Update

So, it's been a while since I have posted. Some crazy things have been going on and I haven't had time to really post a lot of my workouts. They have been a lot different due to some injuries that I have had.

After Chicago, my ribs were really killing me from the hammer. I had some chostochondritis that was really bothering me with the rotation, so I didn't do any hammer for about 3 weeks. During that time, I found out I had a last minute invitation to the Portland Highland Games which are pretty elite. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about that, but had only planned on training up to the Enumclaw championship. So I was going to have to cut short my training plan and figure out a way to get hammer ready for Portland. I had a few weeks of higher intensity training and then tried to cut it down for Portland. In addition, I also trained the hammer twice using one winds and easy finishes. This didn't seem to bother, but on my last 3 throws I really seemed to crank around and because of the change in biomechanics I really started to irritate the right sided facet joints in my spine. This really made the hammers hurt and also seemed to bother with the weights and stones. So I was a week out of Portland (a huge games and one I really wanted to show well in) and I can barely throw, I can't sleep, and my ribs are killing me. Needless to say, I performed poorly. I managed a tie for 5th but never really felt great. I had some OK numbers, but not up to where I would like to be. I shut it down the next week as I had the Claw the next weekend. All I did was easy warm ups, no hammer, no more than 10 throws each and was done for the week on wednesday. I had 2 big motivators for the claw. 1) I found out in Portland that I was only a few points away from qualifying for worlds (I had no idea) and 2) I really wanted to redeem myself in the eyes of some pretty important people on the west coast. I got into my own head in Portland and tightened everything up. I never throw as well when I get too intense. Since I'm still fairly new to the sport (relatively compared to my fellow competitors) I still have to really think about things as the muscle memory and mindless throws aren't there for me. If I get too pumped up, or too stressed about throws, I don't relax and loose my separation and my throws go to hell. This happened in Portland. So, I took my cowboy hat, tried to relax and enjoy the people I was throwing with in Enumclaw and let it all hang out. I managed 2nd place, threw a season best in the heavy weight and managed a 12:00 turn in the caber. This was all I needed to qualify for worlds!

Just have to keep it light, keep the throws feeling smooth, and keep trying to mentally stay relaxed but focused.