What was the key to doing that and like coming out and being at your absolute best at the end of the season?

I've just had to really hone in on what I'm working on to be consistent over 490, because historically that's the height that's going to probably, not always, but probably win just about everything if you do it at the right moment.

Um, and so just figuring out my numbers.

I made a switch to longer poles this year.

Um, and I sacrificed a couple of Diamond Leagues.

I missed Paris mid-season to stay home, and I knew I just needed some hot weather training with my coach there, reps down the runway on these bigger sticks.

Um, getting my run dialed in and getting my new poles dialed in because you can't really trust a series of poles until you've jumped on them and you get to know, okay, where do the standards need to be on this? 'Cause every time you go up a pole it's a little bit stiffer and raise your grip, you're not sure where the stands are gonna have to be.

Oh.

How do you avoid the type of, like, burnout that can come from this, from doing that so long?

Yeah, that's a great question, and you do have to find ways to not let it become too much of a job, and get back to, why w- why did I do this in the first place? And I truly, genuinely love to pole vault, and sometimes you get away from that and it becomes too much of a job, and it, it can be very rigorous.

And so it's kind of bringing yourself back in and finding ways to make training fun, fun on a day-to-day basis.

And those little wins in training keep you going and make it fun.

And even at this age, I'm still learning new drills and learning new things and improving my technique, and that's what keeps it fun for me.

[laughs]

'Cause I, I had three not so great performances in Europe, and I was like, "This isn't me." This is just something that you're going through, and you have to experience those lows to even appreciate the highs.

So I'm glad, I'm happy for, um, being able to turn that around, and I had some great training sessions going into yesterday, so I was feeling confident.