Season Wrap Up

Wow, what a year! I've had so much fun and had so many new and wonderful experiences I can hardly believe it. I was able to compete in new countries, was the only American to complete the IAAF World Hammer Challenge, finish with a world top 10 ranking, and win my first Outdoor National Championship Title. My last two meets of the year were probably my favorite two expeirences of the year. After leaving Germany, I spent a week in the little Italian town of Reiti. There wasn't a lot to do outside of training, but it was so pretty and peaceful that I didn't really mind. The town sits in the valley and is surrounded on all sides by very picturesque mountains. (I took some pictures and posted them to my facebook account. I'll put the links at the bottom.) The competition itself was not the most ideal setup for head to head competition. There were ten women in the Saturday competition and we all got 3 throws. But then only 4 advanced to throw on Sunday where they only got 4 more throws. As you may or may not know, you usually get either 4 throws with no final, or 3 throws plus three more throws in the final. Anyway, I took 6th in that comp and didn't compete Sunday. But I had a great time and watched Koji Murofushi of Japan launch the men's world leading throw, and a guy break the world record in the 800m AGAIN! After that I traveled to Paris, France where I trained with the world record holder in the men's hammer throw Youri Sedykh and his daughter Alexia. Alexia was fresh off of winning the very first Youth Olympic Games. We had some great training days and I learned alot. We worked on some concepts that I'm really excited to put into use next year.
My last meet of the year was the DecaNations meet in Anncey, France. I don't even have enough descriptive words to convey how pretty this town is. When I travel to different places I'm always taken aback at the beauty of the architure. So I have some pictures of random buildings as well. I don't know what most of them are, but they just looked really cool to me. Anyway, the meet was awesome and team USA did what we do best and won! I think the score was USA 133, Russia 90, Germany 89. Yea we kicked butt!
On another note...I'll be headed to my first red carpet even on Oct. 12th in NYC! Its the premiere of ESPN the magazine's "Body Issue" that hits a newsstand near you Oct. 18th!!!! I'm super excited to go. Its going to be a star studded event and I can't wait! I'm not sure what I'm wearing, but you all know I love the camera so there will be pictures to follow. Its been a great year, but I know the best is yet to come so stay tuned!

Love and blessing,
Amber

Adventures in Deutschland Part Deux

Hey everybody! Another good meet today. Almost everybody in the top 10 was here. I ended up in 6th place with a throw of 69 high. Again I had some big throws, but they were out of sector. I had a monster somewhere around 73m so I'm excited that i'm so close to something huge! Anyway, tomorrow will be a rest/relax day as I get to just be a track fan. The rest of the meet goes off tomorrow and its virtually a who's who of track and field. I don't have another meet until the 28th of Aug in Reiti, Italy. So it'll be training and seeing the sites. Love you guys!

Blessings,
Amber

Adventures in Deutschland

Hey everybody! We just finished throwing and I'm feeling pretty good about it. I finished 3rd behind Katrin Klass of Germany and Marina Marghive(?) from Moldavia . We all went 70+ except mine didn't count cuz they said i foot fouled, which i didn't! So my best throw ended up being a 68+. It was a strange format to begin with. We competed with the men, and instead of it being a great intense atmosphere all the Europeans started playing grab butt with each other. We threw woman, man, woman, man....so it was a bit of a cluster, and super slow! Not that any of that mattered much, just thought you'd want to know the background story. Anyway, I was the third female thrower and started off with a sector foul cuz I floated my right foot at the delivery. Next throw was smooth and fast, but I guess they didn't like it cuz they called it foul! Safety throw 65 cuz I was not going out with a NM, and then last throw was the 68. I felt like it was a little steep cuz it felt "strong" so I knew it wasn't going to be my best but it had good ball movement. I knew when I let it go that I needed to flatten it out though. So unfortunately, that was all the throws we got cuz I felt like I was building something good. On the other hand, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I was talking with Katrin afterward and found out the hammer for Berlin is tomorrow, not Sunday. So I'll leave here (Konigs Wusterhausen) and catch a shuttle to the meet hotel in Berlin and just relax until the competition. Its not until 4:30 so I'm not really worried about it. Ok, so now I'm off to shower then eat and stay off my feet. Hopefully, the next hotel will have a wireless connection so I can stay in touch better. Love and blessings,Amber

California Invitational Relays

California Invitational Relays

Note how close this throw is to the Fence. Girl put a viewing hole in that fence next time!!!

Daegu and Sacramento

Have I ever mentioned to you all that I love throwing the hammer? I know it might be obvious, but I really do love this event. Its provided me the opportunity to travel to places I never even dreamed of going and to experience different things all over the world. My latest escapades took me first to Daegu, South Korea. That was one of the longest flights I've ever been on in my life! But I flew on Korean Air, and they're customer service is top notch so I was plesantly surprised. When we arrived at the airport we were greeted by translators provided by the meet organizers to direct us to our limo bus with the most comfortable seats I've ever put my behind in! LOL!! Our hotel was a really nice 5 star resort with every amenity you can think of, and I even lucked up on a private room. (most people doubled up) The competition was short sweet and straight to the point in its format. We each took four throws with no finals instead of the usual six. I started off a lot stronger than I did in Dakar and my throws felt better. My best was my third throw at 69.01 for 7th place. I felt a lot better finishing 7th in this competition than in Dakar because everyone was throwing farther. So again I'm encouraged that every time I'm seeing these women that are leading the world, I'm throwing better and better against them so when it comes time for world championships next year and the Olympics in 2012 I fully intend to be in the medal hunt.

Yesterday I competed in the California Relays. It didn't have all of the glitz and glam of the meet in Daegu but I got to see a lot of my friends from the US throws world that I haven't got to see much this year. So that's always a lot of fun. Even more fun is setting a new personal best of 71.94 on my first throw of the meet!!!! Then I followed that up with two more throws of 71.27 and 71.51, so it was hands down my best throws ever! As an icing on the cake runnerspace.com was there with some amazing coverage. If you go to their website and click on the California Invitational Relays you can get a list of the full results including VIDEO! And not just a video, but like five of them so big shout out to runnerspace.com!

My next meet will be Saturday June 5 in Myrtle Beach, SC at Doug Shaw Stadium at 2pm. So if you happen to be in the area stop by and hangout for a good time and some long throws. Or just to wish me a happy 29th birthday, LOL! Love you all!

Peace and Blessings,
Amber