Heather and Jason: The Road to 2012

Mexico bound!

2011-10-20T22:38:00.006-04:00

In a little over 2 days I will be on my way to Guadalajara Mexico for the Pan Am Games. I am flying a few days later than most of the track team as they left yesterday. The reason for this was so I could get in a few more practices with my coach before going, as well, I compete on the last day (28th).

I am really looking forward to the experience, although as I usually tell people. I never get excited until I am there...with my poles! As you can imagine, traveling with poles is a huge pain in the butt, and often it brings about many complications. To Mexico I am taking a different flight than the rest of the team would so my poles are able to go with me as checked baggage. As well, I am flying out of Buffalo. This is because in Toronto, there aren't pole vaulters flying often enough for people to be used to seeing a 17' (5.18m) bag. So most of the airline staff that see me with poles automatically assume that they will not fit on the plane and give me a hard time. In Buffalo, it is a much smaller (more efficient) airport and the staff are more used to seeing poles, so I am less likely to run into added stress...but I'm always prepared for it, well, as prepared as I can be.

Last week was a very hard week of training. Lots of running, vaulting, and gymnastics. By the end of the week I was feeling pretty dead, so I took Saturday and Sunday off. This week has been more of a rest week to let all of the hard work I've been doing for the past month come to fruition. Monday, I started off with some short sprints to wake my legs up for Tuesdays vault practice. Tuesday I jumped from 10 and 14 steps. I took a lot of jumps, much more than I expected, but the first half of my jumps from 14 steps I was trying to jump on a stiffer pole than I could manage, so they were not as good as they could have been. The second half of my jumps from 14 steps were technically much better. Yesterday practice consisted of some long jump takeoffs, tempo 60m walk backs, and hurdle walks for hip mobility and strength. Today we had a 1.5 hour gymnastics practice with our gym coach Alex Bard http://www.mississauga.com/mississauga/article/603555. Alex is an awesome gymnastics coach and motivator, and he kicks our butt every time we do a workout with him, today was no exception. Tomorrow I will vault and lift for the last time before leaving and then I should be all set.

Other exciting news is I recently joined Rivalus as an brand ambassador, so I am super pumped about that. If you haven't checked them out Rivalus http://www.rivalus.net/ is a Canadian supplement manufacturer who makes a bunch of really amazing products. Our old roommate Massimo was sponsored by them so we have had the chance to try out many of their products. So if you're looking for great clinically tested products I recommend you check them out.

Anyways, time to pack! Thanks for reading.

Jason

Happy Thanks Giving!

2011-10-09T16:11:00.000-04:00

Well, another hard week of training has come to an end. So today I golfed 18 holes with my parents. It's funny, the more I've golfed this summer the worse I've gotten. The only part of my game today that was better was my putting, which has struggled each time out. So I was happy about that.

As for the training. This week was pretty positive. Monday and Wednesday were heavy running practices with the sprint group. Tuesday I did some pole drills and some long jumps from 6 steps. The long jump showed where my legs were at right now. I was able to jump 5.51m where my best ever is 5.90m. Thursday Heather and I did gymnastics, and then Friday I pole vaulted. The vault practice was pretty good, surprisingly I didn't even need a run through. I just put my mark down on the runway, ran down and planted the pole. Normally after not vaulting for a while I would be jumping on 4 or 6 steps, and I would always need to do a run through to check where my step was, but Friday I put my mark down for 6 steps, ran down and planted the pole. After doing 4 or 5 plants I made 5 jumps over a bungee. Following my jumps from 6 steps I got my softest 10 step pole out and ran down and planted that one. Then after doing 4 plants I made 8 jumps over a bungee. I easily cleared 4.90, but I was unable to get over 5m without touching it. My best is 5.20m from before I left for China in August. However, my legs are so loaded up right now, so I am not looking for personal bests in training right now.

Saturday morning I did some shorter sprints to work on my speed. I did 2 10m's, 2 20m's, and 2 30m's. Following that I sprinted 4 x 90m at about 90% with 6 minutes rest in between. Following the running I lifted using a tendo device to measure how fast I was moving the bar doing cleans and then squats. I was using a relatively light weight for cleans, just lifting from a box and trying to keep the velocity around 2mps. For squats I was using 100kg and moving it at around 1.5mps. In between I was doing explosive jumps without weight.

So that was this past weeks training. Thanks for reading!

Jason

Back to Blogging. Next stop. Mexico

2011-10-03T01:03:00.004-04:00

Sorry for the huge gap since the last post. I will give a quick recap on the season.

This is Jason writing. I started off the season in Brazil where I competed in Belem and then Sao Paulo. Belem was a rough start, I missed my opening height 3 times. In Sao Paulo I figured some things out and jumped 5.25m so it was much more positive than Belem.

Following Belem I made a few competitions in Ontario where I jumped 5.41m in a twilight meet at York.

Following this I traveled out to Calgary Alberta for the national championships. The weather happened to be quite bizarre for our final. In the warm ups we were all freezing and it was super windy and looking like we were going to have a tornado, then it calmed down and became pretty warm, and then it got windy again. Luckily I was able to defend my title as my final height was relatively low at 5.25m. After Calgary we traveled to Edmonton for the Edmonton Classic. I was really pumped up and ready to jump well as I was frustrated with jumping only 5.25m the competition before. Unfortunately we had a freak rain storm the day of the meet and they canceled it...30 minutes before it became nice out.

From there I went to Europe for a month. I spent most of the month with my friend Wout Van Wengerden in the Netherlands, and then the last week I spent with another good friend Michel Frauen in Leverkusen Germany. My month in Europe was a great learning experience and confidence builder but unfortunately the results weren't the greatest. I can't be blamed for all of them though. It was honestly a terrible month in Europe consisting of cold weather, wind, and rain. So each competition had different conditions.

Six days after arriving home from Europe I flew out to Shenzhen China for the World University Games. Before leaving I had 2 great jumping practices with my coach. While in China I had another great practice from 16 steps jumping over a 5.50m bungee really easily. So easily I had to check and make sure the height was right. I felt like I was really ready to go. In the qualification I jumped 5.30m with ease on my second attempt to qualify. The day after the final I was doing my pre competition warm up and was having cramping problems in my calfs, so I started drinking electrolyte drinks for the fear that I was dehydrated. The next evening was the final and things felt alright, the only thing was I didn't feel very sharp and was having difficulty "moving the pole". So I was taking off, rocking back and instead of going up and over the bar I was going up and coming down on the bar. I tried moving my grip down, but nothing seemed to work. So unfortunately I was only able to jump my opening height of 5.20m. Other than my performance, Shenzhen was an amazing experience. The people and the facilities were top notch. Everything was brand new for the games with a cost of around 3.1 Billion US Dollars.

After Shenzhen I took 3 weeks off. I felt that I needed some time to just get my mind off pole vaulting. As well, my body was feeling tired. On September 12th I began running again, and the week of the 19th I got back into hard training. Heather and I have taken some steps to make us a lot stronger running wise. We've been doing some training with Desai Williams and Anthony McCleary. Both of whom have proved themselves to be very good coaches. Heather is doing more base training, while I am getting myself into shape for the Pan Am games in Guadalajara Mexico.

I will be leaving for Mexico on the 23rd of October and my competition is on the 28th. I have a lot of work to do before then, but I think I will be ready. After 2 weeks in to hard training I feel that my speed is back to what it was at the peak of the season if not better.

Anyways, I just wanted to give an update on my season and what I am currently training for. I will update this again later on this week or latest next week.

Thanks for reading.

Jason

Finally done!

2011-04-20T12:20:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the months of not updating this blog. I (Jason) have some great news. After six years of University I am finally done! It has been a long process for me, one that nearly ended after the first year when I was frustrated and prepared to drop out. I had actually applied to college and was accepted in a few programs. Luckily I changed my mind and decided I would give University another chance. I am really happy that I went through with it, even though it was a challenging past couple of years it was really worth it!

