May Training Update

Back when I was throwing at the University of Washington my season was almost over by this point in the year. Rather than having thrown in just one meet, my season had only one or two meets left. Here in Switzerland, on the other hand, I still feel like my season has yet to begin and I’m getting a little impatient since all the men I used to train with in Kamloops threw new personal bests last weekend: Kibwe Johnson became the first American in a decade to break 80 meters and now ranks third in the world; Michael Letterlough improved his Cayman national record; and Ryan Jensen broke 60 meters for the first time. But, since our national championships are not until August, I keep reminding myself that there is no need to start as early as I did in North America.

In the meantime I just continue to train. I finished a 12 week training program last weekend and am now entering a two to three week rest phase. Of course, the term “rest” needs to come with a clarification since Dr. Bondarchuk’s version of “rest” is not the standard English definition. In other words, it is the only rest phase where you’ll be training three or more hours a day. The reason this new phase is called “rest” is because I will not spend any time in the weight room. Instead, I focus on just throwing and doing lots of kettlebell exercises. This rest period is needed after every normal training period so that the training progress made can start to transfer over into results. Training always has a delayed effect: if you are improving rapidly, it is likely due to exercises you completed last month or earlier. Even without the weight room, the simple change in exercises has worn me out and left me with some sore muscles to start the week. But at least I have a competition on the horizon. I was supposed to compete at Halle last weekend, where Betty Heidler set a new women’s world record, but that fell through. Instead I am going to Forbach, France on Sunday to compete against another stellar field with five men over 74 meters.

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