Can West Performance of the Meet
Well that was definitely not the way I wanted to end my season. As always, there are good things that can be taken from it, but sometimes these are hard to focus on. In a span of 60 days, I attempted some mental training (blew up in my face), jumped the worst I have in a couple years (2.00m) and will be going for surgery in a month.
This outdoor was weak. I opened with a good season opener (2.12m), especially considering it was my first full approach day of the year. Then followed that up with 2.09, 2.08, 2.00, and 2.08 at nationals. Now I have lots of excuses, including weather, lack of competition, inconsistency, injuries. But the truth is that I just forgot how to jump. In my best year ever (where my personal best leaped from 2.07 to 2.16), I was playing tons of basketball and also competing in long jump. With all the dunking, jumping and training, I was very good at jumping, and getting into a good position to jump. In this outdoor season, I couldn’t figure that out. I probably did 15-30 jumps a week, vs 50+ a week when basketball and long jump are involved.
Now to the good news. In a month from now, my hip will be set on the road to proper recovery. In December 2012, I wiped out while hurdling, and partially dislocated my hip. It greatly restricts my training, which I discovered is from a labral tear. I met with a surgeon in Manitoba, who decided a laparoscopic scope is the way to go. After 1.5 years of reduced training, and very minimal jumping and dunking, it will be exciting to be properly repairing and rehabbing my hip. The road to getting back onto the track will likely take 1-4 months, but I should be in much better shape than I am now. I will be getting surgery on Aug 11.
As I said, there were also positives from the year. My goals going in were to break the conference record from my school, earn the President’s Award for my university, win a 3rd team banner and join the 2.20 club. I was fortunate enough to jump 2.16m at Can West Championships, breaking the conference record from 1979! Once I did that, winning my 5th straight conference gold, I knew that I had solidified the President’s Award. I am so lucky and honoured to have earned it, as it is an award for academic and athletic achievement and is one of the most prestigious awards the University of Regina has to offer! Other highlights from the indoor season include winning the team banner and repeating as the CIS national champion.
To end things off, here is my near-make at 2.20m:
