2005 Final Rankings
The 2005 Masters Track and Field rankings were finalized over the weekend, and I finished with rankings in 2 events. I slipped from 21st to 22nd in the Hammer Throw, and held on to 14th place in the Weight Pentathlon. It’s disappointing that I didn’t make the top 25 in Discus after finishing 20th in 2004, and given that my best throws for the 2 years were only 3cms (1 inch!) apart, but the competition was quite a bit tougher in 2005. Also, my best Weight Throw for the season would have ranked 21st, but I didn’t submit the performance because I felt that the landing area was sloped too severely. There’s not much to say about Javelin and Shot Put, except that I wasn’t even close to being ranked.
I hope to make the 2006 ranking list in 4 events, with Weight Throw and Discus being the 2 events additional to the 2005 rankings. I might have an outside chance at also making the list in Javelin, but that’s going to take quite a bit of improvement for me. Shot Put is going to have to wait until 2007 I’m afraid. Of course as this year’s Discus rankings proved, a lot of it depends on what the competition does.
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I was finally able to throw again on Saturday after a too-long layoff due to recent weekend rains. It felt good to get out again and watch things fly, but unfortunately, they didn’t fly as far as I would have liked.
I was surprised that all of my recent weight training has had very little effect (so far) on most events. The one possible exception was with the discus. My standing throws in discus were back up around 115’ again, with one of them just shy of 116’. Proper form on the rotation applied to these standing distances should produce throws just beyond 130’. On Saturday I was able to throw just short of 130’ (129’ 3” actually), which is indicative of rusty technique. Another month or so in the weight room doing straight-arm butterflies, and more frequent throwing should give me some confidence of going over 130’ in the first meet in March. That is my conservative goal for the meet, and would represent a personal best, but my optimistic goal remains 135’. There’s not much hope of reaching that distance unless I can get my standing throws up around 120’ feet, but I think that reaching standing throw distances near 120’ by March 18th is still within reason. We’ll just have to see how things progress.
So far, all of the other throws are remaining relatively unchanged from where they were at the end of last season. This is very frustrating because the feedback I’m getting in the weight room is that my strength levels are much improved. A lack of improvement in javelin and hammer is somewhat understandable because they are so technique oriented, rather than strength-based. But…the lack of improvement in shot put has me baffled.
It’s very difficult to understand how a 25% increase in my bench press and a 45% increase in my squat over last year have yet to produce any gains in the shot put. One of my favorite sayings is that only a fool continues doing the same thing while expecting different results, but I don’t know what else to do with my shot put other than to continue to work to get stronger and to improve my technique. Could it be that there is some critical minimum level of strength that one must attain before distances begin to lengthen, and that I just have not yet reached that level? I know I can now throw the 4kg shot put about as far as I would like to throw the 6kg, so maybe I just need to get strong enough so that I can handle the 6kg with the same ease that I can now handle the 4kg. That’s my theory anyway.
The six weeks that remain before the first meet is not much time to gain a lot of strength, but I need to remember that this six weeks only marks the start of the season. While I would like to get the season off to a good start, the big meets of the year and the ones I really want to do well in, are still seven months off.
I hope to make the 2006 ranking list in 4 events, with Weight Throw and Discus being the 2 events additional to the 2005 rankings. I might have an outside chance at also making the list in Javelin, but that’s going to take quite a bit of improvement for me. Shot Put is going to have to wait until 2007 I’m afraid. Of course as this year’s Discus rankings proved, a lot of it depends on what the competition does.
_____________________________________
I was finally able to throw again on Saturday after a too-long layoff due to recent weekend rains. It felt good to get out again and watch things fly, but unfortunately, they didn’t fly as far as I would have liked.
I was surprised that all of my recent weight training has had very little effect (so far) on most events. The one possible exception was with the discus. My standing throws in discus were back up around 115’ again, with one of them just shy of 116’. Proper form on the rotation applied to these standing distances should produce throws just beyond 130’. On Saturday I was able to throw just short of 130’ (129’ 3” actually), which is indicative of rusty technique. Another month or so in the weight room doing straight-arm butterflies, and more frequent throwing should give me some confidence of going over 130’ in the first meet in March. That is my conservative goal for the meet, and would represent a personal best, but my optimistic goal remains 135’. There’s not much hope of reaching that distance unless I can get my standing throws up around 120’ feet, but I think that reaching standing throw distances near 120’ by March 18th is still within reason. We’ll just have to see how things progress.
So far, all of the other throws are remaining relatively unchanged from where they were at the end of last season. This is very frustrating because the feedback I’m getting in the weight room is that my strength levels are much improved. A lack of improvement in javelin and hammer is somewhat understandable because they are so technique oriented, rather than strength-based. But…the lack of improvement in shot put has me baffled.
It’s very difficult to understand how a 25% increase in my bench press and a 45% increase in my squat over last year have yet to produce any gains in the shot put. One of my favorite sayings is that only a fool continues doing the same thing while expecting different results, but I don’t know what else to do with my shot put other than to continue to work to get stronger and to improve my technique. Could it be that there is some critical minimum level of strength that one must attain before distances begin to lengthen, and that I just have not yet reached that level? I know I can now throw the 4kg shot put about as far as I would like to throw the 6kg, so maybe I just need to get strong enough so that I can handle the 6kg with the same ease that I can now handle the 4kg. That’s my theory anyway.
The six weeks that remain before the first meet is not much time to gain a lot of strength, but I need to remember that this six weeks only marks the start of the season. While I would like to get the season off to a good start, the big meets of the year and the ones I really want to do well in, are still seven months off.
posted by Jake at 8:40 PM
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