yesterday and today i was asked to run the vault at a True Team Section meet at the ole stomping grounds (Park HS). I’ve been running the pole vault at various meets for, well, this is my sixth summer out of school, plus the couple two or three years that i came home and helped out when i was in college… so we’ll say my 8th year running the vault at the end of the season meets. It’s a lot of fun – i’ve gotten to meet quite a few of the coaches and even the vaulters i’ve gotten to know at these few meets (especially the ones who’ve been vaulting for a couple years) – or at least i recognize them.
Yesterday sucked balls, because we were unable to get the vault in due to the weather (it’s not safe to vault in the rain and while i enjoy fun like everyone else, it’s not my style to be putting kids in bad situations). almost sounds like i’m going the route of responsible??? what is that all about. regardless, the decision was made to put the boys vault off until today. which means i get to run both the boys and girls vault in one afternoon – in the same time frame as which it is expected to run just the girls vault.
now, i take pride in my efficiency and expediency when running the vault. i get down to business, i get the workers who are helping me by setting standards and putting the bar back up into a rhythm, and it runs like a well oiled machine. today was no different. in fact, i finished both the boys and girls vault before the girls high jump finished and they had just girls. it was beautiful. it’s very possible that the reason we finished so quick, is because we had a handful of no-heights and quite a few vaulters were done after the second height. also, this was a meet where it seemed you made it on the first attempt or not at all. regardless, we were done with enough time to play before the meet was finished… and play i did.
i haven’t vaulted myself in a loooooong time. and when i say a looooooong time, i mean since college (going on 5 years). i ate up some time whilst waiting for a vaulter to finish a race last week when i worked a meet at tartan (where sister is coaching this year). and i got the itch. so with all that daylight, a pit and some poles which would do the trick… the planets just aligned.
now, i get a lot of crap from the kids i coach in football. but yet, i prove them wrong every chance i get – it’s almost too easy sometimes. they called me out on my vaulting capabilities and ya know what, i still got it. i was doing a little bit of the coaching, just helping out a couple of the vaulters with some things i noticed during the meet and i did a couple of pop-ups myself, which felt great. then started flying off the pole a bit. now, i’m a bit bigger and they don’t exactly have poles my size, so i was holding down quite a bit on one of the larger poles, but i was able to make the kids throw a bar up for me and whatdya know, i cleared it! granted i was in flats and had no true ‘step’, basically just winging it – but it felt good getting my fat@$$ up in the air. the bar was set around 10’6 or so and that’s about where my grip was. vaulting the hand grip after a 5 year hiatus, not too shabby.
the only problem: i don’t know if that itch was scratched enough…