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.