Team Tuxedo: Presenting Sam Pierson the New Tuxedoman

Team Tuxedo: Presenting Sam Pierson the New Tuxedoman: Photo Courtesy of Richie Hahn   This weekend, at the USA Indoor National Championship, some of you may notice that there is a gentl...

Team Tuxedo: Get Ready for the Summit

Team Tuxedo: Get Ready for the Summit: Every pole vaulters favorite event of the year is right around the corner. The Reno Pole Vault Summit is such a wonderful event that sneak...

One Year

One year ago I felt like i had become inconsistent with my back therapy. It was easy to feel the difference in how a felt, slept and trained. What started as a ten day challenge quickly turned into a 30 day challenge and so on. An easy goal of committing to doing therapy everyday rain or shine, sick or healthy, busy or free. After the 10 days breezed by I decided to go for a month, then the 100 day goal followed which went by quicker than I expected, so I shot for one year. I'm pleased to announce that Saturday Nov 2nd 2013 I have done back therapy everyday for one year and now that I'm here I think it only makes sense to shoot for two. The ultimate goal of the experiment is to train my brain to do it everyday without thinking. Making It as necessary and automatic as breathing.

Character Development

This is an excerpt of something else I just wrote that I felt like sharing.  

My goals as an athlete linger, but I am no longer capable of pursuing them fully. A new set of priorities and responsibilities are steering the vehicle that is my life, and pole vault has been placed in the back seat. It will always be there, making chatter and occasionally kicking the back of the front seat, but it will never again be the primary driver.

As a high level athlete you are forced to design a perpetual state of consciousness that is entirely focused on your event, training, and psychological health. In this state, material things, media, financial survival, and even family and friendships are pushed into the back seat, always there but quietly competing for second place. It takes an immense amount of time and effort to shape this persona. It’s almost as if you are creating a character for a movie, and you are stepping into it, without any after thought of someday needing to step back out. You don’t look further ahead than your athletic goals, you can’t, because if you do, it can invite or represent the option of failure, and failure does not fit into the formula, thoughts that propose any minuet level of probability of manifesting stress must be eliminated. In your minds eye, there is no such thing as life after your athletic career. 

For more than a decade many of us stand inside of that character, working tirelessly everyday to reinforce its walls, making them impenetrable. Then, like a flash of lightning, that other life shows up.........

Team Tuxedo: An Awesome Pierson Visit

Team Tuxedo: An Awesome Pierson Visit: It’s been a crazy three weeks after the birth of my son. It was strange and awesome to be a father on father’s day. Meanwhile, we have had ...

Team Tuxedo: Summer Practice Schedule

Team Tuxedo: Summer Practice Schedule: I actually have people interested in coming out as soon as June 5th and June 9th. I just pushed it back to the 12th on the flier because...

Team Tuxedo: Backyard Record

Team Tuxedo: Backyard Record: After 5 weeks of mostly physical boredom, do to fear of a medium threat knee injury, I decided that it was time to test it out. I started pu...