Why I Fail

On Saturday, I failed to perform in Jena. Am I devastated? No! But I’m absolutely disappointed and a little embarrassed (although whatever, my process is my process). I threw well in Rome. I threw well in Halle. I had an overall great trip to Europe for three weeks! But finishing it off that way leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and motivation to understand my own brain and failures moving forward in this long season. I want to share two big reasons why I fail. These aren’t specific to Jena: I do the same technical things wrong consistently, and I let self-doubt creep in after being alone for a while.

Ich liebe Hallesche Werfertage!

Trusting myself has always seemed normal to me. I blame good parenting! I know I put the work in. I know I have what it takes. I know that I care the most about the outcome (team situations were frustrating for me and I’ve been let down by people). But when I have any little dent in my independence armor and there’s someone there to lean on, I leeeeaaaan.

It’s my problem, not those willing and helpful peoples’ issue. I need better blinders, and to trust my own instincts, not necessarily in competition (I’m good at that), but when things don’t go as planned surrounding it. Long travel day? Go to the pool instead. Only bus later than I hope to go to the meet? Roll with it and shorten the warm-up when I know I’ll have a warm place to do so (prioritize the throwing stuff). Extra worried about my body throwing twice within 3 days? Strengthen the mind with visualization rather than just ignoring the negativity. And do all the mobility and core rather than just resting and hoping to feel better! I’ve always been good at following instructions. I’m coachable! And I highly value Jamie’s input into my training and competition preparation plan. But I also know he’s open to my feedback. For whatever reason, when I don’t feel good but know I have a meet coming up, I put my head down and stick stubbornly to the plan rather than expressing what I know, 99% of the time, we’ll both agree with. I should have gone to the pool on Friday after leaving the Rome hotel at 7:30am and arriving in Jena at 5:30pm, sweating all day. I could have done some core in my room first, then swam some laps, sprinted a little, and relaxed, weightless. I didn’t. Dummy.

There’s this saying that the hay is in the barn. Have you ever been around a farm? Animals need more than hay. My Mom’s horses get a carefully concocted mixture of hay, fancy hay, beet pulp, grains, various vitamins, and of course, love. The hay may be in the barn before big competitions (whatever “big” means to you: Every meet can feel big at this level), but you still need grains to finish the job. To do it right. I’ve ignored that instinct one too many times, and I’m finally processing it. Before Zurich and after Rovereto last year, I was finally brave enough to focus fully on what I wanted, and harvest the grain of mental fortitude and specific mobility and stability in those last days and moments. To do things I know make me feel invincible in this post-ACL, different-for-me era. I can be more successful. I just also have to be braver in looking my big, scary goals in the face and taking care of the details that can get me there.

My technical mistakes are always the same. They present themselves as “losing the tip” or “forward,” which in Jena’s left head/crosswind was a disaster. But actually it all starts for me with my right foot. And really my left foot. I spent 8 years solidifying a habit of striking backward with my right leg after my impulse, which I could get away with because of the gift of shoulder mobility. I look forward to lumbar arthritis as a result of hyperextension of that area for close to a decade as well (and more since I’m still not 100% disciplined). Anyway, with tiredness and some soreness (I’m very good at managing stiffness/being dinged up in one area, but 2/3/4 gets harder) comes timidity and lazy legs. Even though I know my legs were the reasons for 62.08m in Halle and 63.11m in Rome, I willed them to go and they just wouldn’t!

On Saturday, I let people (who are not Dana) tell me what to do. I already know what to do, and what they told me would have been accomplished by my strategy (specifically steps 2 and 3), but I allowed myself to be distracted by input.

I need to:

1.       Gradually accelerate down the runway.

2.       Hit a strong impulse after already using my left leg as a driver in crossovers.

3.       Be patient in my tunnel of power (knee up/toe up and left arm closed), wait for the ground with my right foot.

4.       Drive my right knee to the ground immediately upon right foot contact while keeping left arm closed.

5.       Keep the handle of the javelin “hidden” from the sector right behind my head.

6.       Be a freaking tree in my left leg.

7.       Push my chest forward after all of that happens.

8.       Watch the jav soooooar.

Everything happens if I hit an impulse and actually wait for the ground. But when I allow myself to be distracted, I focus on the end result rather than the key step that will lead to that result. In a headwind, that’s “keep the tip down,” “control the tip,” and “tip by your eye.” When I think about that cue, my only focus becomes keeping my chest up, which gets me tall in my legs and forward, not allowing good, powerful leg action. Inactive legs mean no impulse, and the body’s rush to create speed with a pawing right foot and pressure behind me rather than under me, forcing me forward more. A pushy right means I don’t have to snap a solid block down, because I feel support from a leg (the right). The left arm swings open for balance and because there’s time, and the right arm follows suit by swinging around. I try to maintain connection with the implement by extending/breaking my wrist, both skyrocketing the javelin and not applying energy to it.

My face sometimes.

It’s tough to break the self-doubt cycle in the midst of a competition, especially when you have excuses (four travel days and three meets in a week, end of 6-week trip, two days after the most intensity my body has felt in throwing in months, headwind, etc.). But I’m sick of it. Details are important and empowering. Let them be by allowing yourself to pay attention to them. Trust yourself, even when you’re tired, by practicing mental toughness, however you harness it. Change your cycle. Be better!

The Magic of Good Training Partners

I just got home to Colorado from two weeks in Chula Vista, California, my original post-collegiate training home. Russ and I moved there coming up on ten years ago. I loved it. Thought it was magical. It is again.

San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park when we visited Chula Vista for Spring Break 2009!

I’ve talked a lot in the last year+ about how fantastic my coaching situation is. I love love love love love working with Jamie and Dana. They are two of those rare, fabulous people in my life that just get me. You know the ones, that you always have some extra five minutes of conversation to cover before leaving each others’ side. Who say aloud what you’re thinking before you can form the words. Who are there for you in the hardest of times, and proudest of you in the best of times as a result. The ones who surprise you often with statements and observations that burst forth belly laughter. Absolute gems of friends.

As far as javelin is concerned, Dana and Jamie are all I need. The way we’re working together has my focus so much more locked in than it has been in years. All of us being together in Chula Vista on this trip resulted in some of the best practices of my whole life. I can feel performance building even more than I did last year, because I know our system works, and the technique isn’t quite as new as it was in 2018. Sunny and 70 San Diego conditions help everything. But let me tell you about an X factor that I can’t believe I keep forgetting about.

Good training partners are what I want.

I have had many fabulous training partners over my years as a javelin thrower. Let me take you back.

High School:

Rachel Baardson. Lisa Haakensted. Adam Mobley. Kate Helms. People who enjoyed javelin, sure, but also just made me laugh. After the silence of swimming and intensity of basketball in high school, track practice was just such a time of friendship. Sure, we worked hard, but we also talked and laughed and enjoyed outside the whole time. My high school track friends were the original training partners who are friends. Friends who just happen to be training partners.

College:

Lindsey Blaine. Quietly focused. Someone I, to this day, don’t feel cool enough to be friends with. A woman with relentless drive. I always just wanted to impress her. In training and in life.

Jim Schwingendorf. My dear, dear friend, fellow BGRite and party crasher, and neighbor. Whose Dad was my Catch Phrase soulmate. Jim nicknamed me “Knee Sweat.” Always ready with a joke and always giving 1000%. It made me so proud when Jim and Steve Carlson both made regionals in 2008!

Betsy/Laura/Elaine/Kylie. Four sweet freshmen when I returned from Beijing for my fifth year. Their endless energy in their pursuit of knowledge was so special at the end of my time as a Boilermaker!

Purdue T&F Banquet 2008: Me, Jim, Steve, Lindsey!

Professional:

Mike Hazle. That guy. We met in Beijing in 2008 and then were the best training partners in the world in Chula Vista for three years. So unlike each other but somehow perfect together. One of the most loyal people I’ve ever known. He knew exactly how to fire me up and I like to think I was good at calming him down (sometimes he needed that). The end of his career and what sometimes feels like the beginning of mine overlapped, and I couldn’t be more grateful for his leadership and friendship. He was creative in his approach to training and appreciated every day, which taught me to do the same, regardless of how we felt physically. Jamie still writes “Hazle squats” into my lifts sometimes. In May of 2012, Mike suffered an elbow injury, shifting his focus from a second Olympic Games to his other passionate aspiration of serving in the military. I didn’t understand at the time that he was serious, but we started rucking from the runway to the weight room instead of walking. His goal of BUD/S was halted by serious ankle issues that required surgery (on both) before going an alternate route. His ankle surgeon was my ACL surgeon, so we’d pass each other in the doctor’s office parking lot that Fall, both of our dreams shifted into something we didn’t really see coming, and exchange the same encouraging words we always had. I was proud when he finally won a USATF National Championship in 2011 after four consecutive silvers. I loved being at meets together in Europe. But my pride in him as a U.S. Veteran leaks out my eyeballs when I think about it too much.

After my knee surgery and Russ’s and my move to Colorado in 2012, my focus kind of had to shift to myself. I went back to school. I was just healing. We got engaged at the end of 2013 and then I bought a house and then we renovated that house ourselves. I spent time traveling to see Ty by myself in NOLA and Texas, and loved the freedom of those trips. Russ was my periodic training partner and travel companion until he retired in 2016. What I’m saying is that I’ve spent a lot of time inadvertently learning how to train alone. And I do simply love the training. I do cherish time focusing on my job, listening to music, by myself.

I’ve visited Chula Vista at least once a year since we moved away. It is always fun to see Jamie and feel supported when he comes to watch my throwing sessions. But now there is this little tribe of training partners that make the place an unmatched treasure again.

Mike Shuey (Shuey in this blog, for clarity). Intentionally light-hearted but obviously earnest in his pursuits. A newly-minted 80m thrower with a lot left in the tank. Very tough: He’s had some of the weirder injuries I’ve heard of and shaken them right off. A family man with great comedic timing and sometimes-too-good sarcasm. He came to Colorado last year and Russ and I took him fishing, plus I got to learn that we practice well together when he came to the Academy with me to throw with Dana. Very athletic, and getting more so all the time. Questionable musical taste within workouts, but that is something we absolutely have in common.

Max Rohn. Fellow Coloradan. Many would call him a hero. Someone who fully appreciates cool life experiences that have come his way through uncool life experiences. New enough to the javelin throw to want to soak up everything he can, and brings an attitude of gratitude to every session. A strong person without being stubborn where he doesn’t need to be. Up for debate on anything. Excellent mannerisms, periodically including my favorite, finger guns. An old soul with a young zest for this Track and Field adventure that he started later than most, and is likely enjoying more than many as a result. Apparently some of the best humans come from Penn State (Shuey coached Max a bit while they were both still there. See also: Jimmy, Darrell.).

Brent Lagace. A periodic companion for Shuey in throwing sessions. Lovely, relaxed energy to be around.

Justin Phongsavanh. Great hair, and great hair flips because he probably knows it, haha. Has the best surprised face right before he laughs out loud. We can talk about electricity and dogs. Justin is a seated thrower, and Dana and I were both humbled and intrigued to try it out and give him our input. His questions challenged the very way I think about how my able body throws. I’ve been around para-athletes for a long time, but not many para-javelin throwers. They’ve sharpened my focus on how best to do what we all do.

Erica Wheeler. One of my original javelin heroes. This ’96 Olympian is the Paralympic javelin coach at the CVEATC, and therefore works with Max and Justin. Still the Washington State High School Record Holder, I’d seen her name for two years on record books before watching her win Nationals in 2003, when I was there for the very first time to compete as a junior. I just thought, “She’s from where I’m from. I want to do that.” It is so much fun to interact with her in a collaborative coaching capacity, and Dana agrees. We had an absolute blast putting our brains together and geeking out on the javelin.

I spent two awesome weeks with that group of great people, plus my two coaches. I know that Russ and I moved away from Chula Vista for good reasons, and those all remain, but knowing that such an excellent community exists there again means I’ll be back more often.

The bottom line in an ideal training situation is to love what you do. I LOVE training. I love the process of making my body feel good and perform through movement. I love the knowledge that every little thing I do physically is contributing to my ultimate goals. I love being outside and active, often, even when it’s cold in Colorado. I love the necessity of good hydration and adequate nutrition. I love working hard: Asking that extra little bit of my muscles when they’re burning and shaking, putting mind over matter. I love the feeling of surprising explosive power and stretch reaction. I can do that on my own and enjoy the heck out of it. But I forget how much better it is, together. Every track athlete is internally motivated. But there is just something special about celebrating other peoples’ success alongside your own. The X factor of fabulous training partners isn’t something I imagined I would find again. The right people, who yell strength into your muscles when the barbell suddenly gets heavier. Who can’t help but whoop with you at that tiny javelin dot that you made rocket away. Who join in on celebration dances, the more ridiculous the better.

This might all sound really sappy. But I’ve been around a long time, and the magic of good training partners is a big deal. It probably means more to me than it does to them too, and that’s okay. I also realize that I am now the Mike Hazle in the Chula Vista equation: The perhaps wise, sometimes ridiculous, older athlete. I don’t live there anymore, but training there for ten years now makes it feel like mine, and if I can periodically drop in and meld back into that great community, I can’t wait to contribute again in some way.

Have you had great training partners? Did you tell them how much you appreciated their role in your career? You should.

Next week: How to be a good training partner! I’ll flip the script of this blog. More practical advice than just gushing and reminiscing. 😊

Super Important Stuff (Javelin Edition)

To start off, I am not a coach. I’m not your coach! I have coached. I’m pretty good at it if I do say so myself, haha, but I’ve only ever done it in short bursts or at camps. Your coach knows you best, and is aware of the problems that you have. Or maybe you’re aware of the problems that you have, and you just need to work on how to communicate your concerns to your coach in a respectful and constructive way. More on the athlete/coach dynamic next week!

That disclaimer stated, let me put another one out there: We all have different struggles. Each body works slightly differently than the other, and things that have been important for me might not be for you. I can only tell you my experience though, and maybe you’ll learn from it! I’ll tell you about the injuries I have had and the javelin lessons I’ve learned from them, and then some basic super important (in my opinion) javelin technical things.

Injuries I’ve had and the lessons they’ve taught me:

1.       Injury: L5 (lumbar/low back) stress fracture.
Lesson: Core stability/lumbar stability/thoracic mobility/rotational fluidity and strength are important.
               I’ve written about this injury before, and how rehabbing after it helped put me on the 2008 Olympic team. I used to try and get all of my flexibility from my back! I simply didn’t know any better, and honestly it can look similar for someone to be using their shoulder and engaging their core vs. getting flexibility from their lumbar spine. Simply activating those core muscles in a little bit different way than I was doing it can protect the low back. I had to learn through injury, but maybe you can learn to do lots of core stuff now!
               Your core is a cylinder. From about diaphragm height down to your hips, all the way around your middle, is a circular tank of muscles you can train to connect your feet and legs to your throwing arm and hand. Do that. Your lumbar area can rotate, but shouldn’t flex or extend too extremely. Rotational strength is crucial in the uncoiling of the javelin throw, so oblique, twisting stuff is helpful, and best if done in a nice, fluid motion like you want the javelin throw to be. Balance training really helped me after my back injury. The movement you want in your back is in the thoracic area (shoulder blades/between your shoulders). Train thoracic mobility (flexion (bending forward), extension (bending backward), and rotation (turning either direction)). Do that with a javelin in your hand or across your back.
               Train your core in ways that make sense for how you know you need to move in an optimal javelin throw, but also train your core in normal ways! There is a crazy plethora of options out there.

