Well we are here in Chania, Greece on the island of Crete and I am a little tired. This overnight traveling is starting to take a slight toll on me, but I’m going to get myself together and put it together this meet. The site here again are beautiful the hotel is awesome and would be a place I would love to come back to stay in during a vacation. Some of the rooms here at this hotel have there own individual pools, now that’s cool. I have access to a computer here, but I HAVE TO PAY to use it. Never will I travel overseas again without a laptop, no way no how. I’ve spent more time on shared and pay computer than I need to. At this meet I will be competing against the World Indoor Champion in the triple jump, Phillips Idowu and again Randy Lewis. These two guys are two of the best in the world right now and I am praying that I will be able to step into the forefront with them. Since I have to pay to use the computer and I’m limited to 30 mins for the next 3 days I am going to use my time wisely so I will cut it off and update more later.
Well it’s the day after the meet and I’m not too pleased, but somewhat satisfied. I know that statement is just as confusing as trying to figure out what color Micheal Jackson is now, but that’s the emotion and reaction to the meet right now. I fouled 5 of the 6 jumps I took in the competition and probably wouldn’t have made the final if it wasn’t for another guy in the competition fouling all of his jumps. On the flip side though I had some good fouls. (For those who feel I’m speaking in a foreign language right now, a foul jump is a jump that doesn’t get measured, but I can still see the distance once I get out of the pit.) So I don’t feel too bad, but I wish I would have gotten at least once of those jumps in to have a better mark on the books. The mark that was measured was so awful that I’m not going to even put it up. Not only that I didn’t think they were going to measure it because they signaled foul I came out of the phase and then they overturned the ruling and marked the jump. So another meet another mediocre performance. I’m also a little sore too, after 2 meets in 4 days, 12 jumps total I’m a little banged up. At the same time I’m sending this from a ferry on my way from Athens to the island of Crete on my way to the last and final meet of this European tour in Chania. When I heard ferry I was thinking that I was going to be on a paddle boat, like on old river boat, but it was actually a cruise ship with cabins and everything else. Again I’m traveling at night and we won’t make it to the island until 6:00 am and not telling how far the hotel is from the port. One thing that I have learn from this trip you have to be mentally prepared for the travel, because that alone will take a lot out of you. My time is running out on this pay computer (3euros or $6/ 20mins) so I will write more once I get to the next hotel.
Just when you think things are going wrong and you feel like there is no end to the madness, God answers your prayer and hears your cries. As stated in the last post I didn’t know anyone here, but I did know someone who I haven’t seen in a few years who is my main competior, Randy Lewis. I didn’t know him personally, but we have competed against each other a few times. All of the athletes went to the practice track we were all doing our pre meet preparations and after we were done I sat down and who is walking up, but Randy. I spoke and he spoke back and we began to hold a conversation. To make a long story short he understood my pain of being in Europe alone telling me about his experiences. That helped me ease my mind about being over here allowing me to refocus on competing. Well again I’m on the community computer and don’t want to hog it so I will update you all tomorrow.
I didn’t get a chance to write this earlier because I wasn’t trying to hog the “community” computer, but the scenery here is beautiful. The hotel we are staying in is right across the street from the beach and there is a mountain view from the hotel. The rooms that we are staying in are like bungalows and the views are equally kind to the eyes and the beach view. I don’t want to get to caught up in all of this, because I am here to jump and I don’t want to lose focus, but this is also my first time here and I have to admit it is a little overwhelming. The sights are great, but I’m here by myself and my roommate doesn’t speak much English so I really haven’t been able to communicate with him and I don’t know (personally) any of the other athletes so I feel a little isolated. I’ve seen Angela Williams, but again I don’t know her so…It’s not a bad thing, but I wish my family was here with me to enjoy this moment with me. I’m a little lonely, but I’m here to do a job and that’s what I am going to do. Well as you can see I’m a little bored and my mind is wondering so I need to get focused. They are loading up to go to the track soon so I will write more later.
After an overnight flight and a 2 hour layover in another Greek airport I’m finally in Kalamata, Greece. This journey was long and frustrating for a few reasons. The first being that I when I got here my cell phone didn’t work. I had just gone through torture trying to get it to work in the UK and found a place where I could purchase a sim card for it to work in the UK and, from what the salesman told me, in Greece. Yeah Right!!! I got off the plane and turned on my phone, only for a big NO SERVICE to pop up on my phone, so I was without communication. Not only that, but by me not having a laptop I’m forced to wait to use a community computer, sharing it with the other 40 or so athletes that didn’t bring or don’t have a laptop. The second is that my roommate on this trip smokes. I walked into the room and what is the first thing I see?? 2 packs of cigarettes on the dresser. WHAT!!! Your an athlete and you smoke cigarettes!! WOW!!! A good one at that, he was one top high jumpers competing in the meet. Things truly are different on the other side of the world. Well I’m going to get ready to eat and relax a little before I go to the track. I’ll write more later.
Well it’s the next day after the B.I.G. Meet and I am preparing to leave the UK to make my way to Greece. I’m trying my best not to think about the meet yesterday, but it’s hard. I didn’t come half way across the country to have an awful performance. I talked to Sean about the situation and he told me it happens to the best of them. I didn’t want to hear that, but I had to agree. My season has been inconsistent and this was just one of those times. I had to get my mind together for this meet in Greece the competition is going to be a lot tougher and must be ready to jump far. Randy Lewis one of the top triple jumpers in the World is competing in the next competition so I will try to feed off of him and do what I came over here to do. I’m on my way to the track and when I get back I will be packing everything, so I will try to write more later. My flight leaves here at 10:20pm tonight I will arrive in Kalamata, Greece at 9am tomorrow.
