were already close and thus I was already cue'ing on my quickness in between so that as I found myself impossibly close to the hurdle, surprisingly, my first reaction was simply: you're gonna have to get a lot quicker to make it over this one. I tried, I caught a spike, I tripped, I fell, but above all I did not question and just went. I commited.

Quick Video

I'm still playing with the capabilities of some of this blog's mobile access so thought I'd share a quick video from tonight's vault session. Despite my legs feeling like they're 400 ilbs a piece this morning (thanks more than likely to the new lifting card started last night), it turned into a great day. Despite how this one looks, I had a great session in the vault, a good quick jav session after, and some solid disc work earlier today. Felt real good getting back in the air after a few weeks off due to my and my coach's equally crazy March schedules. Worked well also to blow off some steam after finding out how much the IRS is taking from me this year...

Hecticly Well

Sorry guys, I owe you all as I've been doing a terrible job of keeping you guys updated. I've gotten through March and all the travels involved with a solid start to the outdoor season.
The meet at Davis wasn't anything amazing on the performance end, but above all, it was a great chance to get home around the family and friends. It's partially pretty tough going home whenever I do get the chance. My friends, my family...the sun, it's all incredibly tough to leave to come back to Boston. As much as a move from the west coast to the east coast is exactly opposite of what anyone would draw up, however at the time it was the best move for me and I've got a great situation going here. The Aggie Open was my first chance to be outside, as heavy snow this year hasn't even allowed me a single training day outdoors, so I was curious how it'd turn out. The hurdles felt incredibly long - as the first 110m run always does when compared to the indoor 60m hurdles (twice as many hurdles) - but I ran a decent opening time dispite mauling a few of the closing barriers. The vault was a very disappointing no-height as I was eager to show off some of the new poles in front my incredibly generous friends who have donated to the Pole-A-Thon (mchisam.com), but the real big event of the day was the disc. As I mentioned, I've had limited opportunities to get any disc training in this year and the day before the meet was the first time touching an actual disc since the summer, but I was able to pull off a throw just a couple feet under my lifetime best. In fact, I think most of my throws the day before in training (with my alma mater high school team) were even farther, so we shoud have some good things coming there real soon.
After returning from California I got in a couple more days in Mass. before traveling to Houston for 10 days on Spring Break with the Harvard Team. There I got in some great training in the sun and came away with a strong opening to the Long Jump in a meet at Rice University.
We returned to the cold and winds of the early outdoor New England season in April with the Penn Invite at U of Penn. There I had a bunch of coaching to do but I wanted to retry the hurdles to see where I was at and was pleasantly surprised to walk away with the win and a solid 14.78 into a legitimate 1.8 headwind. A decent time for me even on a still day this early. I think i've finally been making some breakthroughs in my hurdles so it's good to see the times matching the feelings in practice.
For now, however, this meets are going to be all I have for a while as the collegiate season really picks up. I'm not sure I'll have any chances to compete before the Italian Multistars meet in May which leaves me a bit anxious, but it gives me a great four week cycle to really put the head down for some good training. In college I would have freaked out going multiple weeks (or a single week for that matter) without a competition, but as I get older I'm really discovering how much competing actually takes out of you and how weeks without a meet provide for much more solid training. As it is I'm feeling really good about myself right now and based on the testing I did last week, the training is going really well. I blew away some of my PRs in the quad test and I'm starting to walk around a little taller. I think all althetes have some sort of cue they feel when things are going well and they're starting to feel really good. For me, when im beat up or out of shape, I feel big and heavy. I feel wide. When I feel good, I feel tall. Normally something I don't notice, but when I get on the track, or even walk into a room when training I am training hard and feeling good, I feel like im a foot taller than anyone else there. Just about every event has made some big breakthroughs in the past couple of weeks and I swear I had to duck under a doorway the other day (possible exaggeration), so Multistars, here we come.