2.       Injury: Left Anterior Cruciate Ligament tear (in the course of blocking)
Lesson: Healthy knee movement patterns are important, but dorsiflexion, hip mobility, and glute stability are hacks!
               I had never been taught how my knees should move before I tore my ACL. I obviously didn’t do anything intentionally to put my knee in a valgus position and experience a non-contact rupture of the ligament, but I also hadn’t trained my nervous system and musculature NOT to be in that position. Try your best not to tear your ACL in order to learn this lesson, please!
               Since my bone-patella-bone, ipsilateral autograft reconstruction in 2012, I’ve been amazed at the response the body can have to smart, intense rehabilitation (and now that I’m fully healed, prehabilitation) exercises. I had no idea how important glute stability was to knee health, and perhaps the misfiring of my left glute was a piece of my injury puzzle in the first place. Keeping an eye on the dorsiflexion (toes up) of your ankles is a good idea for knee health as well. Hip mobility is huge for getting your legs into the correct positions without asking too much of your vulnerable knees.
               There are so many supporting factors to knee health that I was unaware of, and those factors can enhance your javelin throwing anyway. Train healthy knee movement patterns (good squat mechanics, proper patella tracking and mobility, VMO function), and enhance those patterns with dorsiflexion for good reaction to the ground among other things, hip mobility for dynamic and efficient crossovers, and glute stability so that your block transfers energy into that solid core you built, above.

3.       Injury: Right shoulder impingement.
Lesson: Prioritize flexibility in the shoulders (duh).
               I had a left shoulder repair surgery in 2015, but I actually had a lot of issues with my right (throwing) shoulder afterward. I think the repaired rotator cuff tendons on the left side just played tug-of-war with my right shoulder across my back throughout the healing process, and I had a lot of pain in the throwing motion as a result. I should’ve prioritized throwing shoulder flexibility throughout that surgery and recovery process, because it’s my bread and butter!! Yours too.
               We get dynamic flexibility from the actual act of throwing the javelin, in gymnastics movements, and in some lifts. But there is a TON you can do to retain that flexibility in static ways as well. Sit on the ground and reach your arms long behind you for minutes at a time. Do a bunch of supine (face up) hand and elbow planks and kill two birds with one stone (shoulder flexibility and core/glute function). Add javelin stretches in even on non-throwing days. Put your hand flat on a wall and turn your body away from it to stretch the front of your shoulder in a sort-of throwing position.
               If you’re naturally flexible like me, it can be easy to take it for granted. Keep any flexibility you have for as long as you can by being proactive about stretching. I love my nightly rolling and stretching sessions with Maddie the Dog!

She “helps” me stretch like any good pet would.

Important Technical Stuff:

1.       Right to Left touchdown time (if you’re right-handed).

Decrease it. Get your left foot down as fast as possible after your impulse/penultimate/whatever you want to call it. For me, this means learning how to let the ground come to me, not paw down and back at the ground as I’m moving into my block, because that action just pitches my upper body forward and actually extends my left leg rather than letting it snap down and become a block leg. Driving my right knee down to the ground and turning my right ankle over also helps me get my block down faster. Forcing yourself to need the stability of your block leg (by turning over your right) means it will usually show up for you!

Whatever you need to do to figure out how to have a faster right-to-left touchdown is what you need to do. Get creative. Only focus on that cue for an entire throwing session/week/month of training. Do some sprinting accelerations and listen to the sound of your feet striking the ground in faster succession with each phase of speed. Learn how to make your feet hit the ground faster at the end of your approach.

2.       Acceleration.

What a nice segue! The point of your approach is to build speed to put into the implement to make it fly further. Therefore you must find a way to transfer that speed into said implement. That is what all of your technique is for (sequencing of body parts and positioning), but putting speed into the implement starts with accelerating down the runway.

Is your approach long, but you go the same speed the whole time? Maybe shorten it and speed up gradually. Do you have a short approach, but you sprint out of the back and are then out of control when trying to hit a block? Slow down at the back. Accelerate as you go.

You want to accelerate ALLLLL the way through the throw. I watch a lot of people (and I’m guilty of this as well and am focusing on relearning it right now) accelerate TO their block and not through the throw. Hit that block and then KEEP accelerating the rest of your body around and over it until you finally release the javelin. Block hits first, then the chest can drive through like crazy. Accelerate all body parts into the javelin!

3.       Strong posture and javelin control.

Going back to a nice core! This doesn’t mean you need a six pack to throw far. Also please see my post on controlling the position of your hand. You can accelerate nicely, then have a fast right-to-left transition, but if the javelin is pointed ninety degrees to your right, your throwing hand is by your hip, and your upper body is pitched forward, the implement will land pretty close to you.

Stand up nice and tall. You can lean back a little bit if you have that control. Do TONS of practice crossovers so that your upper body stays quiet while your legs are strong and powerful and fluid in a lateral plane. Dana likes to equate javelin throwers to icebergs: Beautiful and impressively still above the water (hips), dangerously busy and powerful and strong below.

Hold heavy stuff up behind you to train arm and hand control. Maybe play some javelin golf. Get creative to learn how to move around in explosive ways, but keep your core and arm in control of the javelin. You have to throw it right to throw it far, and that starts with holding it in the right place (tip by your eye and fairly parallel to the ground).

4.       Keep the shoulders closed as long as possible.

“Closed” means perpendicular to the foul line at the end of the runway. The javelin has rotational components, even though we run in a straight line! You want your shoulders to stay closed as long as you can keep them that way, because that means that your throwing shoulder and hand will be pointed backwards and away from the sector, and you’ll be building stretch reflex across your left hip/core/right shoulder/entire right arm for a long long time. That stretch translates to distance.

