Pole Vaulting in March and April: How to Persevere Through the "Armpit" of the Midwestern Track Season

By Jake Winder, founder of RISE Pole Vault.

How fun is it pole vaulting during springtime in Northern Illinois?! I hope you can sense the sarcasm. I can only speak to this time of year in Illinois, but I'm sure this will resonate with vaulters across the country. March and April are notorious for eating pole vaulters alive, especially if you don't live in Texas or SoCal, and the fix comes down to three action steps: accept the conditions, refocus your plan around process goals and proper adjustments, and execute with flexibility.

(To be clear, I'm not picking on the Texas and SoCal vaulters, just poking fun. I respect and love them, and I was born in Texas. They've produced some of the world's best vaulters throughout history. My position comes purely from a place of jealousy for the beautiful April sunshine in SoCal and the 80-degree smoking tailwinds at Texas Relays in March. But I digress.)

Before you dive in, understand what every Midwesterner already knows: the weather can go every which way, and sometimes you get lucky with a unicorn vault day in mid-March that lines up perfectly for a good early outdoor mark. Those days exist. The point of this article is to plan for the worst and hope for the best, because the constant bombardment of meets canceled due to weather (and meets that should have been canceled due to weather) can throw even the toughest individuals into a tailspin. Left unguarded, the spring weather will slowly turn your indoor-season high into an outdoor-season slump. These tips are how you get through to the magic of May without too many hiccups.

First, don't freak out. Your pole vaulting powers have not magically disappeared. Sit down, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and say, "I do know how to pole vault." The hundreds if not thousands of reps you've done don't go away easily. You will not forget how to pole vault overnight. Now, the three steps.

Step 1: Accept

You have to come into full acceptance of the situation during the early outdoor season. Stop fighting it. So many vaulters work so hard to convince themselves they won't have to drop down poles and grips when there's a 50 mph crosswind and it's spitting snow. Why?! Seriously, accept it and adapt. Dropping to a smaller pole today doesn't mean you'll be on it the rest of the season. You're not committing to these changes forever, just for the day. Each meet has unique requirements, and adapting to them is how you find success; refuse, and these meets will chew you up and spit you out.

And don't put a timeframe on it, like "I just have to get through the next week and the weather will turn and I'll be like new again." You have no control over the weather. Some springs turn in late April; some don't turn until mid-May. Take the days as they come, release what you can't control, and accept that this is where you are. You're going to be okay.

Step 2: Refocus

If you're spiraling, you need a plan that gets you out of the early outdoor season unscathed and sets you up for May. That starts with a serious adjustment to your expectations. If you expect a personal best while your eyes are getting pelted with snow and your cheeks are flapping in a 30 mph headwind, you are delusional.

Build the plan on process goals, not outcome goals. A technical process goal is a specific cue like "hands up" at takeoff, or "see my feet at my top hand" in the rock back. These simple cues matter most exactly when conditions are difficult. They also help with the visual transition from indoors to outdoors, which used to take me a week or two every year. Rocking back and seeing giant blue sky instead of a facility ceiling was overwhelming, so I'd anchor my attention on something specific, like seeing my feet at my top hand, instead of letting the big picture swallow me. It kept me comfortable and maintained my spatial awareness.

Keep your cues under control, though. You shouldn't have a million of them; we've found the magic number is usually three, and they should be stupid simple and general. Mine were "jump up, see your feet, turn." If you've put in the reps, your body fills in the blanks. When you're vaulting into bad wind, or your hands are too cold to pick up the pole, big general movements are what you can actually focus on. The tiny details don't move the needle on days like that.

Then make the adjustments that actually matter: approach, pole size, and grip height. The logic is simple. If you're freezing, you won't run as fast. If you can't run as fast, you can't grip the same height on the same poles you use when your muscles are warm and firing. If the wind is bad, your start mark needs to accommodate it. So don't assume your indoor numbers transfer to outdoors immediately. Put your pride aside and drop down until the transition period is over.

A good starting point: drop to a pole six inches shorter than normal, five pounds lighter in weight rating, and lower your grip by a fist. That's a starter, not a life sentence. The numbers come back, and most likely improve outdoors. But you have to be okay taking a step back now to take steps forward later in the season. Start small and work up and you'll come out of the transition stronger; stay stubborn and you'll come out discouraged and defeated.

Consider your approach length too. It's much easier to find your flow from a shorter approach, and some meets simply call for one. If it's 40 degrees with a smoking headwind, that's a perfect day to chase a short-approach PR. And if there's any chance of rough weather at your next meet, pack poles for good weather and bad. If you don't have access to a range of poles, get in touch with a pole rental service with unlimited free exchanges (this is exactly why our RISE Rentals program works the way it does) so you always have the right pole for the conditions.

What you're really building here is a Plan B. If all you have is a Plan A, you're in a bad position any day the weather isn't Plan A material. Having dealt with Northern Illinois outdoor seasons for over 20 years, you may even want a Plan C.

Step 3: Execute

You've accepted that you can't control the weather. You've built your Plan B with adjusted pole, grip, and approach. Now be patient, trust the plan, and execute it.

Stay flexible in both directions. If the weather cooperates, take advantage of it. If your training plan says it's not a vault day but it's beautiful out, guess what: today just became a vault day. If you're supposed to vault today and it's terrible, see if another day this week works better. Just watch that you're not weather-chasing too hard; you can't wait around for perfect days or you'll wait all season. Take what the day gives you. Warm tailwind for long approach, big poles, high grips? Cool. Cold crosswind for short approach, lower grips, small poles? Also cool. Be flexible and understanding of what the day offers.

For the record, there is an alternative to all of this: keep beating your head against the wall and forcing Plan A. There's a slight possibility that forcing yourself onto your indoor poles and grips doesn't leave you landing short of the pit every day for two months, and you might even hit a unicorn day and jump out of your mind. But the odds lean heavily toward hurting yourself, ending your season, or at minimum getting so frustrated you want to quit. Personally, I'm not rolling the dice on that method.

One more thing on risk: the higher you vault, the more the conditions affect you. A beginner gripping low and straight-poling can often keep performing and even progressing through bad weather, because the risk in what they're doing is relatively low. An advanced vaulter gripping high to chase elite heights is a different story. If you're advanced and your gut says it's a Plan B day, you're probably right, and that's no big deal. You'll live to fight another day.

One last thing

Following people on Instagram who live in warmer climates won't make you feel better about your situation. And someone in your own climate may have caught a unicorn day and posted a huge PR, which can make you feel like you're doing something wrong. You're not. If you're applying the steps above, you're in good shape; stay aligned with your plan and stay in your lane. If you can handle social media, it's a cool thing. If it's stressing you out or derailing your plan, take a break from it.

So there you have it: tools to survive the start of the Midwestern outdoor season. I love Illinois, and our weather definitely puts the ILL in Illinois. In the end, battling these conditions makes you a tough individual if you bring the right attitude. The biggest takeaway is this: it is not impossible to vault WELL during these months, but it is very hard to vault HIGH during them. Apply these strategies, maintain your flow by vaulting well on smaller poles, and once the weather breaks, it's as simple as putting the right pole in your hand. You will fly high once again.