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.