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Weekly update and announcements of sorts

posted by Loree: A Skirt, A Hammer, A Life, and A Dream
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 9:13pm EST

This is the official blog of Olympic track and field athlete, Loree Smith. It covers day to day life, training, competing, philosophies, and generally anything that comes to mind that day.

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Hello and hope all your training is going well.

In the past, I’ve kinda just let inspiration hit when usually from a meet, training, or life crisis. But I’m hoping this year to get on a little bit of a predictable schedule for my readers and subscribers (you should totally subscribe right away).

The schedule I’m looking at is post smaller posts three days a week instead of a novel every other week. Because it’s the off season, I have some time to do things I don’t during season and we can look into more things as well.

Sunday: Updates on my training, fitness, and going ons

Wednesday: I thought this could be about training, lifting, nutrition, throwing, some sort of commentary

Friday: Tip of the week that could do with nutrition, drills, anything that can be directly applied.

I’m open to suggestions too. If there is a topic that you have a question, opinion, or just want to ask my opinion, please feel free to send me a message and I will try to cover it.

Announcements:

Opening of Online Coaching Store

I went to school and got my license to teach, but currently I am not doing anything with it. I also enjoy constantly speaking with knowledgeable people (from lots of sports and fields) and reading up on training, nutrition, throwing, as well as have my own experiences. After having the pleasure of doing some coaching, writing, and even a few clinics, I thought that now is the time to include on my site the option on offering my services. It’s still a little rough and I’m open to suggestions and questions, but you can find my online coaching store available on my blog or by clicking here.

My target is anyone who wants to learn more about the hammer or athletes looking for aid in their training. From my personal experience, there isn’t a lot of quality coaches available and information once you graduate or if you are a high school or post collegiate thrower. I have free and paid articles you can reading about training, hammer, drills, throwing, etc. as well as the option to send me video for video analysis and reports to writing your throwing and training programs. I love sharing my passion and knowledge of the hammer and I think this is a great start.

Check back often as I will be adding more articles as I write them.

Life as I know It:

I’m getting settled in Colorado and slowly growing back my confidence and happiness with each passing day. Last weekend it was my birthday! We had some friends over from my previous day as a Ram. It was a big difference from last year when I moved to the AZ three days before my birthday and did nothing… Abby bought me some cupcakes. I’d let her tell the story of that.

But it was nice being around people I care about again and those who care about me and know me. Birthday’s are always bitter sweet. They give me time to reflect and think about things. I haven’t become my mother yet who cries at every birthday, but I”m getting close. jk. My mom gave me $100 for my birthday and told me to do something nice for myself. It’s in my bank and I’m trying to decide if something nice for myself is using it to pay for my car payment, buy groceries, or buy a new pair of training shoes as my current ones are going into year three of usage… Car payment it is.

My last payment of last year’s training was taken out in October, so I should be a lot better not having to worry about my $700 a month payment. As currently I am making $0 a month, so no more payments is a relief. It’s hard coming off a year that not only depleted my savings account, but I had nothing to show for athletically so not only didn’t make any money but hurt my chances for support in some areas too. I’m just complaining about being broke is all. You’d think I’d get use to it. But on the other hand, I did get a year of not having to work. So it’s my own fault for not being able to find work in AZ that worked with my schedule and didn’t need any energy as I didn’t have any. lol

I’m hoping my coaching store will generate a few dollars to help with travel and training as I was dropped from development this year and as you know, training isn’t cheap. But I am also looking for work. I’m one of those people who doesn’t mind hard work as long as it’s paying the bills. But I’m also looking to doing school again next year too.

Surprisingly after catching the bouquet at Kibwe and Crystal’s wedding, I still haven’t been proposed to.

But like I said, I’m getting happier with each passing day, living with Melissa has been helping with that and so has coach.

Last year was a hard year. After the season, I took so time, drew away from everything and everyone and just needed to think. I felt like I let everyone down, I felt like a failure after trying to get so many people to buy in what I was doing down in AZ and support me. It’s funny how the times you need people the most are the times you push everyone away. I’m doing a lot better with the supports of my friends and being in a healthier environment. And with that growing confidence, my distance is growing too. Thank you to all those who are out there supporting me still!

Training:

This is my last week of doing circuits and general fitness in the weight room! My fitness is getting better and now that I’m not traveling every weekend or driving across the country, my eating habits will get a little better too. I’m trying still do the restricted diet of no dairy, gluten and a few other weird things, but it’s hard when you’re traveling and eating with other people who are not on your weird diet. So, I’m happy to be home.

Throwing is going well and so far, we’ve been pretty lucky with weather being sunny and in the low to high 60′s but that is suppose to be changing soon. Again, the majority of my throwing is with the short 6k, long 5k, and 4k with a rhythm day on Sunday. I’m throwing around 100-120 throws a week right now and I’m happy with it. My hammer strength is returning and I’m finding it easier to throw the heavy implements.

Next week I will move into lifting 5×5 with my Olympics, squats, step up, abs and other things. I’m doing a bit of a mixture of workouts with things that have worked best for me and what I believe will strengthen my strengths and weaknesses as a thrower. I like having control in a lot of ways, but sometimes it’s nice to be told what to do.

Bedard is doing some great things with me in the hammer, mostly keeping me focused and on track. Sometimes when not given direction, I tear apart the throw and work on everything and get nothing done. Sometimes when given too many cues, I’m become overloaded and get nothing done. So coach Bedard is keeping me grounded with simple cues and one or two objectives during throwing. It’s amazing how so many problems are usually caused by one thing. If you focus on the one thing vs. all the little problems, it actually gets fixed. I know, surprise, surprise. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

I’m loving training with Drew Loftin again and we are pushing one another to greatness. I think this will be a big year for both of us. But there are some other familiar faces with Brain Trainor coming back and training discus and Joe Woodsky is coming out on Sundays for a throw session.

Well, I suppose that’s it’s for this week’s update. I will be trying to put in that schedule of updates to my blog, but still if I’m inspired, I will put in others too. Life is pretty good right now and I’m fortunate in many ways. I happy, happier than I’ve been in a while, so that’s good too. It’s good to be home and it’s good to be training well again.

Hope all your training is going well too!

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