It’s not always easy being tall.
Just ask Alexa Porpaczy. If the talented high-jumper was a few inches shorter, she may have already achieved her goal of jumping her height.
But alas, the 15-year-old Semiahmoo Secondary student is five-foot-11, thus making her recent personal-best jump of 1.75-m a few centimeters shy of her ultimate target.
“My coach always says that to be a really great high-jumper, you have to be able to jump over your own head, so that’s always been a goal of mine, to get to that point. This year I’m really hoping to jump 1.80 – that would be over my height,” Porpaczy explained. “But going up five centimeters, that’s an awful lot for a high-jumper.”
Porpaczy’s jumping season has already began on the right foot. After a tough – by her standards – first meet of the season at the University of Washington, the South Surrey teen rebounded two weeks ago at the Percy Williams Indoor Games at the Richmond Olympic Oval.
Porpaczy cleared the bar at 1.75-m to improve her personal best mark by one cm, a mark she met last summer at a competition in Kelowna.
In addition to giving her a new PB, Porpaczy’s score also pushed her to the No. 1 spot in Canada’s under-18 high-jump rankings.
“It went better than the first meet, that’s for sure,” she laughed.
“That first one, we had to drive out there the morning of the meet, so it was a really early start to the day, and then I was sitting in the car for a few hours. It was just tough to get going.
“This time, I took more time to warm up on my own, and just focus. It went pretty well, and I was pretty happy with the result.”
Porpaczy attributes much of her recent success to a renewed focus on training. Though she competes under the Ocean Athletics Track and Field Club banner in competition, she trains regularly with a group of high-performance jumpers from throughout the Lower Mainland – a group that includes two-time Olympian Mike Mason, and Elgin Park Secondary’s Joel Della Siega.
In addition to training “five or six days a week”, that group – coached by BC Athletics’ Ziggy Szelagowicz – has also trained in Whistler, for a week in October, and San Diego, where they went for two weeks in January.
“I’ve just been training so much more this year compared to in the past,” Porpaczy said, mentioning that the San Diego trip was especially helpful.
“Two weeks, with the warm weather and nothing to focus on but jumping higher was really beneficial. We train all through the winter here, so I’m used to jumping in the dark and the cold, usually wearing tons of layers. It was such a huge difference jumping down there.”
Working alongside such a talented crew has also had a positive effect, she said.
“The group I train with, they’re just such high-level athletes, so the intensity of our practices is very high. For Mike, it’s an Olympic year, so he’s training very hard and we’re preparing the same way. It’s pretty cool to watch some of those guys jump. Mike hits 2.20-m in practice – he’s just so focused all the time, and has so much drive. It rubs off on you, for sure.”
As the track-and-field season moves forward, Porpaczy said she doesn’t dwell too long on her national No. 1 ranking, though admits she does use it as motivation from time to time.
“It’s nice to be there, but at the end of the day, I just want to improve on my own mark. If somebody else somewhere is doing really well, I’m not going to get upset about it – it will just motivate me to get to that point, too,” she said.
“But it’s good to have it in the back of my mind – it gives you a little bit more confidence heading into a meet.”