Reno this weekend, Then off to Europe!

 Well guys this week has been a little bit crazy, im preparing not only for one of my favorite meets, the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nevada but im also packing for a 3 week stint in Europe.  Thats not all, Amanda and I have just signed a lease to move into our first house!  We are very excited to have some more space, a garage, and especially a backyard.  With all that going on it has been a little crazy this week to pack everything i will need for nearly a month.
For all of you who will be at the Summit this weekend, please find me and tell me that you read my blog, i may have a little something for you!  Also i will have lots of shirts for sale, so if you havent gotten one yet you can grab one from me there.
Im super pumped to jump this weekend, the crowd is always amazing and the runway is fast.  Im getting 2 new poles from Gill to replace the one i broke as well as a bigger one.  Let me tell you that I know if I jump on these poles 19ft will be no problem.  Ive been checking out the meets i will be doing in Europe and they all look like great venues, all of which will be new to me.  I have about 9 days between my first and second meet so i will be staying in Linz, Austria at an athletics club, so i should have plenty of time to update my blog and hopefully see some of the city. 
I jump friday night at Reno and i will def have some video up soon after.  Im feeling good, and Im ready to jump big, and i cant wait to tell you all about it.

Always Pursuing -Mark-

5.60m and my first pole break in 7 years!!

Ok i decided to post my near miss at 5.72m/18'9" and the pole break 2 jumps earlier. This is the first pole ive broken in 7 years! I am actually really lucky that this pole broke when it did, I could've broken it next week in Reno or even when i was in Europe! That would have been a catastrophe. Im jumping better that ive ever jumped before in my life! I cant wait to get the new poles and get out to reno in front of all those fans and jump some huge bars right before i go to Europe.




Break!


Always Pursuing -Mark-

5.62/18'5" GVSU New Indoor PR!!

That felt good!!!!

Probably the best jump of my life, bar is at 18', pole is 5m/16'5" 215lbs run from 134' takeoff is 13'9".

Approach feels really solid, my speed is already back if not even faster than last year. I ended up jumping 17'9" 18' and then i made 18'5" on my third attempt, which was also a good jump but not quite as good as this one. after 18'5" I raised the bar to 5.72m/18'9" and went up to the 5.10m/16'9" poles to feel them out some more. I had only jumped on the smallest one in practice so we didn't know which poles we would need to jump on. So i ended up just hitting a few of the bigger poles but never really had any good attempts at the bar.

That result puts me at #2 in the world, that wont last long of course but that's why im going to go back to GVSU next Friday and jump again. I figure its best to get in one more meet with my coach before Reno and my trip to Europe immediately after that. So this week we'll work on a few things, try to get in another good practice from long and go back on Friday and try to hit those bigger poles and more than likely be able to get that 18'9" and hopefully 19"!

Always Pursuing -Mark-

Snow!

Holy cow! We have been slammed with snow over the weekend, South Bend got a total of about 39 inches in a little over one day! We didnt get as much here in Elkhart but still got quite a lot. Luckily it was over the weekend so by the time we needed to go to South Bend for practice the roads were clear enough that we could make it. Since a little before Christmas I have been jumping over at Bethel College in Mishawaka as you have seen from my videos lately. Sunday I jumped at Bethel and got back to my long run, the early practice at the long run is tough because even tho Im only running 130 ft, the tempo is always difficult to get accustomed to. But even tho im still working on the run, im still jumping on big poles! Last week I took up the 5.10m poles which i did once last year but never jumped well on them. Yesterday I jumped on the 5m 13.3 and had height on 5.70/18'8" Im really happy with the way practice has been going and Im super pumped for my first meet on Friday in Michigan. Today I just have some light conditioning to do so i gotta get ready to go hit that. Heres a video of me doing a new drill, a inverted pushup finishing in a piked position. Not as much for the strength side but for the position at the end.



Always Pursuing -Mark-

First day back at full approach!

I hope that all of you had a safe and wonderful holiday. I spent Christmas with my wifes family in western New York. I was there for a week and was able to get some workouts in at Brockport High School. We came back a few days after Christmas, got back wednesday night, practiced thursday morning and headed to my parents house in northern Illinois to hang out with my family. We returned to Elkhart on Sunday afternoon, glad to be home finally.

Monday I went into practice at Bethel College in Mishawaka. I practice there every now and then when we are unable to do so at Notre Dame. In the past we had to set up a board runway every time we had to practice, but last year they finally dropped a box. So now all we have to do is roll out a runway and do a little setup and were ready to go.

So Monday practice was going really well, so we decided to go all the way back to my full approach, 9 lefts. I was able to take about 10 jumps and improved on every jump. This video is the last jump of practice, running from 132' takeoff at 13'9" pole is a 5 meter 13.3 215lbs, bungee at 5.65m/18'6". Really just working on the approach and getting comfortable with it again.





Always Pursuing -Mark-