Hit your block as fast as you can, maybe by driving your right knee down to the ground like me. Driving that right knee down means your right hip will drive through, solidifying your left block leg even more than it already is. As your right hip drives through, energy is transferred to your core. Then, your left arm can start to swing open, initiating the uncoiling and sling of your right shoulder/elbow/hand, followed by the javelin soaring away from you in a gorgeous little undetectable dot.

If your shoulders open to the sector early, you shorten your pull. Keep those shoulders closed and give your entire body a chance to help you throw far. Being open with the shoulders not only decreases your distance, but likely hurts your back. Or elbow. Or pec. Or more.

5.       Keep your feet on the ground.

Seems simple, but I struggle with this sometimes, especially post-knee injury. People want to follow through so badly (or just relieve pressure from that block leg), but you get the energy you put into the javelin from applying force to the ground. Keep the block leg firmly planted and turn turn turn turn the right leg and hip for as long as you have that javelin in your hand. Watch Johannes Vetter!!

 So. Move gradually faster down the runway. Control your upper body and javelin position. Get your block down as fast as possible after your impulse. Keep those feet on the ground, and keep your shoulders closed to keep the javelin back as looooong as you can.

Talk to your coach. He or she knows you and can likely help.

Little efforts every day add up to big changes. If I skip a day of stretching my hip internal rotation lately, I’m sorry during my next training session. Neglecting core work for a few days means my back is sore after my next throwing session. If I don’t get in the pool once a week, my elbow misses the slight distraction it experiences when I pull on the water, and I don’t feel quite as fluid when I pick up the javelin again. Take the time to notice what your body needs and give it that. Journaling is a good way to pick up on both patterns that make you feel good and not so good. Pay attention to what is helpful, and do those things! Be intentional.

Dating a Fellow Athlete

Russ Winger, my husband, is the coolest. We dated for about 7 years before we got engaged, and were engaged for a year before we were married. We’ve been married almost 4.5 years. That’s 12.5 years of relationship, and 10 of them happened when we were both athletes! He retired from throwing the discus (PR 66.04m) after the 2016 Olympic Trials, has lost about 50 pounds so far, and is thrilled to be pursuing other interests. I love doing life with him!

We met at NACAC U-23 Championships in 2006, on a developing elite team, but both of us had bigger goals than that level of competition. Russ threw the shotput back then, and continued to do so until I think 2014 (overall PR 21.29m). For multiple years, he doubled at USATF National Championships and made the final in both events. He is a phenomenal athlete and even better person. The highest highs of my career all have something to do with him, including both of us medaling at PanAm Games in 2015 and going to Worlds together in the same year, when I finally cracked a major championship final and got eighth.

2006 NACAC U-23 Championships, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

I love my relationship. I am such a huge fan of Russ, and maybe vice-versa. I realize that every relationship is different, but I want to talk about what it’s like to date a fellow athlete! Perhaps you’re wondering, or are having problems that we might have had.

I’m gonna go at this from a pros and cons perspective!

Pros

1.       Shared fitness and health values.

You’re both athletes. Regardless of what sport you do, if you have lofty goals and a good understanding that disciplined, smart training and supporting nutrition and recovery practices make you better, hopefully those lessons will translate to the rest of life! For the last approximately five years of his athletic career, Russ was consistently 300 pounds, which is pretty typical for a male thrower. In his first year of retirement, he lost 30 pounds simply by not eating as much as he had during training. In his second year, he has lost an additional 20 with diet and somewhat inconsistent exercise, and has plans to lose more. I love him so much at every weight, because regardless of training, he has always been a super active person. Losing weight just helps him be that person in a happier fashion.

I’m a somewhat bigger javelin thrower. I’ve learned through experience that a lean body does not mean far throws for me, so I operate with a little bit more of a cushion while I continue in this career. I look forward to the day, though, that meals will be a little smaller, workouts will be a little more outdoor-focused, and weight falls off of me like it has Russ (and I’m confident that it will, because it did when we got married!).

Something to keep in mind is that different athletes require different approaches to the “fitness” required for their sport. It can be difficult to adjust to a different lifestyle and stay healthy (eat like a football player but no longer play football, for example), but it’s my hope for every athlete that shifting focus to a more generally healthy lifestyle after sport is possible. Focus on goal-oriented behavior rather than doing things that made you feel good while you were an athlete. Dating an athlete means that hopefully he or she can shift that positive trait of goal-setting to other areas in life.

2.       Individualism and the ability to understand each others’ priorities.

I grew up with parents who were very much in love and had a great partnership (still do), but were also really independent people within their relationship (still are). My Dad traveled a lot, and my Mom held down the home while also pursuing her own interests and driving me to every sports practice and game. I never thought the amount of time they spent apart was weird, and loved seeing them happy to be reunited.

Dating a fellow athlete is a little like that. You care about each other and each other’s outcomes, sure, but you also have your own stuff to worry about. It’s easier not to get offended when your partner focuses on his or her own goals, because you have your own. Having time to be together and focus on that is important, too, but that’s the next section.

