Give Me a Break!

So, good to be home…. As a seasoned frequent flyer, flying to Brazil is a tough one for me. My travel time was about 24hrs, a much longer and difficult travel compared to my 7hr travel time to Europe. While the travel from Canada to Brazil may be long, it is certainly a beautiful country and one which I would recommend anyone to visit once in their life.

Competitively, Brazil was definitely a ground level performance, but as I said before and anticipated, this season is all about the climb. I competed in Fortaleza and Belem, producing less than desirable results, BUT, some positives to work with. The first competition was pretty challenging all around – an 8am start time, competing less than 15hrs after a 24hr travel, combined with a nemesis jumping surface. In retrospect, given my style of jumping, I’m not sure I could have done much better. The high jump shoe is designed with 10 spikes (4 in the heel and 6 in the front) to provide gripping. The heel spikes in particular, are essential for the gripping required around the curve and going into the take-off phase of the high jump. Moreover, the spike pins can come in different styles – flat, pyramid or needle. Mine are flat spike pins. On almost every other surface, I find these spike pins to be superior for me, until, I competed in Fortaleza. Because, the surface was so hard and slippery, my spikes were not able to penetrate the track, running and jumping off that track was similar to running and jumping off of ice. If you’ve ever seen a dog try to start or stop running on ice, you’d have an accurate picture of how I looked trying to run and jump off this surface. So, all in all, while I jumped an embarrassing 1.81m, I actually was just glad I didn’t injure myself!!! Oh well, it is what it is, and we have to have days like those, so we appreciate the great days!

The second competition was perhaps a bittersweet pill to swallow. I went into that competition truly trying to work on consistently executing 2 technical components… Which in the end, paid progressive dividends… While the performance was a mere 1.84m, technically I can work with this. I didn’t fail to clear the next height because it was too high a bar, but rather because of poor timing/spacing. This is a good problem to have. But, obviously failing to jump high can also make it a bitter pill to swallow, when the quality of the jump is not reflected in the end result…. I’m giving myself two more meets to get my act together.

Next competition – Ostrava, Czech Republic… ahhhiyaya… these 1.8Xm jumps are making my stomach turn. I think I’ve had enough to last me through 2012. My only solace is in knowing that in my best season thus far, my start to the outdoor season was pretty similar with a “No Height” and a 1.79m in there too! And that season took me to a few PB’s. It’s all about the climb, I guess. If patience is a virtue, it’s a virtue I’ve lacked, but I’m certainly developing it right now.

Kaizen,
Nicole