Good Day Everybody!!!! (This e-mail is longer than most)
How Bout Dem Cyclones!!! 3-0 With Texas coming into Ames!! Time to make some all-beef patties, throw them on the Grill! Oh Yeah!!! Oh Yeah!!! They call me VECTOR!! It’s a mathematical term represented by an arrow with both Direction and Magnitude! VECTOR! That’s me because I Creating Crime with both direction and Maaaaggggnitude!! (Despicable Me)
If you have found yourself wondering hmmmm….where in the World is Jesse Beckom III, well I am back in Colorado Springs at The Olympic Training Center training for the approaching Bobsled World Cup Tour. I finished up a great Planning Internship at HB&A www.hbaa.com on September 15, where I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by a brilliant group of Planning Professionals and Architects. I owe them a ton of gratitude for what I learned over the summer and their willingness to work around my demanding training schedule. If you get a chance do me a favor and check out their web-site, they are doing some great work!
Sunday night I returned to Colorado Springs via a Giant Metal Bird that soars through the heavens with the speed of a million eagles from our annual Testing and Push Championships, which were held in Lake Placid, New York. The physical testing portion of our Push Championships consists of 5 events: a 60m sprint, standing broad jump, shot toss, Clean (150 kilos for 1), and squats (200 kilos for 3). For the push testing since the men each take one push from the side (as seen on four-man push) and from the back of the sled (seen in two-man and four-man), the women push from the back of the sled (As of now women only race two-man). As you may have guessed, the fastest person down the hill wins.
Overall things went pretty good but there was a bit of up and down that occurred. Before I get started…I Warn Thee, that thou shall get an insight into a portion of the crazy that is my mind.
I am not exactly sure why but every year in Lake Placid when we have testing the weather is always horrible; having rain, snow or a mixture of both. It never fails, days before and after testing are always sunny but soon as we get ready to test BOOM!! Rain and Clouds! However Hurricane Irene did give Lake Placid a valid excuse this time. Also ,thanks to that wretch of a woman Irene my flight to Lake Placid was changed from leaving Sunday August 29th to not leaving until Wednesday August 31st. Actually the fact that my flight was postponed did not bother me at all; I was just happy that I was alerted of my flight cancelation while I was still at home and not in the airport. My flights went smoothly and the OTC Shuttle that picks athletes up from the Albany Airport was on time. I and a few of my teammates who had arrived at the airport the same time as I did all hoped on to the shuttle did what we could to enjoy our 2 ½ hour ride to Lake Placid!! (This feels like the longest part of the trip, especially after flying all day) After a few game on my Droid and a short nap I find myself back in good ole Lake Placid ready to put in some work.
After getting settled into my room, I did the normal meet and greet with the teammates I had not seen since last season. Later that evening in order to loosen up my legs up from that day of traveling I rode the stationary bike for about 30 minutes. In preparations for testing I spent the next few days doing a combination of 50 meter over speed sprint work; 15 meter starts; and pushes at the push track. All of which are designed to keep me running fluid, while maintaining my explosive nature. Sunday September 1st the day before our 5 item test I did my normal 30 minute pretesting day warm-up and everything felt the way it should have physically but still a little bit uneasy for some reason. I think part of the uneasiness was due to the fact that weather conditions in placid had our scheduled testing on Monday questionable. That Monday morning our Head Coach sent out a Text confirming we would definitely be testing today rain or not. Yup, you guessed it! It was definitely raining all day! Thank you Lake Placid!