When Russ and I were both athletes, we could train together, and I absolutely loved that. We never had the same training programs though, even though we had the same coaches over the years, so often we would each drive to the Air Force Academy, perhaps warm up near each other, and then split up to throw. If he got done before me, he would come down and film, and vice-versa. We often lifted near each other at the Olympic Training Center, and were each others’ spotters if needed, but would always be focused on different lifts and different technique, and were probably in different phases of training. We each had different priorities, but could sort of orbit around each other in support.

2015.

Dating someone who is really good at different stuff than you is cool, too. I’ve said one million times that Russ is twice the athlete I am, and I learned a lot from him in the weight room and on the track. Learning from fellow athletes is fun, and can be even easier when that person is your significant other.

3.       Built-in shared interests.

Common ground is not only the basis of friendship, like I mentioned in my last blog, but a really great place to start a romantic relationship. As fellow athletes, shared interest is built right in!

When Russ first visited me at home in Washington at the end of summer in 2006, we went in search of waterfalls to hike, I caught my first tiny fish on the fly, and we played with my childhood dogs nonstop. Over time, we’ve learned to play bridge with my parents, and now we play with Russ’s grandparents as well. We met through Track and Field, and we continued to have that in common for a long time, but we also very quickly recognized other things that we both enjoy. Again, like I mentioned in my previous blog, if you’ve both chosen to pursue sport, you might have other stuff in common, too.

Athletics will fade. It has been so amazing to watch Russ gain momentum in other areas of his life in the past two years. He is truly my leader in that process, and I can only hope to make the transition to regular adulthood as well as he has. Having sport in common is great, but it was merely a starting point for us, and I love how our relationship grew in so many different directions from that. I would hope the same for you.

Cons

1.       Different approaches to the same thing.

Personalities differ. Learning processes aren’t the same across humans. Work ethics run the gamut. Tempers either flare and the wheels come off in moments of frustration, or people buckle down and try harder.

It can be beneficial to date someone who thinks differently than you (see the last section). Sometimes, though, those differences can result in conflict. I’ve always been really good at compartmentalizing and doing what my coach tells me to. Russ is more of an independent thinker. Once, in Germany in 2010, we had rented a car to drive to meets, and were going to drive to our last practice before that trip instead of taking the familiar train route we knew. We, of course, got lost on the way, Ty and Mike were waiting for us, and we were both upset with each other for various reasons. I had a great practice once we arrived, which made Russ even more mad at me when we talked about it later.

I’m really good at being lazy when I need to be. Rest is important, and I love it so. Russ is an incredibly active person. He gets restless and bored with an entire rest day, and there have been times that I’ve agreed to an adventure and then regretted it because I’m tired. We’ve come a very long way in our ability to clearly communicate our needs to each other, and the joy we experience on those adventures together far outweighs any lingering tiredness I might feel in practice the next day, plus he lets me sleep as much as I want in the car!

Dating someone different than you is really fun, you just have to learn how to communicate your approach or needs to that person. The only way to discover those differences is to do life together, too, and realize that it’s not the other person’s fault that you’re wired differently. After that Germany practice, I just had to explain to Russ that throwing in my mind was totally and completely separate from our relationship: I forgot the fight to focus on throwing the javelin, and could then revisit it later. My focus didn’t at all mean that I wasn’t still mad or didn’t care! I just have a weird ability to turn off parts of my brain, and I think Russ learned from me how to do that a bit over the years. In the same way, his questions about technique that used to drive me crazy are now helpful ways for me to objectively watch practice video and not be complacent. It’s difficult to learn how to navigate a different personality, but really worth it to learn something new about the person you love and the different, effective ways to approach sport.

2.       Varying levels of success: Navigating the peaks and valleys together.

The shotput and discus in the United States are stronger events than the javelin. These are facts for men and women alike. It is objectively easier for me to make teams than it was for Russ. We were in the same sport, but had very different paths to travel to be “successful.”

I had a major back injury in 2007, and was in a really bad place right at the beginning of our relationship. Russ moved to Purdue in 2008-2009 to be with me in my fifth year, and was miserable for a lot of reasons (working 3 jobs, training without a coach, and simply being in the Midwest, among others). He had a sports hernia all of the 2010 season (our first in Chula Vista), when I was doing super well. He had surgery to fix it, healed for 2011 and threw big PRs, but then we both struggled through the European season and also never saw each other. I tore my ACL in 2012, but made the Olympic team anyway, and he had done really well all year but missed the team by two spots. I had surgery and then we moved to Colorado. We finally both made the PanAm, NACAC, and World Championships teams in 2015! He did well most of 2016 and then old and new injuries flared right before the Olympic Trials, but came to Rio with me as my coach, as none of my other ones were making the trip.

If you’re in the same sport, the direct comparisons of how successful you are can be really difficult to manage in a relationship. I can imagine that different sports might be a little bit easier? If only because learning about the others’ sport would seem more educational than competitive. This is, again, a lesson in communication! Every athlete is competitive, but eventually you learn that constant competition within a relationship is no good. Our friends Rich and Jackie say that when one member of the team is winning, the team is winning. And if it feels like no one is winning, you can climb out of that hole together! It’s okay to voice frustration, and it’s even okay to say out loud that you’re jealous of the other person’s success, as long as you can separate that from your romantic relationship (and SAY that).

