the jumpchrisjump.com blog: #14- Merry Christmas to All, and to All(Me) a Good Night(Height)

First off...Merry Christmas and Happy New Years. I hope that all of you are enjoying your time off of work or school and spending time with people that matter most to you. I just got back from Cincinnati. I got to spend a total of 2.5 days with my family and friends before I had to return to Champaign. I had to return to work. I have to work a few extra days so that I can travel to and compete at the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, NV. I get to work December 30th (my b-day), 31st, January 1st, 2nd and 3rd. But that's enough about me, wait....nah forget it.

Moving on. It has been a while since I posted, I was experiencing a lack of improvement from 6 and 7 steps. I struggled for a few weeks attempting to jump 16' and 17', respectively. I moved back to 8 lefts today. That placed me around 111'-112' on the runway. I learned one thing---I am fast. This makes some things easier and other things harder. For examples I can jump to stiffer poles without raising my grip, but its harder to time my plant and swing. This quickness on the runway also causes me to rush my jump unnecessarily. However, today I was pretty far down in the dumps. I did not eat well during my "off days" and I had terrible congestion/cold thing going on. I came into practice today feeling optimistic though, I scooted the steps back and tried to make some things happen. My timing was probably the only thing really affected today, it could have been the cold or the extra left, who knows? The video attached is of me jumping from 8 lefts at a bar at 5.10m (16'9"ish). I put some decent height on a few bars. Using a relatively low grip and having jumps like these makes me feel a little better. But I am still not satisfied, I have to start "committing to the swing and getting vertical, not committing to the bar" (as Bryan put it). The days are drawing nigh, almost 180 days (6 months) from where I want to eventually be. And I am jumping about 2 feet lower than i need to. But consider, I have jumped higher from every step...I think some good things are soon to come. Goals still stand, I want to jump 18' from 8...still got some work to do.

If you read the blog and you are going to be in Reno let me know or just find me and give me a shout.

The T-Mobile Splash Magazine has been shipped to all employees. Here is what was published. Enjoy. Thanks to T-Mobile and Alice Liang.