Free Fallin'

Listen closely, and you will hear the sound of my name falling out of the top 25 rankings for Shot Put. Frankly I’m a little surprised that I’ve lasted this long, but my wimpy 36’ 5.5” throw back in April just couldn’t hang with the big boys. Anyway, I’m down to 23rd place and it just a matter of time now. I’ve got to admit that I was very pleased with that throw when it happened, but even if I somehow make my very optimistic goal for the season (39’ 4.5”) the odds are slim that I would be on the list at year end. Last year’s 25th place throw was 42’ 1” after all.

If you did the math you would have noticed that my goal for the year is 3 long feet beyond my best throw of the season to-date. (Emphasis on the word “long”!) Even though that throw was a personal record and a big improvement over last year, I’ve been really frustrated with my lack of progress recently. So after much soul searching I’ve decided that my apparent shortage of good old brute force strength just won’t allow any significant additional improvements using the glide throwing technique. Because of this I’m now ready to make the switch to the spin technique in competitions. I’ve been practicing it quite a bit and I’m now able to throw about the same distance using either method, so the time is right. Hopefully, the mechanical advantages of the spin and my semi-decent spin technique in Discus will produce the additional ball speed needed to get that extra 3 feet. It’s about as drastic a change as one can make, but desperate times require drastic action. (Last meet’s 31’ 8” effort is still fresh on my mind.)

Now if I just had a plan for improving in Javelin…

Things Are Heating Up

I think we must have officially reached the peak of the track and field season, as updates to the national rankings are coming in fast and furious now. Just a few short weeks ago the rankings were updated only weekly, but they have been updated no less than 4 times in the last 5 days! Not surprisingly my name has been sliding down the list a little. In Hammer Throw, Shot Put, and Discuss Throw I’ve slipped to 6th, 20th, and 11th place, respectively. All is not lost though, because my goals for the season for those 3 events were top 20 rankings in Discus and Hammer. I knew I had no hope of being ranked in the top 25 in the Shot Put at the end of the year.

It is a little worrisome that I also wanted to be ranked in the top 15 in the Weight Throw and in the top 10 in the Weight Pentathlon, but I’ve yet to post a mark this season in either of them. Regarding the Weight Throw…I’ve participated in one competition and threw some fairly long fouls (ouch!). And my first Weight Pentathlon was this past Saturday, but I left the competition after completing only 3 of the 5 events (more on that later).

The meet was a good one, and the weather cooperated. My big fear of stifling heat was replaced with a big fear of a rain-out, but neither happened. As it turned out it was cloudy, humid, and not overly warm. I began the day with a first place in Hammer Throw, but with a very disappointing distance of 109’ 5.5”. I just didn’t have the rhythm that day, and I needn’t look any further than the minimum amount of Hammer practice I invested in order to find the cause. I came in dead last in Shot Put, which is not all that unusual, but what was unusual was just how poorly I did. 31’ 8” was all I could muster, which was my worst throw in 2 full years. I’ve been practicing the spin technique exclusively in hopes that it will ultimately produce longer throws, but I’m not quite ready for competition yet, so I reverted to the glide technique during the meet. I guess my lack of glide practice really showed. In discus I placed first with a throw of 124’ 8.5”. Not a great effort, but it felt pretty good. I must say though that I expected a throw of about 10’ further than I was able to manage. A slightly uphill landing area and a little bit of an unfavorable wind probably cost me around 5’ in distance. All in all, despite sub-par efforts in the three events there were some things to be optimistic about, and most importantly, I had a good time. (Oh yeah, on my way to the car a World Record and multiple American Record holder in various throwing events complimented me on my discus form. That was pretty sweet.)

Unfortunately, I had to cut my good time short. According to the meet schedule all the events were to begin promptly on the hour, which would imply that they would be completed in about an hour. By this logic I would have been finished with all 5 events by 2:00pm, at which time I could hop in my car and drive the 4 hours home so I could take my wife out to dinner on her birthday (thus avoiding another costly divorce). But, as 2:00pm approach we had finished only 3 events, so I had to bid my competitors a reluctant adieu and head home. As sorry as I was to have to leave early, I think I made a wise decision, as I am still alive to throw another day.

What Is Up With This?

So far this is shaping up to be something of a weird year for the throwing events in my age group. It could be that it’s not just my age group that is affected, but I don’t track the other age groups as closely as I do my own. The “weirdness” about it all is that while I’m doing a little better in my competitions, I’m doing a lot better with the respect to the national rankings. And this isn’t showing up in just one event – it’s pretty much across the board. So just what has happened to the competition?

OK, granted the season is only half over and there are plenty of big meets yet to be contested, including the National Championships in August. But typically by June many of the better performers have competed in a few meets, and they would have posted some fairly decent marks. What I’m seeing is that while the very top performers have done just that, the second tier athletes (the ones that normally bump me down the rankings lists) are noticeably absent from the rankings. I wonder what is up with that?

Here’s what the rankings look like as of June 7th:

Hammer Throw: Currently, anything would make the top 25 because only 7 marks have been posted to-date, the lowest of which is 125’ 4”.

Shot Put: Same story for Shot Put. Only 23 marks have been posted, with the lowest being 20’ 10”. For the past 4 or 5 years you would have needed a 42’ throw (over twice as far!) to make the year-end top 25 in Shot Put.

Discus: 94’ 6” gets you in the top 25 right now. At the end of last year the 25th place throw was over 134’.

Javelin: 82’ 9” makes the top 25 currently. One had to be over 143’ 3” last year.

Weight Throw: All the current Weight Throw marks are fairly solid, with the lowest being just shy of 45’. However, only 5 marks have been submitted.

Weight Pentathlon: Again, all fairly decent marks year-to-date, but here again, only 4 marks have been submitted.

Hopefully what I’m seeing is not indicative of a general decline in participation, and that the second half of the season will see some quality performances being submitted for ranking. I’ve been having way too much fun competing in these events in recent years to see them slowly evaporate before my eyes.