An Exciting Send Off

We had another fun send off on Friday here in Opelika, AL.  Kristin’s neighbors all got together and planned a great farewell.  They made some great salads and a beautiful cake with the Olympics rings on it.  We brought our implements for some up close and with a shot put and discus.  It’s great to know we have such great support here in Opelika as well as around the country.  The neighbors have been supportive all season wishing good luck on various trips and following our progress.  Here are some pictures of our exciting send off.

         

A Great Media Day

A special thank you to Toomer’s coffee for hosting an Olympic send off for Kristin Heaston and myself yesterday.  It was fun spending time with the family, friends and the community.  I had a great time and the support of others is awsome.  So keep the great vibes coming especially on our competition days.  I throw on Aug. 15th and 18th and Kristin throws on Aug. 16th.

Also one of my sponsors, Advocare, came out to practice yesterday to get some new footage and freshen up my advocare video.  I am excited to see the new one when they have it finished.  I know they have a few more athletes to shoot, Advocare had a number of endorsers make the 2008 Olympic Team.

Training for Reebok Grand Prix Meet

It’s been great to get back in the weight-room and training after all those days on the road to Japan and Hawaii.  I had a great week of lifting last week.  My Olympic lifts, bench and squats are finally starting to get close to what they were 2 years ago.  The weight-room staff at Auburn University is 1st class.  One of the assistant strength coaches, Jeff, is getting married this weekend.  Congrats Jeff!!!!

 After these 2 good weeks of hard training.  I am excited to be competing again this weekend in the Reebok Grand Prix in New York.  We are  going to have a great field of women’s discus throwers.  One of our American discus throwers, Stephanie has a current World Leading Mark at 66.17meters.  This is going to be my first visit to the Big Apple, I’ll try to take lots of pictures.

For more meet info visit, http://www.reebokgrandprix.com/

TV Times

ESPN2, May 31, 8:00-10:00 p.m.
CBS, June 1, 1:30-2:30 p.m.

A Great Week of Training

Training felt great this past week. My timing in the discus is starting to come back. So much of the throw is rhythm and timing. You can work the technique, but you have to find the right tempo as well.

My jumps and sprints are improving and I am feeling explosive again. I had a great jumping workout in the sand and over hurdles this week. As I work my explosion back into the throw, the discus is really going to fly.

My numbers are improving in the weight-room as well. Now the weight-room is not my favorite place and it’s exciting for me to push the limits in there again. My total tonnage was probably the heaviest I have ever done adding up all the lifts. I was able to bench 230 for 4 reps.

I have the Mt Sac Relays this weekend in Walnut California. Most of the top athletes will be there. It is an exciting meet and I am truly looking forward to the competition. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Training with coach Jerry Clayton

I have been training with coach in Auburn, AL at Auburn University for a few weeks and it has been awesome.

Having a training partner (Kristin Heaston, USA Olympian women’s shot put) to train with has been very exciting.

We are able to push each other harder in the workouts. Even though the workouts are hard enough the way coach writes them, we some how find a way to make them harder having mini competitions in our training exercises.