Next Up: Multistars Decathlon, Descenzano Italy, May 9-10

travel Month (the great outdoors)

Armed with my phone for catching up on my blogging (I love this thing), my ipod music and podcasts (President's weekly address, Photography 101, Al Jazeera Listening Posts are my current favorites + I'm always a Radiohead fan on airplanes), a new book (In Pursuit of Elegance, Matthew E. May), and a backpack full of PB & J's, I am on a plane again. It took a little while to cool down after being reamed by United for my poles (see previous entry) but after writing about it and getting my mid-flight stretching session (a must) I'm settled in and ready to open up the outdoor season this weekend.
I'm fortunate enough to be able to head home to California this weekend to not only get a chance to see my friends and family but also head back to my alma mater to compete. I haven't been on the track at UCD in 2 years so I'm looking forward to seeing how far I've come.
Last weekend I ended the Indoor season on a great note with a 4th place finish at the US Combined Events Championships - my first medal in USATF National Competition. I went down to North Carolina more so to get a meet in and test where I'm at than expecting any big placing. Although nothing was huge and my strongest event, the pole vault was pretty ugly, everything else was real solid based on the time of year. I was third overall in the HJ, 2nd in the Shot, and 2nd in the Vault. I'm a little bummed when I realize that clearing a height or two more in the PV or HJ would have earned me some decent prize money, but all-in-all I'm excited to see what's coming this outdoor season.
A lot of snow in Boston has kept me indoors the entire year thus far so this weekend will be the first time I touch a full-size track (or a real discus and javelin) this year. The hurdles are going to feel a mile long and the discus awkward, but I'm psyched. No matter what happens it'll be good to be competing amongst friends I haven't seen in too long.


Upcoming:
March 14 - Aggie Open, Davis CA
March 28 - Bayou Classic, Houston TX
April 24 - Drake Relays, Des Moines IA
May 9,10 - Multistars Decathlon, Descenzano Italy

Dear United

Dear United Airlines,

I will never fly your airline again.
It is true I have spent many free flight hours apon your wings in the past two years thanks to the numerous travel vouchers earned for your disability to stay on schedule (and my ability to not need a specific flight schedule) and writing this just minutes from take-off on one of your cross-country flights may not be the most appropriate of moves, kharmically speaking, but seriously, $175 to check pole vault poles?! I remember in 6th grade when that kid socked me in the face after thinking I snitched on him. Walking away from your counter I feel just as assaulted.
Yes, I understand the times are tough and the nickel and diming has become as natural to flying as stripping down at security. Hell, $15 for luggage, $9 for a soggy sandwich - excuse me: soggy "wrap" - is even somewhat understandable. A year or two ago you charged $80 for my poles - a standard fee not too difficult to choke down as it would only be slightly more expensive to ship them. Awkward at 17 feet long, I know the pole tube can be difficult to negotiate through the winds and twists of the checked baggage super-highway (try the check-in lines with that tube on your shoulder), but right now I'm sitting in 1 of 6 seats in the 28th of the 34 rows of this airplane, once slid into the bay, at 30 or so pounds, there is no possible way my pole tube is worth $175 of hassle - well over twice as much hassle as a year or two ago. Before this trip I was debating whether or not I could afford a new laptop. Now I know I could have - but no longer can.
Last week I flew to North Carolina for the Indoor US Combined Events Championships. After a host of phone calls and queries before the trip, I was stoked to find out that previously unknown to me, on top of a ridiculously good airfare, plenty of leg room, and comfy seats for my sore (and lanky) apendages, Jetblue was able to check pole vault poles. The $75 was an expected and competitive charge not too far off of what I might have ended up spending at a bar watching the same college basketball games I enjoyed during the flight complements of the headrest satellite TVs. Unfortunately, Jetblue's scheduling didn't work out for me to fly to California this weekend and the other airlines that are actually enjoyable to fly either don't fly out of Boston (Southwest) or can't take poles (Virgin America) so I was forced to take United - the airline I used to consider "the one of the old airlines that isn't too bad." Then you charged me nearly the same price for my poles to fly under your plane as you did for me to sit in your cramped cardboard isle seat.
I should have left the poles and bought the laptop...Virgin has inflight Wi-Fi.


Good luck in the future,
Matt Chisam

Combined Events Champs, Day 1

Good day today.
We're at a great facility and we've got a great group of guys. After a couple of scratches we're down to only a field of 8 people so it's a good number without being too big.
The meet started well with a PR in the 60m and a solid Long Jump. I was in 8th after 2 events but it was close. I opened the shot with a real solid 14.33m throw (47 ft) which led the competition by quite a bit until Jake Arnold stepped up with a big 14.98m throw. I wasn't able to answer but was still able to hop up one spot to 7th place.
In the high jump I continued the charge. Feeling great after warm-ups I opened with big clearances at 6-2 and 6-4.5. I was battling some inconsistencies in my approach (the story of my HJ this year) so despite big height over the bar I was only able to clear 1.97m cleanly (6-5ish) but still a solid showing and was in fact enough to jump me up to 5th place over all.
At the end of the first day I'm sitting on a first day PR of 3001 pts. It'll be a battle day 2 as there is less than 150 pts seperating places 2nd - 8th.

