Progress

Technical focus is paying off! Last Monday, my legs were pretty good during throwing practice. Thursday, my arm and javelin tip control got better, but my legs were awful. Today, I put them both together okay! I was able to be explosive with my legs, have a fairly substantial impulse, and get my left leg down before I initiated a good arm strike, keeping the tip down.

Yay!

Thanks to interim coaches Mike and Andreas, who are awesome for watching me throw while Ty is in Colorado with Becky and Melinda; they opened their indoor seasons on Friday! I don't know if you know this,

but Mike and I are pretty excellent training partners.

We work really hard, and he knows exactly what to say to me to push me in practice. Sometimes he motivates me so much that I feel guilty about not having good ammo to fire back! I'm more of the positive, happy, point-out-good-things-you're-doing kind of girl than one that can think of scenarios he'll get fired up about, anyway. :) The addition of Andreas to our regular training regimen has been super cool, too; obviously. We may not do the same things in practice each day, but it's always good to get a fresh perspective on things, especially when javelin knowledge is coming from such a reputable source!

Lifting has been going awesome, too. This block, we have front split jerks for four sets of two reps, and we hook ourselves up to a Tendo unit to measure our power. At the beginning of the block, I figured I'd have trouble with a certain amount of weight, but it turns out that I'm a lot stronger than I think! My power increased with each session until today. That's okay though, because this is the beginning of week 4 of this block,

which means I'm spent,

and ready for all the rest that is coming my way at the end of it. :)

I realized today that my birthday this year will mark ten years since my first javelin competition. On April 10, 2001, I threw 107 feet in a meet in Oregon. I was pretty excited to figure out that that milestone is coming!

Technique and Normalcy

I returned to San Diego from Colorado Springs last Monday morning, and went straight to practice; my first one with 500-gram javelins. That's always a little awkward, as my problems with lunging forward as I throw are blatant with a lighter-weight implement. When I throw heavy javelins (700- or 800-gram ones), my arm and upper body are forced to stay back, and I get a big stretch before the implement is released.

Not so with a dinky javelin!

I have to make sure I'm patient and really learn how to purposefully wait on the release. I'll do my best again today.

Another problem I've dealt with in my throwing for a very long time is controlling the tip of my javelin at release. I'm pretty flexible (understatement alert?), so I pretend that I can feel more stretch across my shoulder by breaking at the wrist when I throw. This makes for loss of distance because my power isn't going into the javelin at the correct orientation; the tip gets too high. This week, I'll focus only on keeping my wrist in line and making sure my javelin flies correctly. It's a little bit daunting to think about fixing this, because it is something I've always struggled with. Better late-ish than never...

I'm so happy to be back at the Training Center and able to practice normally every day. It's fun to travel and see family and get my workouts in elsewhere, but

never is training as beneficial as when I'm in the environment I'm familiar with,

with my coach and training partners. Four or five solid months of training regularly here is an exciting idea for me!

I know what my goals are, but I haven't written them down yet. Soon, I'll write measurable goals for training and competition!