On to training. I have been training hard since the end of January. I had to take a break from training in the middle of December because I was having a problem with my foot and still had sore hands due to breaking a couple poles before Commonwealth. I spent quite a bit of time training on 2 steps in late November and early December increasing my pb from 3.40m ish to 3.65m. After that I took a break for a while to heal up my injuries. When I started training again I eased into 4 steps and then trained from 6 steps for a month and a bit.

Training from 6 steps was good. I didn't set any new personal bests, but was consistently jumping around 4.55-60m. Much more consistent than I had been any of the past times I have been training from 6. After that I jumped from 10 steps for about a month. Once again, no new personal best, but very consistent jumping around 5.10m.

This past Monday I went back to 14 steps for the first time. It was a good technical practice. A lot of the technical stuff I was working on from 6 and 10 steps transferred over. The goal will be to keep the practices consistent while trying to fix little technical issues that arise in my jumps. Some practices it is easier to manipulate parts of the jump, but the hard part is patterning the changes so they become 'normal'.

We haven't figured out when my first competition will be yet, but when we get things figured out I will post it on here, as well as links to the results page. I will be putting together from videos of my training over the past few months and will post them on my youtube page so feel free to check them out.

Thanks for reading and sorry it took so long for one of us to update this.

Jason

Time for an Update...

2010-11-30T22:08:00.001-05:00

So it has been a while since Jason and I have updated the blog...time to bring everyone up to date! The past little while has been sort of frustrating for me. What started off as a minor muscular problem (my popliteus muscle behind my knee) turned out to be one of the most irritating "injuries" I have had. It is mostly a biomechanical issue with issues in my low back causing symptoms lower down my leg. However, I am finally getting closer to being able to train 100%. I decided that there is no point in rushing the healing process, so I started from scratch and eliminated everything that bothered the back of my knee (including any kind of taking off or running). I seen multiple thereapists/doctors/chiropractors and I am finally on a program where I am beginning to notice a difference.

Jason and I (with financial support from our families) have decided that we need to invest in our health in order to prevent and stay on top of injuries. So, for Christmas our families are pitching in to get us a Frequency Specific Microcurrent portable machine. This technology is amazing as it increase ATP production and targets specific tissue for faster healing and recovery. It should be in this week so I can use it on my leg asap!

We also recently attended a nutritional seminar hosted by an amazing massage therapist named Tony Scott. We acquired so much information on Nutrient Timing, the importance of protein, and other essential whole, raw and organic foods. We have been sleeping so well and feeling amazing since we have made a few minor adjustments to the way that we eat.

I will finally try to vault again next week from a very short run. I hope that my leg holds up, however if my body tells me that I need more time to recover I will listen. I have learned that patience is key because ultimately the outdoor season is what really matters and I want to ensure that I am ready to jump high. During this time away from actually vaulting, however I have been doing gymnastics almost everyday and I am noticing a huge difference in my core and upper body strength. Since this was my area of weakness in the past, I hope that once I resume full training I will be stronger than ever. I will let you know about my progress!

Heather

Commonwealth/Training

2010-10-26T22:24:00.000-04:00

Nearly 2 weeks ago I arrived home from India. Aside from what the media reported on the Games, it was a huge success and an amazing experience. I was initially disappointed with my result of 7th, but then I had to reflect on my training leading up to the games, and the obstacles I had to surpass to just be able to compete there were huge.

A few weeks into training I broke a pole in one of my practices, which after 4 weeks was diagnosed to be a fractured bone in the palm of my hand. During those 4 weeks I was only able to do little drills for vaulting, therefore most of my training was directed towards running, long jumping, squats, and core exercises. Because I didn't know the bone was fractured I spent a lot of time doing physio and strengthening my hand. When I initially hurt my hand, my grip strength went down to 20kg, from the usual 65kg. Because it was my left hand, I knew it didn't matter if it got back to 100% to be able to pole vault, it was mainly my wrist strength, which was considerably lower.

When I found out that the bone was fractured I only had about 2 weeks until my departure to India, so I had to find out if I could vault. I decided to tape my wrist to make it stiff and pad the palm of my hand. My first practice was from a short approach and it was ok, I jumped 4.45m from 6 steps which wasn't a personal best, but it was pretty good under the circumstances. My second practice I moved back to 10 steps and things were going great, I made around 10 jumps and on one of them my pole hit the standards as I was going over the bar. I checked out the pole and it looked fine, no marks on it other then a scuff, so I took another jump and the damn pole broke. Luckily it broke right under my left hand, so it blew out of my left hand, but my right was hanging on to it, and when it twisted back it ended up injuring my right hand. After taking a couple minutes to calm down I took the next pole and took about 5 more jumps.

The next day my wrist was quite sore. So now I had 2 screwed up wrists. Because I didn't lose any strength in my hand I decided that I would be fine, but had to be careful when I planted the pole because it would hurt if I did it wrong.

After two more practices, which were tough mentally, I was in India. I had one vaulting practice there, and I jumped from 16 steps. It took me quite a few tries to takeoff, but then I made 4 or 5 great jumps. I knew I was ready to jump high, and I had a lot more confidence after that practice.

In the competition I did one run through and then planted the pole. The next plant I smoked a 5.20m bungee, and then I stopped until the competition. I knew for the competition I would have to take the next stiffer pole for my opening height. On my first attempt at 5.25m I was a bit hesitant and took off inside. I had huge height on the bar, but brushed it off on the way down. My second attempt I jumped it by like 20-30cm. Then I made an error by deciding to stay on the same pole for 5.40m. My first attempt I brushed it off on the way up, and instead of going up to a stiffer pole I tried to stay better with the pole, unfortunately I brushed it off on the way up again. So for my third attempt I went to a stiffer pole, but it wasn't stiff enough and I brushed it off on the way up again. And that was it. I came 7th with 5.25m. The most disappointing part was that I could have jumped the next height if I would have switched to the next pole on my second attempt. But that is the way it goes, some days you make the right decision and the other days you learn from your mistakes.

After taking 2 weeks off, I am now back into training. I feel that I am in a bit better shape then I would usually be in when I start training, but I have two wrists that are still healing, so my training will still be catered around letting them heal. Therefore, for the first couple weeks I will be staying away from the poles, and anything that will prevent further healing. Because of my late start this year, my competition schedule will most likely be pushed back to February for my first full approach competition.

Thanks for reading, and I am looking forward to this season. I have learned a lot this year and am excited to get back into training to improve parts of my jump that I am sure will take me higher.

RBC Olympian!

2010-10-10T11:27:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since I have made an update because I have been resting, getting healthy and taking some time to figure out life after university! I received some very exciting news a week ago, that I have been hired on to the RBC Olympians Program. Basically this program allows athletes to work part-time around their training schedule. I will be working in the community as an ambassador and in the office to gain some marketing experience. I am thrilled to take part in this program, as I will be more financially stable, and I can gain some experience while making training my priority.

I spent the last week training for the job, and along the way I met some great people. I will finally be able to get into my new routine and start training hard. This year I will be focusing more on outdoor competitions, as I am finished competing for my university, so I have more time to really make sure my body is 100% ready to train hard. After a disappointing end to my season this year, I am more motivated than ever for what is to come!

As a side note, you can watch the athletics finals (and hopefully some of Jason in the men's pole vault) tomorrow morning live online from 8:30-11:30 on cbc.ca. If you have Bold tv it will also be broadcasting live tomorrow morning at the same time. I can't wait to watch him and wish him the best of luck!

Heather

Gold for Jamie!

2010-10-09T00:35:00.000-04:00

Last night was a good night. Jamie Adjety-Nelson won the Decathlon and set a 20cm decathlon pole vault personal best...and it looked like he was going to jump higher...after he got over 4.20 or 4.30m. He finished up the pv with a 4.70m vault which is pretty impressive for a guy who as of last year had jumped maybe 4.45m. Also last night, Tabia Charles came third in the women's triple jump.

