Sorry I have been absent from the blogosphere for a while but I promise to make it up in the weeks to come. So first I must inform you of what has recently happened this season. After a 73M throw in Abbotsford, I got invited to the Ponce Grand Prix (an IAAF Grand Prix Event) in Ponce, Puerto Rico. There were 3 throwers with personal bests over 80, but I managed three attempts that could have won the competition, ultimately winning in 75.32M. SOOOOOO PUUUUUUUUMPED!!! This was my second best throw of the year and it was incredibly hot and humid which doesn't make for very good javelin flight (or baseballs for that matter since we were competing in a baseball stadium - see vid below). Here are a couple of videos from the trip!

As you can see, Ponce managed to meld together two of my most favourite things! Track & Field and Baseball! Pretty interesting to see how the stadium was constructed but as it was all field turf, they had cutouts of turf to cover the track during baseball and the field turf had a thick layer of sand underneath so javelins would not be damaged. The turf apparently has a web like substructure that holds the grass but the javelins do not harm it. Interesting as we aren't usually even allowed to walk on turf fields at home let alone throw javelins into the fields. There were some great performances and even greater athletes that competed in Ponce. The WR holder and Olympic Gold Medalist in the 110M hurdles from Cuba, Dayron Robles, the World Champion in the same even Jason Richardson. Numerous Olympians and World Championship finalists as well as Javier Culson, the Puerto Rican 400M hurdler who ran the fastest time of the year in his event, stopping the clock in 48.00s. Really great atmosphere with some very passionate and animated fans:

Pics from Ponce:

 

Now if you caught any of what I said over the fans in that video, I mentioned three meets in Germany which is no longer true. After the win in Ponce I was invited to the Rabat Grand Prix in Rabat, Morocco so I am going to Africa!! I will be competing in Germany at the Halle Werfertage (at least I can spell something in German) on the 19th of May then off to Morocco to compete on the 26th. This is the same style of meet as Ponce and will feature 8 athletes with 4 throws each. I will try to find the link so people can watch it online but javelin coverage is usually quite sporadic if it is covered at all. Not to make you jealous much but here is the website for the hotel in Rabat where I will be staying during the Grand Prix meet:

http://www.palaces-traditions.com/

I feel very confident going into this trip. I have rested and recovered from Ponce, I had a great training session today with my coach Don Steen in Burnaby and tomorrow I will definitely be packed in time to get to the airport! I have to admit that I am a notoriously nerve-racking traveller since I usually leave packing to the last minute and I usually JUST make it to the gate on time to make the flight. Even my attempts to pack early and get to the airport early have only yielded me cancelled or delayed flights and on one occasion I broke a very expensive and incredibly new javelin that Don had purchased for me to use (my bad - he told me that I had to win or I couldn't come home so I went and won! hmmm maybe I should...). So the method I have adopted seems to be working so far even if I do get everyone's hearts pounding a bit unnecessarily.

In Germany I will be traveling and competing with a javelin throwing friend in Juan Mendez from Mexico who has the same agent and an almost identical personal best. I am excited to throw with Juan as he is also a very fast javelin thrower, coming down the runway at a speed very similar to my recognizable sprint. My only knock to him is that he is left handed since they don't make a left handed javelin yet :P.

I better get to bed as need to get up early so that I can sleep on the flight over there and get time adjusted. I promise I will post periodically through my trip to keep everyone up to date on my journey and please don't hesitate to keep emailing me at curtisjmoss@gmail.com with any encouragement, inspiration, requests and grammatical errors! Add me on Facebook, Twitter @CurtisMoss and please subscribe to the blog so you don't have to keep checking it for new posts.

I'll leave you with a quote from Don. He's been telling me this one for years but it has been etched in my head this year, especially leading up to this trip, "We go to track meets to do two things; Kick ass and chew bubble gum and we are all out of bubble gum."

   Keep chuckin'!
    - Curtis