A long weekend...

Hello all!

The weekend went great. It was the conference meet for my athletes and I decided to stay and watch rather than go to California. It will be my last conference meet with them and I knew they were going to do well. They actually did great! It started out with a great hammer competition. Stephanie Gilbert, a sophomore, competed well and managed a 3rd place finish. In the men's hammer, my little technician Freddie Hannie(who was a 400m runner 2 years ago), opened up the meet with a 6'+ PR at 178'9". This was a meet record and stunned the field for the first 3 rounds. In the last 3 rounds he was passed up, but he managed to pull away with third place. That was one of the best performances I've ever seen, especially from a 5'7" former runner. My other hammer thrower, John Jamail, muscled out a 7th place with a PR 167'6" and a 5th place shot put of 54'6". In the men's shot put, my Croatian thrower, Jan Bicanic, opened up with a huge 2' PR of 55'6" and ended up 2nd (and qualified for regionals). He must have taken some cues from Freddie. In the discus, Katarina Busljeta had a great season best of 161' to place 3rd and also qualify for regionals. So it was a great meet! Lots of PR'ing and some really clutch performances. I'm so proud!

Well, now on to me. I am throwing this coming weekend at our home meet. My training has been going very well. It will be nice when the college season is over and I can focus more on my throwing. I have made plans for next year, finally. I'm moving to Ashland, Ohio. There is a strong group of throwers there (mostly hammer throwers). I feel this is really the best place for me and should prepare me to compete for a spot on the 2008 Olympic team. I will be heading up there on May 30th. I will probably make a couple visits to Michigan before USA's. USA Outdoors is on June 25th in Indianapolis, IN. Would love for anyone to come and see me throw! Then, after Susan's wedding, it is off to Europe for a bit.

See you soon!