Yesterday was just a rest day for me. Today I will do a warm up and some simulation drills with the pole to mentally prepare for Mondays competition.

Anyways, just a little update. Going to watch the men's 200m prelims.

Thanks for reading.

Jay

Mosquitoes

2010-10-06T13:44:00.000-04:00

I think we are being taken over by mosquitoes. The last couple days they have been pretty unbearable..so hopefully I don't come back with any fevers.

Tonight I had a vault practice. It was the first time back on 16 steps since a couple days after Nationals (I was training from 10 and 14 steps), so it took me some time before I felt comfortable on my run. But as soon as I started feeling like myself I started making nice technical jumps. My first jump over a bungee I easily cleared 5.30m, and then had some nice jumps at 5.40m. Because I was having some troubles at the beginning I didn't bother going up a pole, I just worked on feeling confident with my run and I think it was pretty successful.

Anyways, it's 11:22pm and I am feeling pretty tired, the last couple night I went to bed at around 10pm..but I was awake at 6am..so I am going to try and change that a little in the next few days. Also, I have added pictures to my facebook. You can try viewing them, I am not sure if you need an account. http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2751646&id=28117095

Night!

Day 3 in Delhi

2010-10-05T00:27:00.001-04:00

Well, after a few bad sleeps due to a malfunctioning air conditioner. My room is all fixed up. Last night I was very tired and went to sleep early. 9:30pm. At 4am I woke up and though..uh oh..hopefully I can sleep a little longer. After about 20 minutes I was back to sleep until about 6am. It was an interesting sleep, but it was longer then the total of my first couple of nights here.

Last night myself and two other pole vaulters, Carly Dockendorf and Kelsie Hendry went to watch the Mens gymnastics competition. It was pretty awesome to watch. As a pole vaulter, part of our training includes gymnastics so it was nice to see. I must say, gymnastics is much! scarier then pole vaulting. In Pole vault, we are pretty spoiled with our usually large fluffy landing mats, when gymnasts crash they have these little hard crash mats to land on..and it usually looks like it hurts.

Today we are going over to the competition track to check it out and do a little training. I will do some sprinting. Tomorrow I will have my last pole vault practice before the 11th. Myself and the three other vaulters, Kelsie, Carly, and Gabriella will jump together.
I still didn't load the pictures on my camera..so I will try to remember to do that at some point today and post a few.

Thanks for reading.

Jay

Sorry for the delay!

2010-10-03T13:46:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone. Today was my first full day in Delhi, and man was it hot. Yesterday/the day before was a very long day! My flight departed Toronto on Friday evening at 6pm and we arrived in Brussels Belgium I think 6 hours later. Then after 3.5 hours we left for Delhi, which took over 7 hours. The time change here is 9.5 hours, so it is 11:20pm here and 1:50pm at home.
The residences we are staying are ok, they have the possibilities of being very nice, but need a little finishing up, which will happen after we are long gone I'm sure. None the less, they are very livable and air conditioned..so we don't have to worry about any monkeys coming into our rooms haha (I haven't seen one yet).

Today were the opening ceremonies. Our plan was to go, but we were advised that it probably wasn't a good idea due to the heat, and the length of time we would be waiting for the ceremonies to begin. So, most or all of the track team opted out of the ceremonies. A little disappointing, but we are here to compete.

Anyways, I am tired, so I will go to bed now. Once again, sorry it took me so long to post another blog. I just got internet access, so I will try to post on here as often as I can. I will also post some pictures soon.

Thanks for reading.

Jay

7 weeks and five days

2010-08-16T15:33:00.000-04:00

Finally, my competitions for this part of the season are complete. Yesterday was the last meet of the summer season. It was the Ontario Championships in Sudbury and for the first time since 2006 I believe, I am the Ontario Champion. Heather was unable to compete due to a small injury she got the weekend before at the Crystal Beach Vault. The conditions were very tough. When we arrived to the meet, the women's competition had been delayed when the final vaulter in the competition was on her second attempt at 3.95m. After a 45 minute delay she was given her 2nd and 3rd attempts but unfortunately didn't make it. When the men's competition started the weather became better and the sun came out. However, the wind was very strong and going in the wrong direction. Some of the vaulters asked before the competition if we could switch the pits to the other box which would give us a favorable wind, but the official wouldn't allow it. Her reasoning was "in the pole vault, we do not move the mats because of wind". This was a very funny answer because in the pole vault, the one and only reason to move the mats is because of the wind. Oh well. So we had to jump into a head wind. The wind was gusting at times, and other times there would be a break in the wind gusts, long enough to get a decent attempt in. For Matt Diston, wind was not a factor. He went and tied his personal best at 4.70m for the second time in 3 days, and then bettered it to 4.80m soon after. I decided to enter at 5m and the wind was really strong, but for my first attempt it nearly died, so I ran down and made my pole too soft causing me to miss the height. I then took a stiffer pole and cleared it. For 5.15m the winds were much too strong on each of my attempts to even make an attempt. I tried, but each time I ran through. So, the end result was me winning with 5m. I hoped to jump a bit higher but the conditions wouldn't allow.

Today I did a small workout to prepare myself for tomorrow and the rest of the week. Tomorrow I will begin training for the Commonwealth Games. I am excited to get back to work and improve on my technique so I can reach greater heights in October. A little under 8 weeks until the men's pole vault qualification. The qualification is on October 9, and finals are October 11.

Thanks for reading.

Jay

Commonwealth!

2010-08-04T10:58:00.000-04:00

Finally my hard work has paid off. Today I was officially announced to the Commonwealth Games team. The whole season I was sort of chasing the standard set out by Canada but in the end my 5.50m was high enough to be on the team. That was because I am ranked 2nd in the Commonwealth with this height. For the next week and a bit I will take a break from training so I can start my preparation for the games in October with a relaxed mind. However, I will do 2 more competitions before this part of my season is over, but they should both be very relaxed competitions. One will be this Saturday in Crystal Beach..on the beach. I will jump from a short approach just to have some fun jumping in front of family and friends, and then the following weekend I will compete at the Ontario championships from 10-12 steps. This will put my competition total to 17 over 97 days. This means that I have had a competition every 5.7 days. And well, after nearly 3 months of competing I have the feeling that I am finally tired.

I had so much energy and power leading up to Nationals, but it sort of disappeared at the nationals. So I am very happy that I was able to do what I did at the nationals and pull off the win, however I have yet to prove to myself and to my critics what I am capable of. So for the next couple of months Arye and I will be ironing out my technical flaws that prevented me from taking that next step to 5.60 and higher. The good thing about pole vault, is there is always something to fix, it is not "just" about running faster and gripping higher on the pole. Consistently jumping more than 1m over the top hand is the objective, so when that is achieved, gripping higher and running faster will only help.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

Jay

Today's the day

2010-07-31T09:09:00.000-04:00

Today Heather, myself and 24 others compete in the pole vault at the Canadian Championships. We are both feeling ready for good things so hopefully everything runs smoothly. If anyone happens to read this today. Men's pole vault goes at 12:30 and Women's at 3:30. If you're unable to make it to Varsity Stadium, you can watch live coverage on CBC from 4-6 which will cover the women's pole vault as well as other events that happen during that time period, and highlights from past events. Maybe even the men's pv. For meet results you can click here..or copy it into the address bar. http://www.athleticsvideos.com/Live_Results/2010/Senior_Championships/index-champ.htm

Thanks for reading.

Jay

Thank you Canadian Athletes Now Fund!

