See comment below, rendering this report moot: Jeff Hartwig turns 50 in September, but he looks to be hungry for an M45 record in the pole vault. He retired from serious competition in late 2008. Now the M40 WR man at 5.70 (18-8 1/4) is jumping back in the game, says an IAAF Spikes story. “Renaud Lavillenie challenged me to step it up and jump with all of the other ‘masters’ – no, the other legends athletes – and I unfortunately thought it sounded like a lot of fun, so now I’m in. At the moment, I’m totally in survival mode,” he says. “The adjustments are by far the biggest challenge. You have to figure out where your run will be, which pole to take, how high to grip, where to place the standards. Normally that takes time and because I haven’t jumped in so long, my biggest fear is that by the time I figure those things out I’ll be too tired to actually compete.” Spikes said Hartwig would “face a whole host of pole vaulting legends in a special exhibition event on Friday ahead of Renaud Lavillenie’s All Star Perche on Sunday,” but I haven’t seen results from France. The listed M45 indoor WR is 5.14 (16-10 1/4) by American Paul Babits in 2008.

Here’s the story for posterity:

Retired US pole vaulter Jeff Hartwig has a PB of 6.03m that ranks him joint-sixth all-time, holds the M40 world record at 5.70m and hasn’t jumped competitively in yonks. He tells us how world record holder Renaud Lavillenie convinced him to get back on the pole.

When I finally finished with my career, the biggest problem with the pole vault is it’s not the kind of event you can do recreationally. You can play golf, you can go running, you can do a lot of sports recreationally, but with pole vaulting you need so much equipment – and time.

And that’s really where I’m faced with the biggest challenge – I don’t have time in the day to train or really commit myself. Even if I’m at the track with some of the young athletes that I coach, or travelling with the other athletes, it’s all about them, I have to put them first. I myself become secondary and usually run out of time before I really have a chance to think about it.

The last time I vaulted was two and a half years ago. No, actually, one and a half years ago I jumped some very short approach jumps at my old training centre with my old coach in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I think I was trying to jump 4.30m from six steps and I believe I was unsuccessful.

Renaud Lavillenie challenged me to step it up and jump with all of the other ‘masters’ – no, the other legends athletes – and I unfortunately thought it sounded like a lot of fun, so now I’m in. At the moment, I’m totally in survival mode.

The adjustments are by far the biggest challenge. You have to figure out where your run will be, which pole to take, how high to grip, where to place the standards. Normally that takes time and because I haven’t jumped in so long, my biggest fear is that by the time I figure those things out I’ll be too tired to actually compete.

Certainly different types of people have success with different types of technique, and of course I think coming from such a technical side of the event I’m always looking at what I think someone could do to improve, what they’re doing wrong.

And yet, in my own jumping, it doesn’t take long to realise that what we see and what we would like to see are not necessarily the same things. It seems so easy when you’re watching it from the stands, but when you really try to do it I’m like ‘argh I can’t do it’. So it’s always a reminder of the challenges that all technical events bring.

In the pole vault, ultimately you’re competing against the crossbar, you’re competing against gravity. Even though there is a competitive component where you want to jump better than your opponents, you really can’t influence their performances.

We often say that every athlete needs some form of feedback when they’re on the field. So as a result I think we all encourage each other, and at the same time, take a bit of pride or take some gratification away if we do win, not so much because we beat the other people, but because we performed on a high level ourselves and I think that’s where it is really satisfying when you’re successful and everybody can appreciate when they see someone else be successful.