China4

Meet day. Was I prepared? To be honest, I was completely technically prepared, but my physical health had been not at its peak. The long long long season had taken its toll on me. My knee would scream every time it got bumped by something unexpectedly, my ankle joints felt like there was nothing between the bones for cushioning. But I went out there. I read the start list the night before, which shows who you are competing against. I read it and was scared b. There was 40 something jumpers, and about 18 of them had jumped better than me this year. To top if off, the OLYMPIC CHAMPION FROM 2008 WAS COMPETING!!!!!! Nelson Evora. I have never been star-struck so much at a meet before. The man won the Olympics! yes, THOSE Olympics. I have no idea ho he qualified for a University Meet, but it was amazing watching him. I hadn't felt that nervous for triple jump in a long time. Its great to feel that way I think. Its only good when you are confident in yourself and still nervous. Nervous for what? Nervous for what you might do that day, not knowing what your limitation are, not feeling like they can hold you back. When you the heart starts pumping and you are not confident, that's when you crumble. I felt like I was in a video game. The stadium was brand new and in HD Color. The big video screen was filming us in slow motion. The fans were soooo numerous and it was just prelims. I have never jumped in front of so many people before. Warming up on the track, I was getting fatigued soooo easily. One run-thru would have me gasping for minutes. Forgot to mention, the weather here the entire time was 30+ Celsius. Sunny everyday. It felt similar to GA but a mix of Puerto Rico. So it was super duper hot.

My first jump was ok, jumping cautious: 15.63. I knew i had to get 16m to get into finals. Second jump was a foul, probably 15.87m. I was super drained running down the runway. Adrenaline usually takes care of that, but not on that jump. So I decided to juice up by eating some of my apple I smuggled in just in case. Drank some water. I did feel more energized. Last jump I put it all out there, didn't want my season to end now. Coming all the way to China to fail to make finals, let alone not even jump 16m? Joke! (Baba Ali voice). So i cut it close, I got 16.06m!! I placed 12th, and 12 go to finals. Super happy and felt sooooooooo validated. Afterwards I saw someone taking a picture with  Evora, of course he made finals, his legs are soooooo springy. And that got me thinking, how cool would it be if I could get a picture with an Olympic champ?! We'll see how that goes the rest of my days there, lol.

I was super tired after I competed, and I probably should have been resting up for Thursday (2 days away) for finals. However, the team wanted to explore the market. So we went and rode the train. It was my first time outside the village area where everything was nice and neat. Of course we took a bunch of pictures with locals, do I even have to say that anymore, just assume it from now on. Riding on the train, I saw all the apartments. Its insane. All of the apartments are a million stories high, and its so not necessary. There is space around to make it lower, but I guess they are prepping for expansion in the area. It is growing very rapidly. Shenzhen is known as the immigrant city. Kind of akin to Atlanta, everyone there was from somewhere else. So they do have rapid growth. A tour guide told us later on that Shenzhen was acclaimed for being able to build a story of a building every 3 days. Thats rapid as crap! especially for the mid-80's bro. Went to a market that seemed pretty G, nice and bootleg lookin', but the team realized they had went there days before. So we went to some super fancy mall. Indistinguishable from an American mall. I was wowed, prices were the same, guess cuz everything was using international pricing. So def didn't buy shoes or watches from there. There was some intriguing shoes there, but they were actually an American company, so that would seem kinda anti my goal of finding nice Chinese shoes. Unproductive and physically damaging trip, took forever, lots of walking urr. End of day, Salaams.