2010-07-27T11:28:00.000-04:00

Sunday, I got a call that sort of took my breath away. It was the last thing I was expecting to hear on a Sunday. Before I left for six weeks of competition in Europe I applied to the Canadian Athletes Now Fund. This is a non-profit organization which raises money throughout the year to support Canada’s Top Amateur Athletes. Today, July 27 marks exactly two years until the start of the 2012 London Olympics. As a way to mark this anniversary, Canadian Athletes Now is giving out over 1 Million Dollars to support over 140 athletes, and thankfully I am one of these athletes who will be receiving $6000. I am very lucky to be on this list because I was told there will still be around 300 other athletes who are on a waitlist for funding. Unfortunately Canadian Athletes Now only has enough money to support around 190 athletes for this funding cycle, so if you are interested in donating to support amateur athletes, more of these waitlisted athletes will be able to receive funding which could be critical to their success leading up to the 2012 Olympics. Please click on the link here, if it is not hyperlinked you can copy and paste it into your browser. https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/Donate.aspx?EventID=574&LangPref=en-CA

Thanks,

Jason

Back in Toronto

2010-07-22T22:48:00.000-04:00

Well,

Heather and I arrived back to Toronto a week and a day ago, and life has been pretty busy since then. We have recovered from our jet lag and have begun training for the Nationals which take place July 31st at Varsity Stadium in Toronto. My competition begins at 12:30 and Heather's at 3:30 or a little after depending on how long the men's competition takes.

Tuesday night there was a small pre-nationals twilight meet at U of T and once again I jumped 5.40m. I then went to 5.54m, my first two attempts I didn't make a jump, but I went for it on my third attempt, unfortunately I slowed just a bit at the end of the run which didn't allow me to move the pole enough and I came down on the bar. So, what we took from the competition is that I am in good shape for the nationals. I am running fast, getting on stiff poles, just need to work on a few little things in my technique tomorrow and early next week and I'm sure I can jump higher then 5.40m. Competing every few days is nice, but it makes it very hard to have any jump practices in between competitions. So tomorrow will be my 3rd pole vault practice since the end of May, so there will be a few important things to work on.

Anyways, time to go to bed. Thanks for reading.

Jay

1st in Donnas, Italy with 4.25m

2010-07-10T14:00:00.000-04:00

So I just returned to the hotel after the competition, and overall it was a successful day. After jumping 4.20m in Uden, and having a very frustrating practice, I still managed to improve and jump 4.25m very easily today. The conditions were great and it was a very nice place to jump (although the mat was small and I almost flew off the side at 4.15m). It was also very hot today, which made me so tired, but I managed to pull through and win the meet. I made 4.05, 4.15 and 4.25 on my first attempt, and I had to take a bigger pole for 4.35, so I went to my 4.30m 16.6 (170lbs) which I have never used before! I moved my depth to 65 to anticipate being on a stiff pole, and I completely blew it through. I made probably one of my best jumps and I really accelerated at the end of my approach into the takeoff. If my depth was at 80 I had a good chance at making the height with that jump. So I moved it to 75 or 80 for my last two attempts, and I made two more complete jumps but I was starting to get tired and perhaps not running as fast as my first attempt. I really wanted to jump 35 but based on my height over 4.25 I know it will come. I am very pleased with how I competed today, and I am looking forward to vaulting on Monday in Albertville, France. There should be some good competition, including my new friend Catherine Larsasen from Norway, and some elite American vaulters. I really enjoyed the atmosphere today, and vaulting in such a beautiful place!

At the moment, I am watching the sports channel where they are broadcasting Jason's competition in Heusden live! It's pretty cool to see him on tv, but they are not showing the complete pv competition so I have to try and get where he is/what height the bar is at.

I can't believe how fast this month has gone by, and although I am sad to leave Europe in a few days, I am also excited to come home to see my family and prepare for nationals. Thanks for reading, and there are always more updates to come!

Heather

Back in the Netherlands (Uden)!

2010-07-02T14:24:00.000-04:00

From June 27 until very early this morning Heather, Arye, and I were in Tel Aviv, Israel. Heather and I competed at the Israeli National Championships as Open competitors. To make the competitions better for the Israel athletes, their federation allows foreign athletes to compete.

On June 28th, after spending the 27th traveling we rented a car and drove to Jerusalem and walked around the Old City and then after to the Dead Sea. Jerusalem was quite the experience. We only spent about 3 hours there as we didn't want to do too much walking, but there is definitely a lot to be seen. For instance, we were in the room of the Last Supper, we walked to the Western Wall, and we were inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. You can check it out on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre . Unfortunately I didn't really get much time to explore it because Heather was prematurely kicked out for dressing inappropriately (wearing shorts)..haha. There was a lot to see in there, as you can see if you go to the link.

Once we left the Old City we drove to Ein Gedi to go swimming in the Dead Sea. We had to go to a specific swimming area that had showers so we coul wash the water off after swimming. Swimming in the Dead Sea was very cool. Because the salt concentration is so high, you lose the ability to sink..therefore you float on top of the water. If you stretch out to lay flat as a board the whole top of your body will be out of the water, and if you just lay back and let your legs and arms relax, they will be sticking out of the water. It's a really funny feeling at first, but so cool. The downfall of the Dead sea is the amount it stings your skin. My skin was pretty dry and I had some scratches and cuts so I was stinging all over. Also, thankfully Arye warned us before, but if you go swimming there..do your best not to get the water into your eyes..because you will experience a lot of pain from the salt. I got the tiniest bit in my eyes and it was stinging really bad.

On to the competition. Heather competed Wednesday evening, and unfortunately she didn't have much luck. She opened at 3.94m to try and get into a good rhythm and easily made it, then passed to 4.14m. On her first attempt she just brushed the bar off on the way over. It seemed as though the pole was too soft for that height, so she took the next pole. Unfortunately for her next two attempts, the wind was more of a cross wind then the tail wind she had experienced in her first attempt, and just didn't have enough energy to move the pole through. She finished 3rd, while Jillian Schwartz won with 4.44m, and Tatyana Polnova came second with 4.34m.

I competed yesterday evening. The weather was great, we had a nice tailwind and the temperature wasn't too hot. I went to 18 steps for the first time this season, so it was sort of a trial run with what pole to be on. Things went quite easily though. I did 2 run throughs to make sure my mark was on and then took off. Then skipped a pole to the next stiffer one and jumped over a bungee. I opened at 5.20m and easily made it on my first, at 5.40m I brushed the bar off on my way down on my first attempt and then easily made it on my second. I then passed to 5.55m, and had a good first attempt, just came down on the bar because I didn't move the pole enough. My second and third attempts weren't as good as the first, but I think I have seen now what I need to do to improve my jumps.

