New York

I have totally slacked on writing this post!  The reason is simple; I'm home and I'm loving it.  I left for Ostrava on May 21st, and New York City was my last stop before coming home on June 10th.  It's good to be here and I've been soaking up the normalcy!!

I threw 60.33m and placed third at the adidas Grand Prix last Saturday!  That is my second best distance of the season, and I scored my first Diamond League point since 2010.  The stellar competition between Barbora Spotakova and Sunette Viljoen in NYC and the absence of some other international women highlight the fact that I have some rounding into shape to do, but I'm really happy to be where I am going into the Olympic Trials.

Stina told me the day before the competition in New York that only six athletes would get six throws, and there were nine of us.  On Saturday, I did my general warm-up slowly and thoroughly, and my body felt pretty good.  I was also in a great mood; my 3-week trip was almost over, it was a beautiful day, and I was determined to have fun at the meet!  In throwing warm-ups, I focused on relaxing my upper body, accelerating through my crossovers, and throwing the javelin over my left foot (aka having good alignment).  A few of my warm-up throws traveled probably 57-58 meters, and at one point Barbora said to me, "What are you doing in meets that you throw like this in warm-ups?" (She was in Rome the week previous, haha.)  I said,

"I know, right!?" 

I was happy to have some validation in my warm-up throws through her comment; I felt good about them, too!

After the first two rounds of competition, I was sitting in sixth, and was determined to move up in the standings before finals.  I wasn't about to take a chance that I would get knocked out of the top 6 and not get three more throws.  I accelerated a little better through my crossovers, hit a little more solid of a block, and kept my chest up way better on my third throw than the first two.  It was my best attempt of the day by about five meters, and kept me in third through rounds 4 through 6.

The rest of the day was really fun!  We threw around noon, so I got to watch women's shot and see Tyson Gay's return to the 100 meters before heading back to the hotel to get cleaned up and go to dinner.  Jill, Sarah, Julie and I wandered through Central Park and in and out of shops on 5th Avenue after eating; it was a beautiful night, and I appreciate NYC the most when there's some greenery visible.

Here's my favorite "New York Life" picture from the weekend.  I don't know who this lady is, but she's on the phone and juggling a lot of stuff while buying food from a cart on the busy streets at sunset.