En Route

I'm currently waiting to board my plane at Boston's Logan airport, so this will be my first mobile post. I'm headed to the University of North Carolina for my first Indoor Combined Events Championships with the Heptathlon being Sat + Sunday.
I continue my refusal to do things the easy way as I found out in the terminal that I accidentally booked my flight for next week rather than this morning. On top of which, homeland security tried to take confiscate my pole bag while I was in line. "That's real bad," the guy said, "do you know why the dog is here? I just called in to have these picked up as an 'unattended rug.'" My poles have been mistaken for many things (oars, winsurfing sails, etc) but never a rug.
Anyways, planes here, I'm om board (hopefully so are my poles), UNC here I come.

How to Win? Don't Screw It Up.

Every once in a while, Amory (In The Arena founder) poses a prompt for our consideration when posting.  For this week:

Your challenge - should you choose to accept it - is to blog about your own advice for "record-breaking" in whatever capacity that phrase is relevant to your athletic pursuits.  Each one of you [of the In The Arena roster] is involved in pushing the boundaries of our physical and psychological limits, talents, and expertise.  In essence, you're chasing records everyday...

As an athlete it is your job every single day to get better.  You wake every single morning (and go to bed every single night) with the sole intent of improving yourself in some facet.  Will you get stronger, will you get faster, will you get wiser?

Taking the job as a coach at Harvard, i'll be the first to admit a total lack in confidence in my ability to "coach" college athletes.  I had so much to learn as an athlete and was myself only 1 full year out of college - how was I anywhere near qualified for such a job?  Alas, I was somewhat bullied into the job (thanks PT (RIP)), but I have not regretted the decision since.  Where am I going with this, you ask? I didn't think I was ready to coach because I felt that I lacked the technical knowledge to coach.  Because I was far from a perfect hurdler, I didn't feel that I could teach a kid to become a perfect hurdler - then I quickly learned that the technical side is only one small part of coaching.  The biggest part is my answer to Amory's prompt.

How do you get better everyday, how do you win, how do you break records? Yes you have to work everyday, you have to show up to the track (the gym, the field, etc) everyday and improve in some facet to slow build upon your ability, but come game day, come meet day or the time to perform you have to do what is many times the absolute most difficult and unnatural feeling thing to do: Let It Happen.

True, in order to PR (personal record), or do better than you've ever done before, you do have to do something you've never done before, you have to be at least slightly better then you've ever been before, but what is so difficult to grasp for most athletes is that if you only need to let happen what's never happened before.  Overanalyzing, over-stressing, over-thinking, it's so often the case that the biggest obstacle to you doing better than you've ever done before is yourself.  If my college coaches are reading this they're laughing their butts off right now because this is exactly what stood in my way for so long.  If you step into a hurdle race thinking: 

okay, stay loose and make sure you get good pressure on the blocks.  When the gun goes off, drive the arms, but stay low, don't pop your head up. BANG! keep my heels low, push hard, keep driving the arms, be patient with my acceleration (did they get a better start than me), here comes the first hurdle, stay fast, drive the knee, keep the arms moving, stay forward, sprint through the first hurdle (are they ahead of me?), quick arms, but don't let them get too big...

Not only are you definitely not going to stay loose, but you're almost certainly not going to break any records.  Practice is the time for learning, for thinking, competition is the time for performing, for letting all that you've built come out.  As I type, Sportscenter is on and in just the last 10 minutes of reporting the show is rife with this theme. Kyle Busch just won a NASCAR race in Vegas thereby setting numerous records for early season driving performance.  In his words: 

"It was a methodical day....the car was there in the beginning, we just had to ride and get what it would give us"

Simple words but so important - and surprising difficult to follow: drive the car you came in.  The Detroit Pistons just knocked off the Celtics in Boston.  Having recently traded for superstar Allen Iverson, the Pistons have been sputtering despite a very strong team.  Today they knock off the Celts with Rip Hamilton starting in place of injured superstar Allen Iverson, why? They know Rip.  With him they are able to "just do what they do."  With AI they're just pieces "trying to figure out how to fit."  With Rip, a player they've all been playing with (and winning with) for years they can simply relax and play basketball, play their game without much thought.  It's all reaction and performance.  Will they eventually be a stronger team with Iverson at the helm, maybe once they figure it all out, but for now, they're trying to do to much.  You can't learn how to be a team and win.  