Last night, after the competition Heather and I went to the airport at 1:30 for our return flight to Germany which left at "4:45", it had originally been at 7 something in the morning, but they rescheduled to 4:45am. Our thoughts were..well at least it's the middle of the night and their shouldn't be too many flights going at that time...right....wrong! The airport was completely packed. And not only that, in Israel the scanning procedures are probably 10x more thorough then what you would normally experience. So when we walked into the airport carrying our pole bags, their was this huge line up to go through an initial bag scanner..luckily airport policy says that bags are not allowed to be left unattended..so we got to go to the front of the line, which probably saved us one hour. They then scanned our luggage and carry on bags and asked us a number of questions as to why we were in Israel and how we knew each other. It felt like quite the interrogation. Then we had to go stand in line to get our boarding pass and check our bags for the flight. Although in Israel for some reason the airports don't have lines..they just have a free for all as to who can get to the front the quickest..so at 2:30 in the morning I was getting pretty annoyed by all of the people constantly butting in front of us thinking we wouldn't notice. By about 3am we got to the front of the line, they gave us our boarding passes..but didn't know what to do about the poles, so they told us to just wait where they could see us until the supervisor had a chance to come talk to us. Well, after waiting 30 minutes..the supervisor didn't come. So we went to him, and then answer was... nothing. He didn't know where the poles should go, and didn't want to find out how to get them to the plane. So luckily the guy who let us bypass the original line was there to help. After sort of yelling at the supervisor for 5 minutes for not doing anything it was now 3:45 and we still didn't really have any idea who was going to get our poles to the plane. So then we said we can carry them to the spot where they have to be if there is no one to take them! The guy said that he would arrange someone to escort us through security where we would drop the poles off (I thought, ok this makes sense, I've done this many times) Since it was nearly 4am I was really tired and sort of not thinking as to what we were doing. Until we were inline with poles to go to our GATE! Now I was pissed off. We took our pole bags through the scanner which usually scans people haha, and then walked with them probably a km or more to our gate. They had us bring our poles to the GATE! This is ok I guess if you are really late and your baggage can't make it through to the plane in time..but any airport security (but Israel's I guess) wouldn't allow you to do that. However, at this airport they had us take out 5m long bags to our gate. Then until 4:45 we were pleading with the airline to figure out how they were going to get them down to the plane..because they were all trying to divert responsibility. Finally a couple guys came up from loading the plane only to laugh and yell at the people for having us bring our bags to the gate. After telling us that they couldn't get our poles to the bottom of the plane from up top they decided to try and walk them down the ramp to the plane, and then take them out down the stairs which they usually use to bring baby strollers or bags that don't fit in the overhead compartment. So we did it and they just barely squeezed through all of the turns in the hallway. And then, my poles were in the cockpit of the plane! Yes, that is right, it probably hasn't happened since..well maybe ever, and will probably NEVER happen again. About 4 feet of my bag was sitting in the plane for about a minute.. I really regret not taking a picture, but I was so distraught at that point I wasn't thinking of the humor in it..until we were sitting in the plane and the poles were underneath.

So, now we are in Uden, Netherlands. We are competing tomorrow, Heather at 2pm, and me at 5pm. We only had about 2hours of airplane sleep last night...which probably amounts to about 30min of sleeping in a bed, so hopefully after a good night sleep tonight we can wake up tomorrow feeling good. Other then being tired, both of us feel pretty good, so we will make the best of it tomorrow and hopefully have a good competition. Anyways, it's 9:45, going to get in bed and get a good nights sleep. Thanks for reading, sorry about the length, but there was a lot to talk about haha.

Night,

Jay

Good Start to the Trip

2010-06-20T10:32:00.001-04:00

I am finally settled in Germany for a bit and I had my first meet of my European circuit today. It was just a small regional meet about a half hour north of Frankfurt so it was nice and close. It took me a little while to get on a bigger pole and actually move it, but once I did I had some very promising jumps. I only ended up jumping 4.10, but with a bit of luck on my last attempt at 4.20 the bar might have stayed up. I could have used a bigger pole at that point or a further depth, but sometimes its hard to make the right call. I ended up taking off at 11'6 my last two jumps which was really encouraging! I feel confident after this meet even though the result may not look great. I got invited to a bigger meet in France on the 23rd so this meet was a nice warm up for Wednesday.

I feel good and ready to jump high, so with the right conditions and a good warm up good things will happen! Arye and I will leave for Grenoble on Tuesday and stay for two nights, then head to Leverkusen to meet up with Jason. I miss him so much it will be nice to train and compete together for a bit. More posts to come!

Heather

Good night in France

2010-06-16T19:38:00.000-04:00

Tonight I tied for first place with Mitch Greeley, an American vaulter. The conditions were a little tough, although we had a huge wind in our backs, it was gusting up from 5-8mps making it very difficult to get a good rhythm and keep it. My warm up was not the greatest but once the competition started I was more consistent. I cleared 5.20m easy on my first attempt, and then also 5.40m on my first attempt. For 5.55m, I only ended up finishing one jump but I was very close. I think if I can get on some bigger poles in Hof, at my next competition I'll be up over 5.50m. After we both missed 5.55m three times we sort of wound down, started packing up our stuff, and then the officials came and told us we must do a jump off to declare a winner. It was quite cold by that point, around 12degrees or 55 for any American readers. Mitch took a couple tries at 5.55m and then 5.50m, I just took off and didn't go up. Then we called it a night. Too much of a risk to pull a muscle with the weather being so cold. Anyways, better get some sleep, long drive back to Sittard in the morning. Thanks for reading.

Jay

Making Some Progress

2010-06-13T22:49:00.000-04:00

Well after two competitions of only jumping my opening height, I finally made some progress. After waiting for 8 hours at the track to compete, due to a delay from the enormous decathlon pole vault scheduled before the women, I jumped a new pb of 4.30m. I feel exhausted from all the waiting around, but I somehow pulled it together to make some decent jumps. I even had a good stab at 4.35 but probably needed a bigger pole and some more energy!

I came in at 4m and got it on my first attempt, then made 4.10 on my first and 4.20 on my first. I didn't get 4.30 until my third attempt after switching to a bigger pole but I'm happy that I managed to pb on a third attempt! I felt relaxed today and enjoyed jumping. My confidence was there and even though I didn't feel super fast or "fresh" I was in good enough shape to jump the height.

I still have A LOT of work to do, especially on the top end of my jump. But I need to get into a good rhythm consistently to get on some bigger poles earlier on. I got on my biggest pole today, a 4.30m 17.0 flex, so hopefully I can get on the 16.6 in Europe. The weather was great today. There was pretty much no wind and it was warm enough and overcast. Vicky Robson from Manitoba jumped 4.15m for a new pb so it was nice to feed off that energy and have somebody to vault with.

I am handing in my last paper of university tomorrow and I am heading off the Germany on Wednesday. I can't wait to get away and go to some serious meets and meet with Jason. I wish he could have seen me jump but soon enough we will be at some meets together. Anyway I'm so tired, it's time for bed. Thanks for reading!

Heather

Cuxhaven

2010-06-08T10:43:00.000-04:00

Jason is getting ready to compete in Cuxhaven, Germany tomorrow at 6:05pm their time, which is 12:05pm our time. Your can copy the link below to follow the results of the meet. There should be live results but I'm not 100% sure.

http://www.ewe-athletics.de/index.php

On another note, I'm competing this coming Sunday at York before I leave for Europe next week. My first two meets didn't go as well as I would have liked as I only jumped my opening heights, but I've been making progress in practice so hopefully it will translate into a meet soon! I feel like I'm in good shape, so once I get technically consistent everything should go more smoothly. More updates to come,

Heather

2nd in Recklinghausen last night

2010-06-05T09:42:00.000-04:00

Hello from Amsterdam.

Last night I competed at the oldest streetvault in the world. It was a very cool place and I enjoyed it a lot. There were a lot of people along both sides of the runways and mats having a good time. I jumped 5.43m, and needed a bit of luck over 5.53m, however I touched the bar just in the wrong spot so it fell off easily. It was a great meet for building confidence. I got on the stiffest pole I have jumped on from 16 steps before and maybe it was even too soft, so it is a sign of whats to come.

My next competition will hopefully be on Wednesday in Cuxhaven provided I get accepted to the competition. It is a nice competition when the weather is nice. It is in the very north of Germany right beside the sea. So it can be a little cold and windy I am told if the weather isn't good. Last year I competed there and it was very nice weather. Regardless, I am in good shape so whatever the weather brings I am confident that I can perform well.

Off to an electronics store now to buy an adapter so I can plug my computer in... I had a power converter thing which blew up the other night, so I have been using Wout's computer.

Bye for now,

Jay

Windsor This Weekend

2010-05-27T10:53:00.000-04:00

This weekend both Jason and I will be competing in Windsor on Saturday night. The women's vault precedes the mens so hopefully it doesn't get too dark and cold outside for the guys. If the weather is anything like it has been, I don't think we need to worry about that.

