{"id":3184,"date":"2021-06-28T13:24:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-28T18:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/?p=3184"},"modified":"2021-06-28T13:25:20","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T18:25:20","slug":"sometimes-the-best-laid-plans-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/?p=3184","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes, the best Laid Plans…work."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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At the 2018 US Championships in Des Moines, the women\u2019s shot shaped up as a battle between Maggie Ewen and Raven Saunders over who would represent the future of the event in this country. Raven came in as the defending US champion with a PB of 19.76m. Maggie, a phenomenally successful NCAA thrower in the shot, disc, and hammer, had stretched her PB out to 19.46m earlier in the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had barely sat down to enjoy the show when a thrower I did not recognize spun her first attempt out past the nineteen-meter line. \u201cWho was <\/em>that?\u201d I asked the folks sitting around me. \u201cJessica Ramsey,\u201d came the reply, which did not help. Some frantic Googling revealed that her season\u2019s best the year before had been a whopping 17.76m. The year before that she\u2019d gone 17.74m. Now, suddenly, she was the early leader and a likely medalist at the US Championships with a toss of 19.23m. How in the world, I sat there wondering, did that happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramsey, it turns out, was a former glider who threw for Ashley Muffet (now Ashley Kovacs–yes, that Ashley Kovacs) at Western Kentucky, then joined John Smith\u2019s group of post-collegiate throwers first in Carbondale, Illinois, and then Oxford, Mississippi where he still resides as the throws coach at Ole Miss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A two-year tug of war ensued, with Smith trying to convince the 5\u20196\u201d Ramsey that her future lay in converting to the rotational technique and Ramsey sometimes acquiescing, sometimes pushing back. (I describe those days in more detail in a piece you can find here<\/a>.)  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The huge toss in Des Moines finally settled matters, but afterwards, Ramsey slipped back into a state of semi-anonymity, posting season\u2019s bests of 19.01m in 2019 and 18.64m last season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She sometimes had trouble with a balky left knee, she struggled to balance a full time job delivering for Insomnia Cookies with the full time training necessary to reach her potential, and looking back Ramsey admits that during the long months of the pandemic she \u201csometimes lost focus a little.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Smith is not one to lose focus, and he was able to secure access to an abandoned sportsplex outside of Oxford where his post-collegiates could continue throwing. There, Ramsey worked endlessly to improve her technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith also used what was essentially twelve months of off-season training to experiment with set\/rep schemes in the weight room in an effort to discern what type of program might bring out the best in each of his throwers when they would need it the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the days leading up to the Trials, I checked results for possible podium contenders, and it was hard to tell based on Ramsey\u2019s season so far, whether or not she was ready to battle for a spot on the team. She produced a huge 19.50m toss indoors in February, but then slipped back into the mid-to-upper eighteen-meter range in all of her outdoor meets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Was she injured? Struggling with motivation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d explained Smith. \u201cAll spring we were doing hard training, and she still threw over sixty-one feet in every meet, so I was very happy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHard training\u201d in Smith\u2019s world means–in addition to lifting–lots of non-reverse throws into a net using a variety of implements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe lived in the net,\u201d Smith recalls. \u201cWe did non-reverse throws with light and heavy shots practice after practice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those were tough workouts, especially on mornings after Ramsey had worked until 1:00 or 2:00am. But, she persevered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March, Smith shared with Ramsey the plan he had drawn up to get her on the podium at the Trials. It reflected his years of experience guiding his wife Connie (now head coach at Ole Miss) and Raven Saunders, whom he mentored to a fifth-place finish in Rio but no longer trains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a good plan,\u201d Smith said recently. \u201cBut, in order for it to work you have to have an athlete that buys in, and she did one hundred percent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A vital component of the plan was preparing Ramsey to compete in qualification and final rounds on the same day. Several weeks before the Trials, Smith arranged her workouts so that she threw twice on certain days–once in the morning and again in the evening, as would be the case at the Trials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, Ramsey struggled with that practice pattern. Smith says that for a while, \u201cher numbers were all over the place. Sometimes she\u2019d throw well in the morning, and sometimes at night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, she adapted and was able to consistently produce far throws in both sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looked great warming up for the qualification round in Eugene, producing a non-reverse throw in the 18.50m range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter seeing that,\u201d Smith says, \u201c I asked \u2018Are you sure you don\u2019t want to just non-reverse this and make the final?\u2019 but she said no.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, Ramsey used her full technique to power her first throw out to 18.82m and then packed it in to prepare for the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith described her as looking a bit \u201cshaky\u201d warming up that evening, but at some point she launched another 18.50m non-reverse, after which Connie advised her husband to \u201cleave her alone. She knows what she\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truer words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramsey opened with a 19.45m that was very likely to put her on the team, but Smith knew she had more in her. He reminded her that there were several women in the field capable of throwing that far, and admonished her to \u201ckeep pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Ramsey was feeling any kind of letdown, her friend and former training partner Saunders snapped her out of it by blasting a 19.96m PB in round three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once she threw that,\u201d Ramsey recalled afterwards, \u201cI was like \u2018That’s what I\u2019m talking about!\u2019  Then I had to zone in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She responded to Raven\u2019s challenge by blasting a new Trials record of 20.12m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did not know it was that big a throw,\u201d Ramsey recalled afterwards. \u201cBut, they always say the best throws are the ones that don\u2019t feel like they are going far.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith remembers telling Ramsey in March that \u201cwe are going to stick to our plan no matter what, and at the end you should have the stuff to make the team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They did and she did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it\u2019s time for a new plan. Maybe they\u2019ll call this one \u201cOperation Olympic Gold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the 2018 US Championships in Des Moines, the women\u2019s shot shaped up as a battle between Maggie Ewen and Raven Saunders over who would represent the future of the event in this country. Raven came in as the defending US champion with a PB of 19.76m. Maggie, a phenomenally successful NCAA thrower in the … Continue reading Sometimes, the best Laid Plans…work.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,11,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meets","category-rotational-shot","category-shot-put"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8knIb-Pm","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcthrows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}