I feel i'm digressing here a bit, so to bring it back I have to brag a little big.  I coached my first conference champion in the hurdles today*.  Over the past 2 days we've hosted the Ivy League Championships at Harvard (The Crimson recap video here) and one of my hurdlers, Dara Wilson, won the 60m Hurdles.

 I'm super proud of her winning her first conference title, but above all it was the circumstances in which she did it that makes me most proud.  Coming in as one of the top couple seeds, she had a rough run in the semi-finals thanks to nearly false-starting, but kept her cool and qualified for the finals.  The less than stellar qualifying heat left her in lane 8 and despite huge commotion over girls hitting hurdles and almost going down around her on top of a slow start, Dara kept her cool, kept her confidence and battled back to take her title.  A title deserved through hard work day in and day out at practice, but a title earned through performing when it counted.  It was far from a perfect race technically but once you get to meet day it matters not how you get there as long as you get there before everyone else.  

Afterwards, Dara gives a great interview talking about her transition from the qualifying race to the finals:

She didn't freak out and try to figure out "how to fix" everything, she knew that all she had to do was drive the car she came in.

It's late, it's been a long weekend, and I have to get to bed (5 days to go under USATF Combined Event Champs) so I think i'm dragging a bit so i'll wrap it up.  Paul Turner (RIP), as I mentioned above, one of the primary reasons I am coaching at Harvard, passed along his simple key to coaching success:

Get good athletes, don't screw em up.

Whether coaching, whether competing, my advice for breaking records and winning: Make it happen during the week, but when it comes time to perform, Let It Happen.

*Shannon Flahive, another our athletes I help coach at Harvard won the pentathlon on Saturday night as well.  Her hurdle time combined with Dara's actually makes it wins for Harvard Hurdlers in both hurdle events of the meet - the open and the pentathlon 60m Hurdles (while we're on the subject of bragging...).  Congrats ladies.

addiction

If you're doing things right, there seems to come a time every year in which you absolutely love training. I will be the first to admit: it is a sickness, it is not normal, it may not even be right...but it its great. I am there now.
This past week I was fortunate to have coach John Powell (who runs the Trackspeed-1 club out of London) in town. I've started training with a couple of guys following his workouts halfway through last year. This year is my first year working with his stuff from the start and my track strength feels great. He brought out a couple Brits as well so our small training group grew and we got some great work in. Unfortunately all the tough work put a damper on the meet today at Harvard (my legs pretty much felt like mud), but I know in the long run we made a big deposite into the bank this week. Hopefully come a couple of weeks from now we can see some dividends come the US Combined Events Championships in Chapel Hill, March 7-8th.

With outdoor quickly approaching I've finally got some resemblence of a schedule:

March 7-8: USATF Combined Events Championships, Indoor Heptathlon (Chapel Hill, NC)
March 14: Aggie Open, Pole Vault, Hurdles, Discus (UC Davis, CA!!!)
March 21: TSU Relays (Houston, TX)
March 28: Bayou Classic (Houston, TX @ Rice University)
April 22: Drake Relays, Select Decathlon Events (Des Moine, Iowa)
May 7: Multistars Decathlon (Descenzano, Italy...hopefully!)
June 6-7: Texas Greatest Athlete, Select Decathlon Events (Dallas, TX)
June 25-28: USATF National Championships, Decathlon (Eugene, OR)

Nature v. Nurture - compilation

From my little social survey I may not have taken any strides forward in the eternal battle of Nature versus Nurture, but if there are any conclusions that I can draw, it's that a very quick way to get an athlete talking is to ask him/her about their childhood in sports. The feedback I received from everyone was amazingly quick and insightful and proved fodder for an great discussion in the class.
As a recap, I was asked to guest speak in a Boston College Business School class on on Competition with the specific topic of my experiences with Nature versus Nurture and how people become experts. Although not nearly as nervous as I would have been a couple of years ago (thank you coaching and teaching), I wasn't all that sure where to begin so I reached out to all the athletes I knew who could be considered "experts" (pro or high-level collegiate) in what they did (thus if I had nothing original to talk about, I could at least regurgitate everyone else's ideas). The responses made inbox checking for that week particularly interesting and as per request, and simply because it's interesting, this is what I got out of it all:

I received email responses from 18 people and spoke in person to 1 (she's got a gold medal and multiple World Championships so she gets special treatment).
12 of these were Track in Field (mostly multi-eventers, the others field eventers)
2 Endurance Athletes (triathlon and marathon)
4 Nordic Skiiers
1 Soccer Player.

Weighing Nature v Nurture
Of these 19 people - actually, I'll include myself in order to pad my own stats - of these 20 people, only 3.5 of these people specifically put the nature versus nurture balance at a higher ratio than 50/50. 1 person (unless i'm using them for a laugh, i'll keep most names out of the discussion), one of the endurance athletes, tipped the scales towards nurture, with 2.5 believing nature to be of stronger influence. 0.5 a person? I guess I should explain. Jason Hinkin, a buddy of mine and someone to helped intoduce me to the pole vault (among other things I can't mention here) comes from parents of zero athletic background and yet of his siblings, Jason has one brother international rugby star, one brother that just missed the US National Rugby Team, a sister that competes in Dressage (horse riding stuff that I tried to understand watching the Olympics...), and another sister that won an NCAA Soccer Championship at North Carolina. As Jason put it: "I think Mark Spitz was our mailman, it's the only way to explain it." Jason believes this is proof of some sort of strong nature...but could it also be proof of just incredible nurture? Thus, he only counts as half - plus he also mentioned seeing the nurture side be as evident as the nature in so many others. The most intriguing factor among these 3 is that these were the only 3 amongst the 20 that didn't write glowing happy accounts of their youth in sports. Jason was a soccer player growing up but just kind of did it to have something to do and he only picked up pole vault in high school because he heard it was a good way to meet chicks. Of the other 2 "nature-leaners," neither remembered being at all encouraged toward sport and neither really enjoyed sport all that much growing up. It took until much later in life to really find a passion for competition (both are now professional Heptathletes).

The Early Years
On the contrary - and this is my favorite part - every single one of the others surveryed used some sort of positive exclaimation (either with punctuation or rhetoric) to explain their early stages of exposure in sport. There were no pushy dad or crazy soccer moms of mention, and in fact only one athlete, the soccer player (not shockingly), mentioned the competitive side of their sport early on. In fact, some learned their sports early - like the skiiers who learned to ski about the same time they learned to walk, some learned their sports late - like the triathlete who didn't pick it up until college, but absolutely every single one of the 20 participated in sports other than the one they are now professional in.
Personally, I think the over-specializating, hyper-competitive mentality so many young parents have now is an absolutely terrible trend. Everyone is trying to create the next Tiger Woods by making their kid play golf at 4 years old or enrolling their kids in tennis academys instead of grade school. There were 3 girls I talked to that participated in heavy gymnastics early on, you know, the 4 - 6 hours a day from the time you're 3 type stuff. Did you notice my list of sports in the introduction? Not one of these is still involved in gymnastics. All 3 of them are now heptathletes (one of them an olympian) because they got so burned out of gymnastics that around high school they got out of the gym and picked up any and all other sports they could get their hands on. One of them was 5' - 4" when she left gymnastics in high school. She's now 5' - 11".
Specifically, half of the surveyed used the words "fun" or "enjoyed" when speaking about early sports. Many did use the word competitive, but it was always the enjoyement that was emphasized. Trey Hardee, olympic decathlete and NCAA record holder, specifically mentioned how non-competitive his youth leagues were. Zoila Gomez, alternate for Olympic Marathon, who comes up to about my waist in height, remembers her absolute love for basketball growing up. In fact, other than the skiiers and the soccer player, most didn't even start competing in their sport until 8th grade or later - something I think to be very refreshing. Hell, Mike Hazle, Olympic Javelin thrower, didn't pick up his first jav until college - where he was on a football and baseball scholarship. Zoila, 11-time Div. II All-American and 6-time NCAA Champion didn't start running until she was 17. The academic literature loves to talk the thousands of hours of "deliberate practice" it takes to become an expert at something. Yes it takes time, it takes practice, but pushing a kid into a sport at 4 years old produces nothing without true enjoyment - just ask those gymnasts. This actually brings me to the next thing I noticed:

The Role of Parents and Coaches
For the class I was asked to speak in front of, an article was assigned* which outlined Benjamin Bloom's stages of talent development and the roles of teachers and parents in these stages. In the early years a child is introduced to a field; the parents are usually responsible for introducing this field due to their own involvement or excitement (ie, whether dad played baseball or watches it nightly, the ol' game of catch eventually comes out). Early it's the role of the teachers/coaches to emphasize the process of learning. Later in the middle years, the kid gets hooked. Here, the teachers/coaches move on to teach actual skills and technic while emphasizing discipline and work ethic. The role of the parents is of support (often emotionally and/or financially). The final stage is that of perfection in which the athlete/musician/scientist becomes devoted to their field and can eventually become an expert. It is only those that have reached this third stage that I sought out for my survey and in their responses I found Bloom to be spot on. As I mentioned before, 2 of the total didn't feel that they were particularly encouraged early on by their parents or otherwise, but absolutely everyone else made it a significant point to talk about their support system growing it. Whether or not their parents college basketball players, street racers, band members, or completely non-athletic, everyone had either parents, coaches, or both that were instrumental in their lives early on. Katie Whitcomb, 2010 Olympic Noridic Skiing hopeful, who "started skiing as soon as I was too heavy for my parents' backpack" said it was "super important" to note that it was her folks that made it all possible. Chris Helwick, decathlete, said his parents were the support and encouragement but his early coaches introduced him to his sport and put in huge time to help teach him it. In fact, almost half the athletes specifically used the words "support" when speaking of their parents, or as Julie Picker, heptathlete, expanded by saying her parents were "extremely supportive" and were responsible for introducing her to many great sports. It was then the coaches that taught her the sports themselves. Mike Hazle were "extremely instrumental" in his early success because they provided the means for excelence but were never pushy whereas his coaches taught the work ethic and character. Sarah Groff, triathlete, reflected many in that her parents were super no-pressure and that it was her enjoyment over her victories they stressed. Her parents were her emotional support as well as her taxi drivers. Those few that didn't have particularly active parents found some coach along the way to step in. My mom, discus, javelin, hurdler at ucla grew up in a time when women were far from encouraged to become athletes but it was the huge heart, knowledge, and time commitment of her high school coach and lifetime mentor that was her support system. For Zoila it was a PE teacher that discovered and encouraged her running ability, and for Stacy Dragila, many time world champion pole vaulter, it's still her dad to this day that is her emotional support after each meet. To tell you the truth, deep down I always wondered if I was the only one who had amazing parents and coaches growing up. In reading these responses I am of course psyched to see how many others shared experiences like mine developing in sport, but part of me also wonders, with the decline of two parent families (many spoke of one parent being the introducing of the sport, the other the taxi driver, etc), with the striping of physical education departments and after-school sports, what is going to happen to those that will never see the support systems we were blessed with?

Genetics (Nature)
It was interesting to see how few people actually talked about their gentic gifts. Many did have athlete parents, but also, many did not. Trey Hardee, at 6'-4" is the tallest in his family by about 5 inches, and Brian Gregg, skiier, talked about being naturally talented in just about everything he tried, but that was about all I really heard. Everybody was so excited to talk about their parents and coaches. Yes, Trey is tall, but you can't long jump 25 feet off of height alone (kid's got speed for days), and if you've seen Mike Hazle on youTube or the new [Impact!] video, you can see that Mike's got a cannon for an arm and some incredible strength. These guys actually summed it up pretty well themselves: According to Trey, the nature determines your potential, the cap on how good you can possibly be, but it's the nurture that determines how close that you become, whereas Mike related it to hardware and software. Nature deals you the hardware, but without the software, the nurture, the hardware will get you nowhere.
We opened the class at BC with a discussion one of the students brought up. She had heard that they are starting to be able to read your genetic code with the ability to tell you what you will be good at and she wanted to know what I thought about this. To me I'm curious as to how they think they can determine what makes you good at something as yes, becoming an expert may take "10,000 hours" of deliberate practice, but who determines what tools you use to get there? What if you told Bryan Clay, world's greatest athlete via his decathlon gold medal, that he was too short to be a decathlete (he's 5'-10" in a sport dominated by 6'4" monsters)? What if Labron James was given a discus rather than a basketball when growing up? Some elite athletes are freakishly fast, some freakishly large, some strong, most are their own special brew of each of these. It's terrible enough that so many parents are trying to force their kids into one sport or another in hope of Venus and Sarena Williams 2.0, I can't imagine how many more childhoods would be crushed by docters trying to impose stricker restrictions to a child's hope. If anything I took from this little experiment it is this: obviously nature has much say in where you may end up, but its really the software, the nurture that creates an expert, an elite, and it's only on their own terms, through enjoyment and support that one will find his way to the top of the mountain.


