Back to London

Sorry for taking so long to write another post.  I'll try to catch you all up on what's been going on over the past few days.

We had a solid training day yesterday as we got back to some more intense work.  The weather was still very nice so that certainly helped.  Yesterday was an approach day, so the plan was to do 6 and then follow that up with some multiple throws with a light med ball (around 3 kilograms).  I'll post videos of all of this below.  At the end Amanda had a quick lift.  Everything looked really good, so that was certainly very exciting.

Approach video, at least the last few steps.  This is from Mel Ramey, one of the USATF biomechanists.  This was my favorite run that Amanda did yesterday:

Here's some video of Amanda doing our multiple throws.  These are very common in the track world.  The first video is called an overhead backwards throw while the second is an between the legs forward throw:

Finally, here is a quick video of Amanda in the weight room doing some jump squats.  We do these during the end of the season to stay sharp and explosive.  These are with weights in both hands:

I didn't do too much yesterday after practice, just went and explored a bit.  Here are some pictures from me and Jeremy's adventures:

Today was another long travel day.  All of the athletes, coaches and support staff that were in Birmingham travelled down to London.  The athletes who have already processed at the Olympic Village left at 10:00.  Athletes who haven't been to the Village yet to get their credentials left at 10:45, and all of the coaches and support staff left at 11:30.  It took us 2:30 to get to the USOC facility at the Docklands facility in the Southeast of the city.  We were able to pick up our passes that will allow us to go to the practice track and then we headed on our way to our apartment.  It took us another 30 minutes to get over here near the Bethnal Green tube stop.  We finally found our place, dropped off our bags and then went to grab some food.  After lunch we headed over to the practice track, located at the Mile End park.  It's literally in the middle of a park and is only open for US athletes so we don't have to share the track with any other country.

Here are a few pictures from the track:

This should give you all an idea of what I've been up to over the past few days.  Tomorrow we have another practice where we will have our last technical session leading up to the Games.  Tomorrow night Amanda will walk in the Opening Ceremonies, an amazing honor that I am so jealous of.  Oh yeah, tomorrow is also me and Amanda's birthday!!  Things couldn't have worked out any better!!

That's all for now.