Pueblo fair vault

I had a great time at the Colorado state fair vault last night! Another just great event put on by Mark Pierson out in Pueblo, Colorado. The event was in the middle of the fair, the runway was fast and a bit downhill, I felt effortless running down the runway. The vault got started around 530, my warmups went fairly well, I was running well and my takeoff was out. The only problem was that I wasn't at all used to the altitude, it wasn't an issue with my jumps but it took me a lot longer to recover after every jump, this would come to bite me in the end.

I came into the competition at 17ft along with Rory Quiller, still in the meet were Sam Pierson, Levi Keller, and Mike Arnold, who all went to Idaho State University. I made 17 easily on my first attempt as did almost everyone else. The bar went up to 17'6", this time I came down the runway and hit the pole really good and just hit the bar off on the way up. I came down my 2nd attempt on a bigger pole and made the bar easily. Now Rory and I were the only ones to make 17'6" so we went up to 18'. Both Rory and I made the bar on our first attempts! We had quite the little competition going. Next was 18'6" and by this time I was really feeling tired and just couldn't catch my breath after every jump. I had gone up poles to my 5.10m 13.2 and I put a really solid jump together on my 2nd and just barely grazed the bar on the way over and it came down. We went to third attempts and I was really struggling now, my mouth was dry, I was breathing hard and just didn't feel like I had a lot of energy left. I ended up being under on my takeoff and couldn't finish the jump. So we went to a tie breaker, we both got another shot at 18'6". Rory missed his 4th attempt so I was excited, I had mustered up all the energy I had left, came down hit a sweet takeoff, swung up and had a ton of height on the bar but I came down it just barely and hit it off.

Rory and I continued to battle it out for first, we attempted 18'3" 18' and 17'9 with neither of us able to make the bar. I have never been more exhausted at a meet in my life. I felt like I had been running 400's and then was attempting to vault. After my last jump at 17'9" in which I rebent the pole after nearly coming down in the box, I called it a day, it was really just starting to get dangerous for both of us especially me. Rory and I decided to split the 1st and 2nd place prize money and we ended up tieing for 1st.

Overall I had a great time at my first meet in Colorado. I will definitely try to do more to counteract the altitude difference if possible next time. I'm in the car heading to the airport now, were cutting it a little close on time but hopefully. I will make it back to Elkhart tonight, if I don't Amanda will probably beat me up, so keep your fingers crossed.

Also I did sell about 10 tee-shirts, and that was about all to spectators. I was pretty happy with that since a lot of the vaulters from earlier didn't stick around. Which just blows my mind, if I had a chance to watch someone vault over 18 feet when I was in high school I would have jumped all over it. So I do have more tee-shirts left if you would like to order one. If you have alreadyu put your order in those will be in the mail Tuesday, since the post office is closed tomorrow. Again thank you all for your support, I truly would not be able to this without you.

Always Pursuing,
Mark