Thanks to all those that helped and to Cathy Utzschneider for the opportunity to speak with her class.

-matt

*Nurture over Nature: A New Twist to the Developement of Expertise, Bush & Salmela (it's actually very interesting if you want to look it up)

Nature or Nurture...

One of my personal training clients (supporting a decathlon habit isn't cheap) teaches at the Boston University business school and has asked me this week to come in and talk to her class. Specifically they are studying the roles of Nature versus Nurture in producing experts of a field (sports, music, science, etc). If you've been around the blogs of my fellow ITA athletes you'll notice that I've reached out to them (as well as many of my other athlete friends in various sports) for their thoughts on the subject with a series of questions. It has been incredibly interesting being able to read everyones responses but in turn, I guess I should turn the questions on myself as well.

1. (Nature) What is the athletic background of your parents and family?
My parents were both athletic, and good at what they did. My dad grew up with baseball and tried to play football in high school (but loves to tell the story of his first season ending on the opening kickoff of his first game when he broke a toe). At something like 140 ilbs (I think I weight that much when I was 6), the baseball/football route wasn't exactly in the cards. He was much better suited for cross country and middle distance running on the track. A very good 800m/mile runner he excelled at Pasadena City College before moving on to run at UCLA. To put a date on it, he raced Prefontaine and has stories about running cross country courses barefoot. After graduating he went on to coach at the high school level (Arcadia High School where he helped found the Arcadia Invitational) eventually moving up to the collegiate ranks as the head coach at UCLA (winning 2 national championships) and ending up at Stanford. He now teaches middle school physical education and coaches high school track at Del Mar High School in San Jose. My mom was on the opposite side: being her current height of 5-10 since the 6th grade, she was an obvious basketball and volleyball player, but excelled at track (despite VERY limited opportunities for girls to compete in the sport). She eventually earned her way on to the team at UCLA in one of the first years they fielded a women's program where she hurdled as well as through discus and javelin. A few years later she took a coaching position at UCLA where she met my dad (her labor with me began at practice on the track at UCLA). When we moved to northern California to follow my dad at Stanford, she bowed out of collegiate coaching to teach and coach high school track and cross country at Saint Francis High School in Mt. View where she remains today. Needless to say, theres a little bit of Nature there.

2. When did you begin participating in your sport?
I began running track in middle school, I think 6th grade. There I picked up the hurdles and the high jump. I did my first decathlon after my junior year of high school.

3. What was your early experience like with sports?
I can't remember a time when I wasn't playing something. I grew up with a pool in my backyard (don't ask how dad taught me to swim) and I began soccer after I was 7 or so (which was my first love) and then played little league. At recess I was one of those kids always moving. From flat out races (despite what Josh Kruzer says, I was the fastest kid at Castlemont Elementary School) to four-square, to butts-up, to good ol' run away from the girls, to tetherball, I always had to be doing something. Once I hit middle school I participated in every sport the school offered (expect cross country - which isn't really a sport, so that doesn't count...): basketball (except for the first year when I got cut (maybe still bitter about that), wrestling, soccer, track, and even volleyball for 2 weeks (we needed 6 for a team but could only round up 5). On top of which I was heavily active in select soccer and little league. Before school we played basketball, lunch was soccer or basketball, PE was in between, after school I went from school practice for the sport of the season directly to either soccer or baseball. Whenever I had free time we played roller hockey or my brother and I made something up in the yard (or pool).

