Big Things to Come

This past Friday, North Central College hosted its annual Cardinal Classic track meet. The meet, technically, went well. I placed 1st in weight throw by almost a meter and a half, and had a season's best throw in shot put. You would think I would sound more excited, right? Well, I am excited, but something happened that I'm even more excited about. We'll get back to that soon.
 
Like most meets, we started off with weight throw. The men went first, which went really fast. They only had seven men entered, and one of them was unattached only six went on to finals.
 

Men's Throws

 

There were only nine of us women, mostly NCC women, so we also went fairly quickly.

 

Women's Throws

 

During warm-ups, something amazing happened. I had an amazing two turn throw, probably around 17 meters. It was absolutely incredible. Unfortunately for me, I was then psyched out and could not for the life of me hit that throw during the meet.

 

I had too much energy and hype going into the throws. I needed to stay more relaxed, but I couldn't shake the excitement. As you can see from the results above, my throws were all over the place. I wasn't able to stay consistent in my throws at all.

 

Shot put went a little better, I was way more consistent. I'm finally able to throw in the 11 meter range consistently again. Which is super exciting, cause that means I still have room to grow, whereas I believed that I had peaked last year.

 

At practice on Thursday, I discovered that I had been throwing shot put wrong for the last eight years of my life. So, I'm supposed to start off of my heel and tuck my leg under to get onto my toe for the finish. Well, this whole time, I've been starting on my toe and finishing on my toe, which is why I've been having trouble tucking my leg under me to get a better finish.

 

I didn't want to try the new technique the day before the meet, so I decided against it. On the day of the meet, though, I gave it a try and it worked! Who would have thought?  I threw a season's best off of it, and had some decent finals' throws with it.

 

Women's Shot Put

 

Now, back to the exciting stuff!

 

After throws were all over, we found out that we weren't going to be able to throw inside for morning practice on Saturday. A few of us decided to take advantage of the cage being up, and throw some more.

 

My coach and one of my teammates made two slight edits to my form, and then all of a sudden I was throwing 17+ meters throw after throw! I was so pumped! I kept telling myself to stay relaxed because I knew if I started to get too excited I would just pull the crap out of the weight, and it would be like starting from scratch.

 

Needless to say, I'm super pumped for CCIW Indoor Conference this weekend! If I can hit the 17 meter mark, I could book my ride to DIII Indoor Nationals. This week, I'm focusing on controlling my emotions and using the same form that I used to throw those 17 meter throws.

 

"Good things come to those who wait. But better things come to those who work for it." - Anonymous