3.       Conflicting travel schedules.

Russ and I were so lucky to have some incredible track trips together. We spent two weeks enjoying Australia and competing in 2012. We lived in Germany during the 2010 and 2011 seasons together, with friends around as well. The championship season in 2015 was amazing: We went on sushi dates at training camp and were then roommates at World Championships in Beijing. After that we went on vacation in Austria with the Kuehls and I went to Paris with Russ for the Decanation meet. Fantastic memories and experiences that solidified our relationship at each stage, for sure!

NACAC Senior Championships 2015 as husband and wife, nine years after we met at NACAC U-23 Championships! We both won in 2015. :)

Those were the very rare times that we were actually together, though. Russ was in Australia for three weeks by himself before I joined him that year. In 2011, we constantly missed each other at the apartment we shared in Köln, as our meet schedules exactly countered each other for two months. He went to Europe right after the 2012 Olympic Trials, and I stayed home to rehab my ACL as well as I could. In 2016, while I was home with our brand-new Madeline and injuries, Russ traveled a lot for competition. Staying home is easier for both of us now that Maddie the Dog is in our lives. 😊

Our epic 2016 road trip!

Dating a fellow athlete is often like a long-distance relationship. Luckily, we have practice in that field, and many people I know do too! Again, communication is key. Being willing to shave a day off of the front or back sides of a trip for the sake of your relationship is important, too, and taking advantage of the time that you do have together is key. Sometimes I pick fights before I leave for a trip, but we both know it’s just because I’ll miss him and our home!

Questions from Instagram:

“tricks to avoid constantly talking/venting about your sports to each other!!!”

               Ooooooh, good one. This can be an easy trap to fall into when you find someone who you feel truly understands you. I’m guilty of complaining a lot to Russ about one specific thing that I can’t really change in my training life, but I try to always say, “I know you’re sick of hearing about this, but I just need to vent for a second!”

               There are a few things you can do to try and avoid a complainy pattern. A) Set a timer for the complaining. Give it a limit so it doesn’t consume you. B) Always, always have other stuff to do! Take part in your other common interests instead when you feel overloaded by sport. If you don’t have something, start something new together! C) Be really honest. If your partner just doesn’t seem happy and that’s why he or she is constantly unloading on you, let them know that you appreciate their trust in your judgement and the fact that you’re a safe zone, but that you want them to be happy, and it doesn’t seem like they are. On the flip side, if you are the one complaining a lot and it’s weighing you down, do some self-evaluation and see if you need to seek other help (sports psychology) or just do something to change your situation and make it better. I’ll be writing a blog on how to have difficult conversations sometime soon!

“Yes it’s wonderful 😊 😊 “

               Agree!

“Is it hard to keep frustrations in training and competition separate from your relationship”

               It can be? But it has never been difficult for me. I really think (and again, I think Russ got better at this over the years as well) that practice is your opportunity to just focus on you, and your relationship is the time you can either talk about it in constructive ways (or a little bit of complaining if you need to), or do other stuff that you enjoy together. My relationship has mostly felt like a refuge from the difficulties I face on the javelin runway, and one of the reasons for that is that I can be completely vulnerable and open about why I’m frustrated and work through it with the person who knows me best if I need to. But mostly I just love doing other things and laughing about other stuff together. I hope that you can find such solace in another human!

               I have struggled the most to separate career and relationship when I’m injured, and I think that’s because I suddenly don’t have the outlet that I’m used to in athletics, so I’m more difficult to be around. That’s kind of a real-life thing though, and Russ has always taken care of me incredibly well, so those experiences have turned into bonding ones. I hope he feels as taken care of when he’s injured, but he’s more stubborn about it. 😊

Overall recommendation:

Go for it if you’re drawn to someone. I’m so incredibly happy with the person I picked, and continue to choose every day. We met through sport and enjoyed it together for a long time, but also like a lot more stuff about each other than the fact that we are athletes! In the same way that you grow and change as an athlete, your relationship grows and changes, and you have to keep programming good stuff to keep it healthy. Finding a partner that is motivated by goals is pretty easy in the athletic realm. Translating that to every day life and a happy partnership is a little bit different, but very worth it to do together!

My Athletic Journey (Part 2)

Big picture item:

Self-reflection is important. Be honest with yourself about where you can improve. You’re not perfect.

Part two of My Athletic Journey will cover the professional part of my career, including USATF National Championships in 2009. Again, I’ve told my “life” story many times, and the chronology of it is available in other areas of the internet, so I want to talk about stuff that has happened to get me here through a current, overall lesson lens.

In Part One, I mentioned my major back injury in 2007, and how the recovery and core strength gains I made changed me for the good and, from where I’m sitting, put me on the 2008 Olympic Team. Injuries are opportunities, and that has absolutely been true in my professional career.

Russ and I moved to Chula Vista the Fall after I graduated from Purdue (2009). In February-ish, Mike and I were doing some testing: Overhead forward shot throws as far as we could. Something felt really weird, and after some tests, I was told that I sprained a facet in my thoracic-lumbar junction (a bony vertebra process right in the middle of my back). I had excruciating pain if I tried to arch after that. My previous injuries were either overuse or things that had clear protocol to heal, and then I did this traumatic thing that didn’t seem to respond to anything but rest, and sometimes not even that. I didn’t throw for a month. Nothing seemed to work. I finally tried a fantastic sports acupuncture clinic in Ocean Beach, and the season was saved! I opened at 61.80m at the end of April, the second-best throw of my career at that point. I learned that rest is best and patience is worth it, and to be my own self-advocate as far as looking for new therapies sometimes. I also learned things about risk vs. reward in training programs (how to train smart). Do I need to measure a heavy overhead forward shotput throw? Probably not then, and definitely not anymore.