4. How instrumental were parents and coaches in the early part of your development as an athlete?
My parents were amazingly through this. Always super encouraging and supportive. They found a way to pay for the "Select" soccer team (and all its travel) that I had to be on and were my personal taxi drivers from practice to practice (sometimes 3 sports at once). Never pushy, they were the first onces to hold me out of a practice or game if my homework wasn't getting done (I hated this). In between they were our constant playmates between bike riding, basketball, home-run derby with mom or "burn-out" catch with dad. When we didn't have school we'd go to work with dad and play around the Stanford stadiums and locker rooms all day. Sports were kind of what we did.
The thing I lvoe is that our parents never pushed us into track. They wanted us to be happy any way we wanted to be happy. My parents loved track and passed on that enthusiasm (the Olympics were always big times at our house) so my brother and I eventually found our way to track but it was all completely on our own terms. Hell, it used to frustrate me to no end in college when my mom would try to suggest that I take some time off of track when my studies got hectic. They were, however, always there for us however we needed it. Pitching to us in the driveway, mom teaching us javelin at the park or taking us to school to learn how to lift properly, dad helping us build our quarter-pipe in the front yard or teaching me high jump fundamentals. Our best coaches, fans, shuttle drivers were there every night at the dinner table.
On top of which, and i've mentioned this before, I was incredibly blessed with phenomenal coaching early on. From Tommy Anderson my soccer coach for many years to a host of Little League coaches, to amazing fottball, basketball, and track coaches in high school. The level of quality and enthusiasm was awesome.

5. How were you introduced to your sport and how many other sports did you seriously participate in?
I've mentioned a bit all the sports I played above. Soccer and baseball were the big ones early. Track and Football were my focuses in high school. I debated played college football but believe it or not I was a lineman and didn't see myself having any ability to put on the weight I would need to have been real good (you could see my ribs poking out of my skinny chest until my junior year of high school).
In track I was a decent hurdler and high jumper (14.80 hurdles, 6-4 high jump) who played around with other events (shot and discus) and eventually learned to pole vault at the end of my junior year (thanks to awesome coaches - see last blog post). As I often put it, I was exceptionally good at getting 2nd place. One sectional championships meet I got second in the hurdles (with the same time as the winner chosen by photo finish) and second in the pole vault (jumping the same height as the champion but losing based off of missed attempts) within 10 minutes of each other. I figured that I wasn't fast enough to become a great hurdler nor springy enough to specialize in a jump, but a lot of 2nd places added up makes a pretty good decathlon score and thus began my decathlon odyssey. Mom taught me to lift and throw, dad taught me to run and jump.
I guess I should mention that I saw Jackie Joyner-Kersee compete in a heptathlon for the first time when I was 2 days old. My mom was coaching her at the time and broke me out of the hospital to get to the meet. How's that for early introducing to the sport?

6. Is your success a product of Nature or Nurture?
Its both, but more significantly it was nurture. My dad is 6 foot tall and my mom's about an inch shorter, thus, I am tall. My dad gave me a bit of endurance, my mom gave me huge shoulders. My dad also had a perfect math SAT, my mom's entire side of the family has chicken legs, and both sides of my family have histories of drinking issues. This could add up to anything or nothing. Growing up I was super shy kid whose parents taught at his school, couldn't stay out late on school nights and always got As (yeah, I was that kid). How does this make a decathlete? More than shoulders or skinny legs, my mom taught me how to work my butt off. How to do things properly and a passion for learning. My dad gave me the fire to compete and the determination to get things done. Together they put no limit on my exposure and answered all my curiosities. I am not a decathlete because rather than a Nintendo my parents gave me a rope swing. I am a decathlete because my parents used to help each other break down film at the dinner table, because I grew up listening to my dad's recruiting calls while I was doing my homework. I am a decathlete because my coaches were great people I never wanted to let down who gave me every tool I asked for. I turned down much better scholarship offers to go to a division II college that had the decathlon program I was looking for. I have a degree in engineering and yet at 26 years old, because they refuse to let me give up on what I love, my parents are still paying my school bills and car payments. Relatively to my peers, I am not fast, I am not strong. Nature gave me a large frame and a very stubborn will, but it was nurture that allowed me to fill it all in.

7. Are you an expert in your field? (by your own definition)
They say it takes 10,000 hours to truly become and expert (around 2 hrs/day for ten years). I am just past the ten year mark and although I am very much closer than I was just couple of years ago, I now very much understand why a decathlete takes so long to mature in the event. There's a lot of ground to cover and it seems like the more I learn, the more I understand, the more I realize how much I don't actually know. By my own definition I've got a ways to go before becoming an expert in the decathlon.