Project Triple Jump Blog
Monday, December 26:
After taking two flights to get here, I finally got to the Bahamas, with one of my camp mates Chris Brown, who had the same second flight as me. We met up with Cedric Walker and Devin Fields, and the coaches of the camp who are Peter Pratt and Antonio Saunders who were already at the airport awaiting our arrival.
After waiting for the other athletes to arrive, we headed out to the van, and were exposed to the lovely 80 degree weather, which was a drastic change from the 30-40 degree weather in Boston at this time. We loaded up the bus, and headed to the hotel, touring along the way, getting a chance to see some of Nassau, which is a really colorful and beautiful place. There was glitter all over the ground and there were remnants of the Junkanoo, a 'carnival' like festival that had just ended a few hours before we got here. We then came to our hotel, which is also really nice, and then left to to eat dinner at a restaurant called the conch shell. Most of us got delicious and over-sized burgers.
After dinner we came back to the hotel, and got settled into our rooms. After getting comfortable, we met for a team meeting to discuss why the six of us were chosen to be here and what our agenda was for the following day. We talked about the lack of US female triple jumpers on the medal stand, and how this program is aspiring to change that. Following the meeting, a few of us started walking to a nearby corner store with our chaperones to get some water, but didn't have to walk the whole way because we were offered a ride by a hospitable Bahamian. We got a few gallons of water, and walked back to the hotel, where we rested up for the practice awaiting us in the morning.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
We all woke up early for our 8 o' clock practice on Cabbage Beach which was on Paradise Island. We began with a jog down the beach, which is much harder than it sounds. The sand was deep and soft and it made your feet sink with every step. It wasn't long before i felt my quads started to burn. We then stopped jogging and did some dynamic stretches to continue our warm-up, such as leg swings and arm rotations. We finished our stretches and headed back to were we began the jog. On the way back up the beach, instead of jogging the whole way back, we alternated between drilling about 20 steps, walking 20 steps and continuing this pattern with an assortment of different drills, such as lunges, side lunges, A skips, and B skips, to name a few. After doing this for a majority of the way back, we finished by jogging back a short distance to our starting point. We took a few minutes to hydrate and then we did a few hill accelerations, mimicking our drive phase in our approach. That concluded our morning session, and we headed to McDonalds to get food. After eating,we were shown the Ultimate Fitness Center. We were told about how unconditional ways of staying fit were common to the center.
At the afternoon practice, we headed to Cable Beach at Goodman's Bay where we jogged again, but the sand was much shallower and not as hard compared to the previous beach, so it was a lot easier. Returning from the jog, we completed warming up with dynamic stretches and and proceeded with practice. We did repetitions of step ups on parking lot stumps which varied in height, averaging around two feet tall. We worked both sides, working our posture, making sure we kept tall, as well as our arm drive as we stepped onto the stump. After these drills, we did some drills including high skips, skips for distance, and first phase cycles. Then, we went into the water, which was a little chilly at first, and let our legs soak for a bit. After a while of soaking,we did some runs out of the water up on to the beach, which was sloped, again focusing on driving and accelerating. After we were done with a few of those, we stayed in the water and relaxed for a bit and just enjoyed ourselves. We then made our way to dinner and went back to the hotel for the night.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Like the previous mornings, we woke up early for our morning practice. At this point we were getting into the rhythm of the schedule a little more. For breakfast we went to the Starbucks near our hotel, got some food and were off to the track. During the morning session the main focus was on centering ourselves. We discussed how it is necessary to be selfish in track when in comes to big competitions, such as international meets. We learned that we need to start being and feeling tall, as if we were ten ft. tall. We talked about how when we get on the runway we can do a variety of things to give us time to focus in on the runway and make it ours. Then we did a drill around the track to help emphasize using our peripheral vision, instead of looking down at the board. After the morning session, we went to eat lunch, and after relaxing there for a while, we walked to the track, which wasn't far away.
For the afternoon session, we warmed up with some laps and stretches and proceeded with some hurdle drills, focusing on rhythm and flexibility. After a variety of these drills we went to the runway to try and apply the ' centering' we learned about in the morning session. We did our pre- approach ritual, many included leaning back multiple times before beginning the approach; the rituals providing us time to center and make the runway our own. After doing multiple run troughs, we concluded practice. We went sightseeing a little bit, and went to the straw market, a tourist market place, to shop around for a bit and see more of the island. All of us got something to take back home so it was a successful souvenir trip.
After shopping, we went back to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner. For dinner went down to a popular tourist spot for food. It was packed and took forever to get to us, but it was very good. It was a little chilly by the time we finished with dinner. We returned to the hotel after dinner and decided to jump into the pool. Although it was cold out, it was fun, and none of us stayed in long. After that we called it a night and headed to our rooms.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
For our morning session, which we had after our Starbucks breakfast, we went to the Police College of the Bahamas to use one of their classrooms. We sat down with notebooks and pens to take notes on what Coach Pratt had to teach us about jumping. We discussed how to break down our jumps (number wise). For example, if 51 ft is the desired distance, it would be ideal to have each phase be 17 ft, but more than likely that won't be the case. So we talked about how to play with the numbers based on strengths and weaknesses. We also talked about how to read the distances of jumps. These were just some of the things we discussed during the classroom session.
When we left we went to visit the Minister of Youth Sports and the Minister of Education. After this we toured the new National Stadium, which was a gift form the People’s Republic of China. It seats 15000 and is a sight to see.
We then headed off to check out some local basketball games, which were entertaining, then to lunch and then to our afternoon session. The weather began to be not so nice, as it began to be windy and rainy for a while. We waited in the van for a bit as it started clearing up and then went out to the track, did our own warm ups, and prepared to do some short approach jumps. We did some at about four steps and then some at around seven or so. We received advice on what could be improved from Coach Pratt and Coach Saunders. After our jumps we did six run throughs, again working on our form and our peripheral skills. That ended our last practice. We, the Americans and Bahamians, enjoyed each other’s company over some pizza and hung out for a bit.
We then headed back to the hotel, and got ready to go to dinner at one of the teammate's rental house. Once we got there, we sat down and ate dinner and hung out. We played a few coordination and concentration games, and ended the night by taking photos and saying goodbye to the Bahamians we had met during our stay. We went back to the hotel and packed our things, preparing to leave the following day. Us teammates spent time together, knowing we had to depart the next day, and then said our goodnights.
Friday, December 30, 2011
It was our last day in the Bahamas, and it was time to leave the sunshine and colors to head back to the States. I had earlier flight along with teammate Devin Field and Coach Walker. We left the hotel at 9:15 with the two other teammates who had later flights, Chris Brown and Jennifer Madu, and with Ms. Kamani, who also had a later flight. Coach Pratt, whom I have to give props to for driving us around this entire trip, and the three of us with earlier flights said our goodbyes and were dropped off at the airport. We got breakfast, and as time passed we said our good byes and got on our flights. As I was on my plane, before falling asleep, I reminisced on the trip, the teammates and Bahamians I had met, and what an enjoyable experience the trip had been. I will miss the people I met very much until I see them again, which will hopefully be sometime in the near future, and I'm very grateful to the National Scholastic Sports Foundation who afforded me opportunity to go on this trip. It learned a lot of new things and I will emphasize and apply them to my jumping.