Practice has been going much better lately. I competed last week as a sort of practice meet after only having one short practice off my full approach. I only jumped my opening height of 4.05m and missed 4.20m but never really tok a good jump at it. I was having problems getting my run and my rhythm. I was taking off way too far inside and just slowing down at the end. I have had two solid practices since that meet and I have finally figured out my rhythm. I am way more comfortable now on my full approach so I'm looking forward to having a second chance at competing. I jumped a 4.20m bungee in my practice so there are some good signs of improvement. I have also been standing long jump consistently around my best of 2.65m. I feel like I'm in good shape and looking forward to the long summer season ahead of me. I will not be leaving for Europe until June 16th and will be there for a month so Jason gets to spend a bit more time there. It's coming up fast so I'm getting excited! We will update our results from this weekend once we get home. Thanks for reading,

Heather

Back in Toronto for a week

2010-05-26T14:01:00.000-04:00

After spending a week in Brazil it was nice to get back to my family and friends. Luckily it was a long weekend, so I got to spend a little extra time in Stevensville before I go away to Europe for 6 weeks.

June 1 I fly to Germany and will be in Europe until July 14th when I fly home. My meet schedule is not finalized yet, but here is the preliminary list:

June 5 Regensburg, GER
June 9 Cuxhaven, GER
June 12 Leiden, NED
June 16 Herouville, FRA
June 19 Hof, GER
June 26 Bad Harzburg, GER
June 30 Tel-Aviv , Israeli Ch
July 3 Uden NED
July 10 Heusden BEL
July 13 Liege, BEL

Last nights practice went pretty well. I did a little 6 step long jump and set yet another big personal best. This time almost each jump was over my previous best of 5.73m. Last night I jumped 5.90m. Here is a video taken in high speed. I am having problems with the hyperlinks, so hopefully it will work soon. If not, you can copy and paste them into your browser or just check out the latest video's at my youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cdeQHj4LEw

Another video that is pretty cool was a gymnastic drill I had been working on. I got Heather to film one and I ended up swinging to a handstand..which was what I was working on, but had not been able to do until this one. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOvMi6mkBas

Anyways, time for practice. Thanks for reading.

Jay

NH's Blow!

2010-05-20T10:21:00.001-04:00

Last night did not go as I had planned. After a long analysis while trying to fall asleep I realized what I did to cause the problems that led to my inability to jump my opening height. Nothing major..just sort of got ahead of myself for my second competition of the season. Good news is that I am healthy and can now get some training in off my full approach before I compete again.

Anyways, long day of traveling ahead of me. Goodbye for now.

Jay

Good Start

2010-05-16T12:01:00.000-04:00

Hello from a very hot Fortaleza. I experienced a few new things today, firstly it was the earliest competition I have ever had, as it started at 8:10am, and secondly, I don´t think I have ever competed in such heat. It was 36 degrees celcius here..which is probably around 100 egrees f. Very hot. It was my first competition of the season, as well as my first time on full approach since indoors, and first time jumping outdoors. So it was a bit hard at first as the wind was a very big cross wind. However, after I took off a few times I realized that my run was a little too close. I started the competition at 5.20m and made it pretty easily. Next was 5.40m, that too was a very easy jump. For 5.50m, my first attempt I had a very big wind as I approached the takeoff and ran through. For my second attempt, I took the next pole and jumped the height pretty easily. I then attempted 5.55m, and the wind was very hard for my first two jumps, so my attempts were not very good. For my third attempt, I passed to 5.60m. That time I had a very nice wind and hit the bar off on the way up. I am told Belem should have better conditions, and it will be at night. So the sun shouldn´t be as much of a factor. Anyways, I need to go take a cold shower, my skin is on fire. Thanks for reading.

Jay

In Fortaleza

2010-05-14T20:06:00.000-04:00

After about 24hours I made it to Fortaleza. Brazil has a very beautiful landscape, from the plane window at least. I didn't get to see too much on the way over to the hotel as it gets dark here a little after 5pm. The hotel I am staying at has a great view, it is called Hotel Marina, . The weather is very warm here, it is about 34-40 they say everyday, and drops down to about 28 at night...hard to deal with I know. Because of the weather here, the schedule for the meet is a bit different with the events starting at 7AM!! Mens PV is at 8:10..so it will be an early morning tomorrow and Sunday to make sure I am ready. Will update sometime after the meet. thanks for reading.

Jay

Last 10 Step Practice

2010-05-12T21:31:00.000-04:00

Well, yesterday I (Heather) jumped on my own because Jay jumped today, so he can have a practice just before he leaves for Brazil. I made a lot of progress in my technique at the top of the pole, so I was really happy with how it went. I cleared a 4m bungee from 10 steps on a 4.30m stiff 155lbs pole. I have been fiddling around on iMovie with my new macbook so that I can post some training/competition videos for this year, but I can't upload that format to this blog. I will hopefully figure out how to do that soon. But anyway, I have attached my best jump of the practice. Now its time to move to my full run and get some good practices in before the real competitive season starts. Jason is driving to Stevensville tonight so he will be nice and close to the Buffalo airport. He flies out tomorrow and should arrive in Brazil the next day. He will compete in two meets over the next week so we will update both of his results. Anyway, enjoy the video!

Heather

Its Already May!

2010-05-06T18:13:00.000-04:00

Time is flying and we are already into May. We have had five solid weeks of loading and we are both feeling tired but seeing progress. I will be ready to start competing near the end of the month and Jason is finalizing plans for competing in two competitions in Brazil on May 16 and 19. He has put a rush on getting a visa, so hopefully everything will work out in time for him to fly next Wednesday. I have just completed my first of five weeks of class, which seems like it will go by so fast. I'm just excited to finish university and get on with my competition season.

We have done quite a bit of running (more sprint work) this week that have taken a lot out of our legs, but we are both running faster and feeling stronger because of it. I improved my 60m hand time from 8.05 last year to 7.92 indoors and 7.69 outdoors on Monday (which was probably wind-aided, but I still felt pretty fast). Hopefully all the running will pay off and help us both to get on some stiffer poles.

This weekend we are both going home to spend time with our families, and it will probably be the last relaxing weekend for a little while. We will update our results regularly this season so make sure to keep reading. That's all for now!

Heather

Feeling Better

2010-04-30T20:52:00.000-04:00

As Jason indicated in the last blog, I kinked my neck and wasn't able to vault the other day. It is such an annoying pain that pinches the nerve up my neck, but it has been feeling better each day. He thinks I hurt it when I was dress shopping, but that was just a coincidence (I don't think I could get injured from shopping, considering all the training I do). My muscles were sore from pullovers and upper body exercises from the day before. Carmen Stilo, a chiropractor out of Toronto fixed me up today and I felt good enough to do some gymnastics. We were both feeling pretty tired before practice but once we got there it felt good to do our workout. I took it easy on my neck but still managed to have a good practice. We are lifting tomorrow morning, so we are both ready to end the week with a tiring weights workout.

Its getting closer to competition time, so Arye is working hard to organize our meet schedule. I'm excited to see what we can both do as our practices have been encouraging. We are both faster, stronger and more powerful this year, which is reflected in the poles we have been jumping on in practice. A few more weeks of good training should set us up nicely for the competition season.

This is also my last weekend without school...I have to take a summer school course for 5 weeks which I'm really not looking forward too. Oh well, once I finish I will be a university graduate!!! Bye for now,

Heather

Thursday April 29

2010-04-29T20:26:00.000-04:00

Hello,

very long time without updating. Sorry, without having school work each night I have stayed away from the computer..no need to procrastinate haha.

Last weekend Heather and I went home to Stevensville to celebrate my sister Brittany's 24th Birthday. Not only was it her birthday, but her boyfriend James proposed to her making it a very special birthday.

Training this week has gone very well for me. Heather missed the last couple days due to a kink in her neck..which I think she got from trying on dresses (but probably from doing these pull overs we were doing Monday night).