As I began my warm-up I did my best to block out the rain while focusing on relaxing when I run, but with rain hitting me in the face it complicated things a bit. Unfortunately this type of things happens in sports and you just have to push through, and that’s what I and the other guys did. The sprint testing began and most of the past bobsledders were running their normal time if not a tad bit slower. Suddenly it was my turn to! (ok actually it was not sudden I knew the order but “Suddenly” makes the story better) Moving on, I get to the line and I am thinking just stay relaxed Jesse and be smooth! In hind sight I should have been thinking be fast, stay low and be a little pissed! My sprint time was not what I wanted it to be at all!! During my training I ran a 2.05 in my 15meter and in testing I had just run a 2.15 (Same as last year)!! I was feeling like I was in a nightmare! I was pretty upset because I had been training extremely hard, making huge gains and wanted to show everyone how much faster I had gotten. I wanted to make a Statement, I wanted to be perfect but evidently it was not meant to be. The good thing is that I realized why I ran so much slower. In my sprint I did not stay low for the normal 15-20meters working my drive phase, but instead I immediately popped up with complete disregard for my drive phase and started running resulting in a loss of power/speed from the start. Not my best sprint day at all.
Being that testing was far from over I needed to quickly re-gather myself, forget about the sprint and worry about the next events on the testing. Next was the Broad Jump I jumped a 3.0 meters (same as last year) but I was hoping for 3.1 or better, so once again I was not as pleased as I would have like to be.
After that was the shot toss, where we throw a 16lb shot for distance. I step on the block to perform my toss, throwing a 15.3m (I threw 16.25m last year)! I am thinking JESSE HELLOO ARE YOU IN THERE!? GET IT TOGETHER BECKOM! My next throw is 15.4! By this time in my mind say screw Jesse!! And SCREAM OUT IMMORTAL (Yeah I have an athletic alter ego and he is a Beast with it) Wake The Hell Up and Let’s GO!! And everything around me went quiet. At this point it’s just me and the shot in my hand staring down at the measuring tape. I drop down and explode out tossing the shot 17.3 meters!! I was line Finally. I was also a bit pissed that it took me until this moment to actually use the power and skill I poses inside of me. Regardless Jesse was put to sleep and the IMMORTAL was out of his cage with no intention of going back in until Sunday night after testing had ended.
The last two events of the day were to Clean 150 kilos for one and Squat 200 kilos for three. I walk into the weight room, heads phones on and up high enough to block out all the sounds of everyone around me. I step up on the Clean Plat form to begin my warm up. After a couple of technique exercises I load up 120 kilos, lift it once and set it down, loaded up 140 Kilos and doing the same. Then I load up 150 kilos, pulling it off the ground quicker than I had lifted the 120 kilos. With cleans done it was straight on to Squats. Similar to cleans I once again loaded up 120 kilos squatted it a few times, then loaded up 170 kilos squatted that weight a couple of times, then loaded up 200 kilos squatted it three time and was done! I was knocking it out like clock work. I did not realize how much of a mental zone I was in until one of my teammates informed me of the speed I had done everything in and that on my squats the bar was popping a good 6 inches off my neck every time I stood up!!
Later that night at the team meeting Coach Shimer handed out the testing sheet and I saw that I had tested 10th overall out of 26 guys. Yeah I was not pleased because if I had just duplicated my numbers from practice I would have 2nd or 3rd. At that point I was so mad at myself it was not even funny, but I also knew that a good day of pushing on Wednesday would erase a bad sprint day. The next day or so I really shut down everything, ignoring messages from family and friends as to focus on what I was in Lake Placid to do! Now, the funny thing about bobsledding is that most people have a short memory span about a person’s performance. So for that 48hrs until Push Champs I had to deal with looks from some veterans and rookies looking at me like I had fallen off and gotten old and slow. Rookies were excited and joking about how they had run faster than me and some of the other veterans and some veterans thought they were riding high on the hog. However, they did not realize their actions was just stacking the powder kegs beneath the IMMORTAL who was already mad at his performance even higher, and they were going to get a good dose of Him come Wednesday. I do appreciate my teammates who realized I had a bad day that tried to keep my spirits high by reminding me that Wednesday is what matters the most. The next day and some change I spent my time reminding myself of who I am and what I am capable of, as well as watching push video from past training, World Cup Races, pushing at the push track, and working on the push cart in the gym.
