Welcome back! After a much needed week off, here we are to talk about the outdoor season! In this article, we’ll highlight some cold weather drills, who’s off to a hot start, and preview the Texas Relays which are set for this week.

The indoor season saw just about everything you could ask for in a sport. Between world records and high school national records, pole vault continues to appear to be in a golden age - an age that’s likely not to end anytime soon with Mondo being in his early twenties and the Moll sisters still in high school.

The outdoor season often starts lopsided…to the south. In states like Florida, early season track meets begin in February. For the school I help coach, Windermere High School, our first meet was mid February and by the end of March out athletes have already competed at 5 or 6 meets. Growing up in Maryland, a state with a true indoor season, outdoor track and field practice didn’t begin until early March. My former high school had their first outdoor meet this past weekend, on March 25th. In the northeast from Cleveland to Albany, it’s in the 40s today. In states like Montana, there’s active winter weather advisories. Yet for competitors in Florida, it’s their 7th week of outdoor track and temperatures are in the upper 80s all week.

If you’re a competitor in the north, your time will come. Early season meets are about fine-tuning, not national leaderboards. Take care of your body and train for championship season. College coaches would rather see you healthy and peak your season during your conference and state meets than at a random invitational in early April.

For club athletes, the weather can often be an immensely distracting factor. Pole vault clubs like VaultWorx, with notable alumni like Justin Rogers (2022 USATF Junior Champ and Sydney Horn of High Point University (4.50m) has one of the most impressive indoor training facilities in the country. Based in Pennsylvania, its athletes go from the indoor training center, to high schools that stretch from western Maryland to northeast Pennsylvania. The weather is what’s made pole vault clubs so popular in the north. The opportunity to jump indoors year rounds, is part of what’s made states like Pennsylvania become powerhouses in the past decade.

The name of the game is to be healthy in championship season. Colder weather means longer warmups. One of the first differences I noticed in my first weeks at the University of Tennessee was the length of warmups - and wearing long sleeves and pants to warm up even when it was 85 degrees out.

Put extra emphasis on warmups.

Wind and weather can make it very daunting to go from long runs, especially for younger athletes. Enough wind can even make it dangerous to head back to a six or seven step run. Colder weather is a great opportunity to focus in on the most technical components of the vault.

Stick to those short run, soft pole jumps and work on technique.

Contradictory to the note above, cold temperatures with some wind is a great time to focus on your pole run. After a lengthy warmup, get off the runway and onto the track and grab a BIG pole.

Do pole runs from multiple run lengths and focus on the pole drop and accelerating through the takeoff.

One of the drills I shared on Instagram is something we do called, “Anywheres.” Similar to a short run vaulting I mentioned above, grab a small pole that you might use from 3 lefts. Per the name of the drill, now your coach could tell you to go from anywhere on the runway. For example, jump 1 you might start from 53ft on the runway, jump 2 from 75ft, jump 3 from 57 ft, and jump 4 from 49 feet. As athletes get more experienced they’ll be able to eye where they need to take off from and do a great job of accelerating into their takeoff and taking off from the proper spot.

Younger vaulters have a tendency to run to the box. They stare at it the whole way down the runway and end up under, or in some cases you’ll see an arc at their hips as it falls into the plant before rising through the takeoff. Anywheres can force vaulters to learn to run to their takeoff point - not the box. It can help vaulters feel that it’s more advantageous to accelerate through the end of their run rather than stretch or quick step to hit the perfect takeoff mark. In reality, most vaulters can be okay about 6 inches under to 3 inches out.

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Currently, Kurtis Marschall has the men’s world lead according to IAAF at 5.85m. Shocker, the meet was in Australia. It’s a similar story on the women’s side. Olivia McTaggart and Eliza McCartney have the world lead for women at 4.71m. Their marks were set at meets in New Zealand and Australia. The outdoor season holds a bit more weight than indoor for the professionals as we have an outdoor World Championships this year in Budapest towards the end of August. If you’re curious why some of the professional vaulters had a light indoor season, this could be a part of the reason why. Their goal isn’t to peak in March. It’s to peak in August. Too many competitions early in the year could make it tough to hold that level of perfirmance all the way to worlds.

It’s very likely that the top mark in the United States gets set this week. The Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays is one of the most desirable outdoor meets for American high school and college vaulters to compete at. The consistent tailwinds and fast runway year after year, repeatedly lead to high marks. It’s certainly not out of the question that a new world lead is set at the meet. With the lineup for this meet, we may be looking at an even hotter competition than NCAAs.

Men’s Entries

Women’s Entries

High School Boys

High School Girls

Notably in the high school girls competition is Hana and Amanda Moll. In addition to the high school and college girls competition, there is a separate elite women’s competition with vaulter likes Bridget Williams competing!

Max set a new personal best of 16’4” as a high school FRESHMAN this past week in an outdoor meet. Double click on the video below to watch on Instagram.

Outside of mass pole vault events like Reno, Expo Explosion and Nationals, there are very few meets that see a good number of high schooler pole vaulters travel to compete. In outdoor, two of the most well known meets for this are the Texas Relays and Penn Relays.

So, let us know what meet you’re most looking forward to this year in the comments!