Monday we did our first speed testing since indoors and I am right where I need to be. Heather set a pb in 60m which was a little surprising because we are both pretty loaded right now with weights and training. Tuesday we vaulted from 10 steps. I jumped quite well, my grip increased from about 10cm over my previous 10 step grip, and I also jumped on bigger and stiffer poles then I usually trained on. My highest jump was only 5m though, I couldn't get over 5.10m. After vaulting we bounded and then did a little weight training. Yesterday I was feeling quite tired from Tuesday and wasn't too confident in my long jumping capabilities. My standing long jump was lower then the previous week, but then I did 6 steps and after only jumping 5.04m on my first I turned it up a few notches and went on to jump 5.73m, which was a 14cm pb over last week. After long jumping I just did some skipping over hurdles and then went home. Today was our second vault practice of the week. Usually it is Friday and we have today off, but I have a doctors appointment tomorrow so we had to vault today. I was tired, but managed to jump 5.10m, and then had a nice clearance at 5.15m. I didn't jump overly well because I was tired, but it's a good sign of whats to come for either Tuesday or Friday of next week. I think I am capable of 5.25m, but we'll see.

Anyways, day off tomorrow, and then lifting on Saturday. Now we are off to Lee's Palace to see 'Everyone's Talking' (Dani Rosenoers band).

later,

Jay

Finally Finished..until September

2010-04-22T09:57:00.000-04:00

Well, I had my final exam yesterday. I can't say that it went great, but I am finished and can now put my focus solely into training.

So far this week Heather and I have been having some awesome practices. The volume has been very high, so if we can make it through the next couple weeks unscathed we will definitely be a few steps ahead. A big change to our program has been the amount of running we do. Since CIS we have done a little bit of running almost every practice. It changes from practice to practice, some days it's tempo, some it's sprinting, and others its pole runs. For pole vault, speed is very important, so hopefully with all of this running we will make gains in both power and speed on the runway.

We have done some testing this week in both vault and long jump. On Tuesday we had our last 6 step vault practice with a cross bar. In the past we have mainly jumped with a bungee and to consider it a make we are not allowed to touch, brush or even make the bungee move (although sometimes it seems like just wind). My best before this season with a bungee was 4.50m, and only 4.30m with a bar from back in 2007. Heather's best was 3.35m with a bar and 3.40m with a bungee. Heather easily jumped 3.60m on her first attempt. I jumped 4.50m on my first attempt, but then it took me about 6 tries to jump 4.55m and about the same to jump 4.60m but I still did it. So we are both improving making improvements.

As for long jump, we did standing long jump first, my usual best for this time of the season would be about 2.95m, and I jumped 2.95, 3.01, 3.01, and 3.04m. My best is 3.10m from this indoor season. Heather's best was 2.58m and she jumped 2.60, and then finished with 2.65m. So a pretty big improvement for her. After standing long I did 6 step long jump and jumped 5.59m, my best from the indoor season was 5.48m, so things are looking up. Heather did 8 steps, and jumped 5.04m which is what she would usually jump from 10 steps, so its a good improvement. Following the jumping we did some bounding and then a running workout outside.

Today is a recovery day. We both have therapy appointments, so we will let our bodies rest up and go back hard tomorrow and Saturday. Thanks for reading.

Jay

One more to go..

2010-04-16T19:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I have one more exam to go. I don't remember if I have ever had 4 exams at the end of a term. I think last year I had a bunch of big papers due and only one or two exams. This has been exhausting. My week of training has been pretty much wasted due to lack of sleep. I had an alright training on Monday and then a long jumping session from 6 steps on Tuesday. Wednesday, after studying the night before and writing an exam in the morning I was too tired to train, and a little dehydrated, so my muscles were cramping. Yesterday I studied for an exam, and today I wrote the exam and then went to gymnastics practice. The stress is off of me now though. My last exam should be much easier then the one I had today.

My goal leading up to the next exam on Wednesday is to get a lot more rest. I am very good at staying up until 3-4am and then getting up at 9am to go back at it, however, when I go to practice after doing that for 2-3 days I am useless.

Heather had a great practice today nearly jumping 3.65m from 6 steps. Tomorrow we will lift in the morning at U of T. I think I might go for a run prior to lifting to get my legs moving again.

As far as meets go this summer, Arye has been working on getting me into a nice series of meets starting around June 10. So once he gets some confirmations then I can book my ticket. Will keep you posted when I find out more.

Have a good night.

Jay

Planning for the Future

2010-04-12T22:31:00.000-04:00

Since I have just finished my last Schulich exam of my undergraduate degree, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the future and what I will do beyond the cocoon of being a full time student athlete. Although I still have a full credit to complete from May-June, I feel as though I am almost a university graduate. I have been waiting for this time for so long, and now that it is here I am very excited but also nervous. I am happy that I will be able to focus 100% on training without the distractions of going to class, staying up late to finish assignments, arranging my schedule to meet with groups, and generally having this feeling like I'm always behind on school work.

It is exciting because I will finally be able to make some decisions about what I want to do to make (somewhat) of a living. I have always known that I was not on a very normal path, so I feel comfortable with the fact that I have not secured a full time banking job like many of my peers in business school (not that it isn't a huge accomplishment). I have changed my life to be able to pursue this dream, and my family and friends has accommodated it as well, so I feel extremely lucky to be able to be a full time athlete. However, I know that I need some structure to my life (and some more of an income than just carding money), so I am trying to find part time work where I can use my degree, but also make training the priority. This is not an easy type of job to find, but my quest begins to figure it out. I have a few options that I will scope out, and I can only hope that my hard work in school and track will pay off (literally). Jason is almost finished with his degree as well, so we are both trying to sort out what will happen post-university. We are a good team, and we push each other on and off the track, so I think we will figure things out.

On another note, I feel like I'm getting into better shape, and I'm really trying to stay relaxed and healthy for this outdoor season. I have a lot of goals but I don't want to stress myself out and put too much pressure on myself (as I often do). I just want to enjoy it, have fun, and jump as high as I possibly can. All I can do is prepare. We are vaulting tomorrow after a tiring running/lunging/strengthening practice today, so we will keep you posted. Cheers,

Heather

Time for a rest.

2010-04-10T19:44:00.000-04:00

Heather and I had a pretty hard workout in the weight room today. This was a tough week for training, not hard, but too much stuff going on with school which made us more mentally then physically tired.

Yesterday, I managed to take over 20 jumps from 6 steps with a crossbar. I wasn't feeling particularly fresh but repetition is what I need. Because I was jumping with a crossbar versus a bungee..I knocked it off about 75% of the time, so I got a lot of practice putting up the bar as well. I felt like I was having a hard time keeping my run consistent, so rather then worrying about that, Arye was having me work on driving my chest more after the takeoff, rather then reacting too early with my left arm..(blocking) and then finishing every jump. Of course it is hard to finish jumps when the pole just isn't moving, but when I finally started doing what he was telling me I was able to finish more jumps. I jumped 4.45, then 4.50, then missed 4.53 about 10 times, so we put it to 4.40 and he just wanted me to focus on making full jumps rather then worrying about the bar. After missing it a few times, I jumped it 3 times in a row and then put it to 4.45 and made that right away, so then I put it back up to 4.50 and made about 5 good attempts at it, but I was pretty tired. The goal is still to get close to 4.70m from 6 steps and I think being a bit more fresh, and on the next pole I can do it. I attached a video of 4.50m from 6 steps last week.

Anyways, better get back to studying/watching the leafs game. Thanks for reading.

Jay

it's that time of the year..

2010-04-08T22:57:00.000-04:00

Well, Heather is finished her one and only exam...and I unfortunately have four before I am done. In the past it has been the opposite way, where I only had a few and she had more. Sucks to be me I guess.

So far this week, training hasn't been that great for me. With school coming to an end, late nights/early mornings, and a sore ankle I have been feeling more stressed than motivated. It usually happens to me at this time of year. I am one of those people who leave everything to the end, so I am scrambling to finish my final assignments for a few weeks and then right after trying to cram for exams. Wears me down for a little while. Next week is going to be a very tough one with two finals that are full year courses..a lot of material to re-learn.

