The Season is Underway

I’ve had my first few competitions of the season this month. With the start of the season has come a lot of excitement and a lot of frustration. To start off, I traveled to competed at the Sun Angel Classic in Tempe, Arizona and the Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, California. Entering those meets, I was in great shape and ready throw far. Really far. I was coming off of personal bests in training with the heavy 9-kilogram and 10-kilogram hammers. But when the meet day came around, I ran into foul trouble. All the training with the heavy hammers had affected my rhythm with the 7.26-kilogram (16-pound) hammer. I tossed all of my attempts out of the sector at the Sun Angel Classic and only managed to keep a few easy throws in at Mt. SAC. While the fouls were far, they didn’t count and left me scratching my head and wondering “what if”.

Dr. Bondarchuk was not worried. He said this program has really increased my strength, but also exhausted my core muscles. Our plan is to keep with this training program until early May and then adopt a training program with lighter hammers that will improve my rhythm and help my body rest before the bigger competitions in June and July.

My fan club at the Mt. SAC Relays.

In the meantime, I am still training with the heavy program and I felt the exhaustion set in last week after returning to Seattle. But while my results dropped, my technique began to stabilize. I decided to add another meet, the Oregon Relays, to my schedule last week as a confidence builder. I made the trip down to Eugene just to remind myself that I could make some legal throws (and hopefully long throws too). After six legal throws on Saturday, I again feel like I’m ready to break 70 meters this season. Despite the ups and downs this month, my confidence never waned. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a cheering fan club at every meet, led by my loving girlfriend (see photo to the left). It’s hard not be happy with that kind of support.

Side note: Some of my training partners have been doing exceptionally well this month. My roommate Sultana Frizell won the Mt. SAC Relays and broke her own Canadian record with a toss of 71.64m (235-0). Shot putter Justin Rodhe threw a two foot personal best of 18.96m (62-2.5) at the Oregon Relays on Saturday. As of Friday, he is also now engaged to Megann VanderVliet, a hammer thrower in our training group.