I’m back in Wales from Bedford, but let me tell you about the trip and the meet.
We (Sean, Sue (his wife) and I) got to Bedford last night around 5pm (11am) in the states and we checked into the Inn Keeper Suites, and I must say this hotel was great a very nice and secluded area, but accessible to all your needs. There was restaurant connected to the hotel where we ate a British dinner I had turkey and beef with all you can eat vegetables (the meal included all you can eat vegetables don’t think I’m a pig 
) after dinner I talked to my family and got a good nights sleep to prepare for the meet. I woke up every hour on the hour after 3am because of anxiety (don’t worry it’s normal before a meet). I finally rose around 9 am to get ready for the meet, and as it had been for the 3 days I was there it started raining. (GREAT!!) I had a light breakfast and mentally started to prepare myself for the day. We check out at 10:30 and made our way to the track (still light rain).
When we got to the track I went inside to go check in, as I was checking in the first athlete I saw warming up was Jade Johnson, she is the top long jumper from Great Britain and was getting ready to compete. After checking in I went to watch the women’s long jump for a second and then prepared myself for the triple jump competition. I was feeling good during the warm up and felt like this was going to be a good day. The weather had cleared up and I was ready to jump.
As I went through my approaches Sean checked me on the board and asked me how I felt I told him I felt good and he said my first 2 approaches looked go so I moved on to popups which also felt great, I just knew it was going to be a good day.
As I took my first jump of the competition I fouled it so I made the adjustment needed to prepare for the second jump, but ended up fouling that one as well. My back was against the wall and I needed a jump to get into the finals, so I took a safe jump to get me into the field. I passed the fourth jump because I was trying to get me head together after almost fouling out of the competition. I took jump 5 and fouled it. Now I was truly frustrated, but couldn’t be because I had to perform, so I gathered myself for the last jump and blew the step phase and jumped a mediocre 14.72 or 48′ (WHAT!!!!!) Yeah that’s what I said. I was so pissed. I came half way across the world to jump a distance I jump in practice every week from a 6-step approach. The bad thing about it these guys didn’t jump far at all I still placed seventh with that awful mark. Something must be wrong. This is all a bad dream and I’ll wake up soon right. WRONG it was true and I wasn’t dreaming I had bombed my first international competition, and I was not pleased. On our way back to Whales I just tried to forget about the meet and not over analyze anything that happened, but at the same time figure out what happened. I was so lost and I’d never felt that way before. I have to get this figured out before I go to Greece. Enough rambling for the night I’m tired and I need to get some rest. I’ll keep you posted on the next couple of days.
Well today went a lot better than yesterday. My body felt fresh and I feel ready to go. I am a little nervous and right fully so because I don’t know what to expect, but I’m up for the challenge. As I stated earlier in the previous post this will be my first international competition and I hope to perform well and give you all a birds eye view of how things pan out. As an a track and field athlete the main goals are to make a team and compete overseas I’m accomplishing one now and I hope the results are as rewarding as this experience. I also look to accomplish the other goal in a month and that’s make the Olympic team. I will talk to you all soon. I am getting ready to leave here (Wales) soon to travel to Bedford England to compete in the B.I.G Games tomorrow. This is a 3 hour trip so we will be leaving here shortly. Some of you will just be getting up by the time you read this because it is a 6 hour time difference between the states and the UK. Wish me luck.
So yesterday I had my first workout since I’ve been in the UK and lets just say I never knew that my body could feel that heavy. I warmed up and felt OK, but as I started to do drills and sprint I just didn’t feel it. I was told that I would have these problems based on travel time, but I didn’t think it would be like this. I hope to have better results today as I go on the track, I’m going to compete in my first international competition tomorrow and I want to do well, so I won’t make this entry too long, but I will keep you posted on today’s progress and anything else that happens.
I arrived in the UK yesterday after a 10 hour flight and 3 time zones later. I was met at the airport by Sean Power Director of Athletics for UWIC, and coach of some of Great Britain’s top triple jumpers. I didn’t know what to expect once I got to the UK, but boy did I learn a lot in the short time I’ve been here. I thought initially I was going to be staying in London (England) because that’s where I flew into. I was wrong I was going to be staying in Whales, which is another country in the UK. I honestly didn’t know that I thought it was all the same, so technically I’ve been to 2 countries in a day. The city that I’m staying in is Cardiff (Wales). It’s comparable to your college town in the states, but the sites are beautiful. Things here are actually green (lol) I’m just playing, but you know how some things in the US can be. The food here is different and the same all at the same time. Here they eat certain things together that we would eat separate in the US. For example people in the UK put cole slaw on sandwiches, where in the US we would eat that separate. I tried it and it actually isn’t bad. Ham here is called Gammon and French Fries are called pocket potatoes. Cereal comes in different forms too, like in bars (oats) compared to them already being broken up in the State. Again similarities, but different. I’ve enjoyed it to this point and I look forward to seeing more of the city and the country. As I see things and things progress I will keep you posted. I learned something new did you? Talk to you soon.