Tomorrow after my first exam we will have a vault practice from 6 steps followed by gymnastics. So as long as I don't bomb the exam, I should have more energy than my previous vault practice on Tuesday.

Anyways, short posting tonight as I have to still review some more material for my exam in the morning. Thanks for reading,

Jay

Florida?!

2010-04-03T16:06:00.000-04:00

Wow, this has been some great weather. Heather and I went to Florida just after Christmas for an outdoor training camp and the weather was under 8 degrees for a good part of it. This week has been amazing, we have done some good quality running outdoors. We have both been pretty sore from the running and other exercises we have been doing, but we both managed to have a great start with our vault training, setting training pb's from 6 steps. Heather jumped 3.60m, and I jumped 4.60m.

Yesterday was an off day because of the Holiday and we needed it. Today however we had an awesome weight-room session. The exercises we did were Power cleans 5 sets of 6, Seated rows 4 x 8, Box squats 5 x 8, Push press 4 x 8, and Step-ups 4 x 6/leg. Luckily we now have a day off to let our legs recover a bit, but Monday we will be back to the grind. Time to enjoy the rest of the weekend. Happy Easter! Don't eat too much chocolate :)

Jay

Indoor World Rankings

2010-03-31T01:16:00.000-04:00

Now that the indoor season is finished, our World rankings should stay. They are the highest by far for both of us, with my best being 78th from the 2008 indoor season and Heather's being in the 100's for sure from last season.

Jason is tied for 43rd
Heather is tied for 66th

Back in Training

2010-03-30T09:11:00.000-04:00

Well, we have been back to the grind for almost a week now. We are sore and tired but it feels good to begin to get back into shape. After the competition season I always just feel the need to sweat and run until my legs can't do anymore. We probably won't begin competing until the end of May or beginning of June, so we have some time to really focus on training hard. I have been looking at the weather forecast for the end of this week and I am so excited to be able to train outside in this 23 degree weather!!! If only it would last...

This is also my last week of school, so I will be finished my Schulich career on Thursday, followed by one exam the next week. I am so excited but also a little nervous because I will be out in the real world without school as my security blanket. I will somehow figure out how to use my skills while still making training my priority. The commonwealth standards were released a week ago and they are very promising for Jay. 5.54 is the A standard and 5.53 is the B standard. This should be no problem, he just has to focus on staying healthy and well prepared. The womens' A standard is 4.45 and the B standard is 4.17. So I have a bit more of a challenge but I am ready to do everything i can to qualify. That's all for now, just time to work hard!

Heather

"Rest Week"

2010-03-18T20:47:00.000-04:00

So, this is our week off from training...and we couldn't have asked for a better week. It feels like we are on vacation with these summer like temperatures.

Although it is our week off we have been coaching our coaches group of high school kids and doing a lot of injury prevention exercises. So it is more like an active rest week.

Initially I was pretty disappointed with my technique at CIS, however, after watching the videos over and over again, there are a lot of things that I am doing much better now than at the start of the season. So I am confident that with some hard technical and physical work in the next few months I should be able to get my average competitions over 5.50m and then hopefully have the better ones above 5.60m closing in on 5.70m. I am ready. I have had many seasons full of injuries, but I think I am on the right track with my body (knock on wood). I have successfully made it through both the outdoor and indoor seasons with no serious injuries..which I haven't been able to do since 2005.

Anyways, going home for the weekend tomorrow, should be nice.

Thanks for reading!

Jason

Double Gold for Arye

2010-03-14T20:31:00.000-04:00

We just got back from Windsor this weekend where Jason and I managed to live up to our rankings and secure a gold medal in each of our competitions. I think this is even more of a win for our coach, Arye, who has really worked hard with both of us, after many ups and downs.

I vaulted on Friday night, and started out with a decent warm up. I decided to enter the meet somewhere around 3.90, but it all depended on how the other girls were jumping. When the bar got to around 3.80 I got to do a run through, along with Leah Vause from Saskatchewan. Since the progression went up by 5cm from 3.60, Leah, Erika Reiser and I all jumped opposite heights to make it an exciting competition. I jumped 3.90 on my first attempt, and Leah cleared 3.90 as well. We passed until 4.00m where I missed my first attempt. I stayed on a soft pole but made a much better jump than at my first height, so it was way too soft. Leah cleared 4.00m easily so I decided to pass to 4.05m and move to my next pole. I made it on my first attempt and decided to pass to 4.15, as Leah wanted to jump 4.10m. She was so close and will definitely jump a pb this summer. It was really fun to battle it out again like last year. So I won with 4.05m and decided to go to 4.23m right away to try for the CIS record. I got it on my second attempt, with a bit of a shaky jump, but it felt good to jump another height above 4.20m. After that, I raised the bar to 4.31m and had one good stab at it, but wasn't able to keep it up for my last two attempts. All in all I was very happy with my performance, and I'm more excited to start training for outdoors and getting some big heights in.

Jason vaulted the next morning, and the guys really stepped it up with a lot of pb's. The competition took about 2.5 to 3 hours, so I'm glad Jason managed to keep it together during the long wait to enter the meet. Taylor and Dillon Petrucha both put up some great heights, to grab second and third place. Taylor made an awesome jump at 5.20 pushing Jason to have to jump 5.40 for the win. He pulled through after almost no-heighting at 5.20, so I was very relieved. He got on to his stiffest pole at 5.52, but didn't manage to clear it. There are signs of some very good things to come outdoors for him.

Anyway, we are exhausted after a long weekend, and ready for a week off. Then we will get back into things to prepare for the outdoor season. This weekend, one of our fellow Canadian vaulters, Kelsie Hendry came 6th at the World Indoor Championships with an amazing jump of 4.50m. Canadian vault is getting pretty exciting! Thanks to our family and everyone who supported us this season. We will soon be rested and ready to get back to work.

Heather

Leaving for CIS

2010-03-09T21:58:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I (Heather) will be leaving with my team for CIS in Windsor. Jason will not be leaving until Thursday, but I always love getting to a meet really early to get settled in before I have to jump. This will be my last CIS, as I am graduating this year, so I'm going to try and have a really good time along with a good performance. Jason and I are both ready for our last indoor meet of the season. We've had some good practices this past week, and we are itching to jump high. Jason had an especially good practice tonight, clearing a 5.40cm bungee from 14 steps.

I have been trying to enroll in a summer course to finish my degree, but that has not been going so smoothly. So I was a little tired for practice tonight, but I still managed to get some solid jumps in. I am going to try to forget about the stresses of school and focus on this weekend. I will be vaulting on Friday night at 6:00pm and Jay will vault on Saturday at 1:00pm. I will try to get everything on my first attempt so that Jay doesn't have a nervous breakdown before he has to compete. Two weeks ago at OUA's I almost no-heighted, which tends to make the other half very stressed out. Anyway, I am all packed up and ready to go! We will post our results as soon as possible.

Bye for now,

Heather

Saturday March 6, 2010

2010-03-06T15:38:00.000-05:00

This is the first blog write up. Heather and I(Jason) are both University Students, as well as competitive pole vaulters. Heather is in her final year at Schulich school of business at York University, and I am in my 5th year at U of T majoring in Geography.

Our immediate goals for this summer are to both qualify for the Commonwealth Games which will take place October 3-14 in New Delhi, India. We are unsure what the qualification standards will be, but we are confident they will be within our reach.

This indoor season has been going well for both of us, each with personal bests so far, and one competition to go, the Canadian University Championships in Windsor next weekend. Following CIS, we will both take a week off to rest our bodies a bit, and for me, to catch up on some school work. Our outdoor season will most likely begin in early June here in Toronto, and towards mid-June we will head to Europe for a series of competitions.

Pole Vault is a self funded event for the most part, so Heather and I will be looking at having some sort of event to try and raise money for our upcoming summer season. Stay posted for details as we will be in the process in the next month getting things in order.

Anyways, thanks for reading!

Jason