Jared jumps to 11th in 2011 US Track and Field Youth National Championship

Jared jumped 16′ .25″ to place 11th in the 2011 USATF Youth Nationals in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Jared and Dad got up at 3:45am Saturday morning after 3 hours of sleep to head to Myrtle Beach for the USATF Youth Nationals at Doug Shaw stadium. The Long Jump was at 8am Sunday (photos, results, Meet Coverage Link, Meet Home Page).

This was only the 5th time Jared has competed in long jump on a real runway and he had to sort out his steps on his own without a coach. He got in three legal jumps, but they were about a foot behind the take-off line. He missed the finals and podium by just 4″. A PR would have moved him down to 5th, but he improved from his seeding before the meet of ~13th. The other more experienced jumpers in the field were quite talented and had similar take-off problems.

It was quite an experience to compete against some of the best jumpers from across the country and to see how top end professional track meets are run. Our goal was to use this as preparation for future meets. The long jump had eight uniformed officials running the event, including someone manning a wind speed guage for each jump to allow for official records to be set.

We had a lot of fun in our two days in Myrtle Beach with trips to the beach, go-carts, water park, and several movies. The weather was a sweltering 90F.

Athletes march out of check in area to the field:

Warm ups:

One of the top 3 jumpers:

1st Jump (see photo sequence)

2nd jump:

[flashvideo bufferlength=10 width=800 height=450 file=http://video.priorfamily.org/sports/jrp/2011/20110703-MVI_7828_MP4%20360p%20(16×9).mp4 /]

I didn’t watch the viewfinder for 2nd jump video abover and didn’t take pictures of third jump. You can’t give athletes feedback on their take-off mark based on video/photos so I needed to be careful not to get him DQ-ed.

Kayla’s teammate Carla Forbes had been at the stadium earlier in the week winning the triple jump at the world youth championship trials and making the US world team. We saw the results posted as we arrived in the stadium on Saturday.