Wednesday afternoon was the scheduled times for the Men’s Push Championships, making the morning seem to drag on forever. With my sprint testing fresh in my mind I was hell bent on doing things different; I even went so far as ridding with a different set of guys to the push track then the day I went to sprint Lol. Taking further notes from that first day of testing I turned my music up loud enough to block out everyone and everything around me as I started my warm-up. As my time to push approached I began watching some of the guys push and I knew I was better. My time to push finally came; I stepped on the block to the chants of people cheering me on. I take a deep breath and it all goes silent all I can hear is my heart pumping a million miles per hour as the blood and adrenaline flow throw my veins. I know it sounds like it would be nerve racking but it was actually calming in a since because I knew I was ready. I grabbed hold of the sled at the brake position, dropped down in my stance and explode off the block and it felt good. I was off the block low and hard the transition into my sprint felt smooth and natural. As I rode the sled back up to the start position I saw people giving me the thumbs up letting me know it was a good push. My second push would be from the side position, and once again I go through the same routine as before, resulting in the same feeling when I was pushing. With one more push to go from the position of each person choosing Coach Shimer gives us the option to see where we are currently ranked, so of course we want to view the results. Viewing the results allows each person to see where they stand and if they have a better chance to catch the person ahead of them from the side position or the brake position. After looking at the results, Corey a teammate I use to push with who now drives gave me some helpful criticism. He informed me that on the side push my first step was not as long as it should have been, I thanked him and made the adjustment on my last push gaining me another two hundredths on my push.
At the finally of the Push Championships I had finished 4th overall with the second fastest time to the 15meter eye, beating some 2010 Olympians and beating one of the guys on USA 1. It was a good day and it made up for my bad day of sprinting. I was more pleased that people said my pushing form looked the best they have seen. It felt good that what I had been working on this summer was translating into better numbers. However, the analyst in me immediately began thinking that since I was the second fastest to the 15 meter eye I should have been second overall. After more contemplation I realized that I should have entered my sprint phase sooner which I believe I would have made my push faster. Once again there is always room for improvement and my thirst to be better is not even close to being quenched!
At the meeting after Push Championships Coach Shimer announced that the push team for USA 1 would remain the same (Curt Tomasevicz 2010 Olympian/Gold Medalist, Justin Olsen 2010 Olympian/Gold Medalist, and Steve Langton 2010 Olympian) and that the drivers were free to approach any other athletes to push for them. So as of now I will be pushing with John Napier (USA 2 Driver 2010 Olympian), Chris Fogt (2010 Olympian), and Laszlo Vandercseck (National Team Member) heading into Team Trials and God willing on World Cup.
On Saturday we held our 3-man Combo pushes where the crew I was on had the second fastest time after the guys on USA 1. I was a decent result especially since one of the guys who I will be racing with was not pushing with us due to some complications to his knee after the Individual pushes on Wednesday causing us to use another push athlete.
It was a good week of testing helping me to confirm the realization that for me to perform well I can’t be the happy go lucky, laughing playing with puppy’s type when it comes to performing! I am more the pissed of Warrior Angle straight out of Heaven come to right the wrongs of man type! Sword of Gold Blazing, Wings Flared, Veins A Pumping, and Eyes set a Blaze by a Pure Blue Flame! I know that may sound a bit crazy to some but I’m cool with that. I have to be a Beast with it and I’m Good….I’m good! lol Seriously though that’s my mentality.
As of right now I don’t have any pictures uploaded to my web page but the USBSF has some posted that you can view at the following link http://bobsled.teamusa.org/multimedia/photo_gallery/2549 I will add pictures once I get back to placid. I have attached the results of all our testing below (click on each picture for a larger view) and ironically the top 9 guys in push championships are returning veterans.
Next on my Agenda is
Oct 2-9: Additional Push Training For top 6 pushers in Calgary
Oct 9-28: National Team Trials in Lake Placid, NY
Nov 14: Head over to Europe to begin racing.
View my web-page www.jessebeckom3.com for more race details
God Bless and thank you everyone one for your support
Sincerely
Jesse
