A Good Day Indeed

I’m still basking in the glow of my new discus arriving lest night. It’s a Denfi Hyper Superspin 1.5kg and it’s just beee-utiful. It’s so beautiful that I don’t even want to use it. It’s kind of like when you get a new car and it doesn’t have any door dings on it yet, if you know what I mean. There’s a very good chance that it’s first flight will be my first throw in competition this year. That will be interesting. Here’s a pic.

So, the weather, my allergies, and the planets all aligned and I finally got out to throw after work for the first time this year. It was kind of fun because the 9th graders were out practicing and I saw a couple of familiar faces from last year.

I got several good throws in. I don’t think I threw any under 130’, and one went 142’…in totally dead air. That was very encouraging, as we’re only about a month away from “show time”.

Let's Get This Party Started

It looks like the official start of the season is here. The entry form for the first meet has been posted, and when I went out to practice today the discus and shot put areas had been marked off with actual sector lines, and distance arcs. The sectors looked a little wide to me, but maybe that’s what they use in Texas middle schools. The distance arcs however, were spot-on with their indicated distances. I measured the 120’ and 140’ lines and in both cases my tape measure indicated that the distances fell within the 4” wide chalk marks. That will save me some time at practice. Of course the lines will gradually begin to fade, and if memory serves me by May I will be looking around for the few remaining flakes of chalk to indicate where the line use to be.

We had a cold snap this week with the temperatures getting down as low as 28 degrees, so practicing my throwing after work was postponed. But this week is looking good, and last week may have been the last week of cold weather I have to deal with until next year. Now if the rains will only cooperate…

My throwing today was encouraging, except for the distances. That may sound funny, but there was a very strong and gusty tailwind today. My best feeling throw of the day only went about 120’ because just as I hit the middle and began to explode into the throw a giant gust of wind came up. The discus started out really sweet, but at about 100’ it just started to drop like a rock. It was weird – Instead of turning over from left to right (since I’m a lefty) the tail dropped out from under it, and it hit almost straight up and down, tail first. I’ve never seen that before, but like I said, that throw felt really good.

On another note, I might have to rethink my goals for Hammer and Weight Throw this year. I really think I could achieve them, but I’ve come to the realization that I really dislike practicing those events. Unless I can get beyond that, I’m afraid my Hammer and Weight throwing will have to be just recreational.

Climbing Back

It looks as if the weather and the lengthening daylight hours are finally cooperating to allow me to get out and begin training for the 2007 season. After my first few throwing sessions I’ve noticed a couple of things. First, I’ve got a lot of muscle soreness. Second, my distances are down at least 5 feet from where I left off last year.

It’s not quite panic time though. Even though I’ve been pretty good about getting to the weight room for the last several weeks the next couple of months should see a little more improvement in strength. And, no matter how much you do in the weight room there are still some muscles that only seem to get used when throwing, so those muscles have only just begun their training. Finally, my timing is a little off which doesn’t help matters at all. Like I said, in a couple of months things should be starting to come together and I should be a least where I was last season.

The problem with that is that I wanted to be significantly better this year than I was last season.