June Training Update: Getting My Groove Back

When I got to Europe and saw my distances in training and competitions fall by five meters, I was a bit mystified. This happened to me last year, but I thought I had fixed the problems that led to it then. As I posted at the time, I knew that the five meters didn’t just vanish. My results were down, but I kept up hope that it would come back with the right adjustments. But after a month, my patience was starting to wear thin. I e-mailed Coach Bondarchuk to let him know how things were going and eagerly awaited his response. I thought he might be able to identify some new critical flaw in my technique, or perhaps alter my training program since things were not going well. Instead I got a short reassuring response that I will reprint in its entirety: “Hello Martin. Continued program. Dont vory. A.B.”

He was right. I took his advice, and things got better.

By the end of last week, training had already improved. I was ready for a little breakthrough, but the conditions and the meet were not accommodating to my plans. Since returning to training this week, I have continued to improve every day culminating in a record setting day Saturday. The morning started off with a new personal best with the 8-kilogram hammer (61.90 meters) and a near season’s best with the competition 7.26kg hammer (note: this throw would have been a season’s best if my training hammer didn’t have a diameter nearly as big as a beach ball). After enjoying the warm weather and the arrival of summer between practices, I returned in the afternoon to launch a new personal best with the 10-kilogram hammer (52.95 meters) and another solid throw with the 6-kilogram hammer. Needless to say, it was a good day. The only bad thing this weekend was that both the Swiss and the Americans lost in the World Cup, so now I have to find a new team to root for.

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