I tore my left anterior cruciate ligament at the Olympic Trials in 2012. In September, I went under the knife for my first ever major surgery: A bone-patella-bone ipsilateral ACL reconstruction. I had no idea what I was in for. No one could have prepared me for the weird physical extreme discomfort that surgery and the healing process can bring. Becoming accustomed to the sensations that accompany getting range of motion back and breaking up scar tissue is very weird. Trusting that things that feel completely abnormal are normal takes practice. I had never done lower extremity exercises beyond regular exercise before (no one ever taught me how NOT to tear my ACL), so the process of teaching my glutes how to fire and learning how my knees should move was incredibly rewarding. Realizing how deficient I had been in certain areas made me see the rest of my body differently too, and helped me focus on the details of training moving forward to protect my health. Rehabilitation-based exercises will give me confidence in throwing for the rest of my career.

In 2015, I was having the time of my life in the first half of the season. I threw 66.47m in May and won USAs with a big series for me and 64.91m. Then, my left shoulder was torn just after nationals. I may have had existing rotator cuff damage, but something beyond my control tore my labrum, and the rest of my season suffered. I managed to get 8th at World Championships and silver at PanAm Games, but the pain in my left shoulder prevented me from having much length in my right arm, and was a huge, painful negative in a lot of my training. Making the decision to have surgery to fix it in October 2015 put the Rio Olympics in jeopardy for me, but I knew how bitter I was becoming about the injury. That simply wasn’t good for my overall wellbeing, and I also knew that I couldn’t accomplish what I dreamed of while feeling how I did (physically and mentally). My 13th-place finish in Rio is still painful, but I know that I did my best with what I had. My entire left shoulder saga was a big lesson in the fact that life is sometimes not fair, but that we have control over our attitudes and actions.

My last little injury story is about the Spring of 2016. I drove home from Austin in early April, and somehow managed to impinge both a fat pad in my left knee and my right shoulder. I know the shoulder is from my right and left sides playing tug-of-war in my surgery recovery process, but the knee made any kind of explosive movement really painful, too. They were both fairly minor things, but also both prevented normal training for a while, and forced me to cancel plans I had made to compete in May. I’m glad. We adopted Maddie the Dog at the beginning of May, and I got to spend a solid seven weeks with her, bonding and helping her adjust to her new home (her third and forever one, but she didn’t know that at the time and was nervous). If I hadn’t been forced to rest, our bond might not be so close, and that’s irreplaceable to me. Family first.

PanAms 2015

note L shoulder KT tape.

Something I’ve been reminded of again in the last year or two is that change is my friend. New situations and ideas are stimulating, I think to everyone. I’ve never perceived change as stressful though, even when it maybe should have been.

Some Universities send their freshly-graduated seniors to USATF National Championships (eligibility is up, but they pay for the trip and often the athletes wear the school uniform). Not so with Purdue, which is fine, but was also scary at the time. I traveled with Russ to Eugene in 2009, but we stayed separate from each other (he with Adam, me in the Springfield Motel 6 alone). I borrowed my Mom’s car and drove it from Vancouver to save as much money as possible. My coach wasn’t with me. I had the craziest, most inconsistent series of my life, but I also PRed by 2.5 meters and started my post-collegiate career off with a second senior national championship. Relying on myself, it turned out, was scary but also awesome.

After one year of training with Ty Sevin as my coach, Jamie Myers as my strength coach, and Mike Hazle as my training partner, I experienced the magic of my 2010 season. A thrower’s first post-collegiate year is “supposed” to be really hard, but living in Chula Vista, where my then-boyfriend Russ also felt supported and motivated, prioritizing the thought process that 2010 WOULD be successful despite the odds, and finally getting enough sleep after college translated to all that change meaning amazing results and experiences.

The 2015 season might’ve ended with a surgery, but it was also fantastic in a lot of ways, because it was the first year I was fully back from ACL surgery (I competed in 2013 and 2014, but wearing my knee brace both seasons and with tentativeness). Going through a period of basically 2.5 years without a true full-on javelin throw and then having the success that I did at the beginning of 2015 blew my mind. I felt like a new thrower, because I kind of was after all that rehab and patience. I also had a new name, and similar to the stigma that the first year out of college is difficult, many throwers have struggled in their first season after tying the knot. Russ and I were fully aware of that, and vowed to each other that the Wingers would succeed in 2015. We both medaled at PanAms, won NACAC Senior Championships 9 years after we met at NACAC U-23’s, had great USAs performances, and roomed together at Worlds (and I, by no coincidence, had my best performance at a major).

Jamie Myers is my fantastic strength coach of almost a decade and reliable, honest friend. He has been my training and competition sounding board for as long as he has been in my life. So, when I was fairly devastated at the end of the 2017 season, having a debriefing conversation intermingled with motivated musings from both of us got me excited about the future again. We talked about how there is always room for improvement, for anyone, and that Dana Lyon, my good friend of 14 years, might be the perfect fit for a new technical coach. She was and is. Jamie and I discussed and continue to discuss shifting focus to exercises that actually address issues that I have and impact javelin performance rather than too much general stuff. It’s so fun to continually adapt. This felt like a huge leap, as it meant taking a lot more of an active role in planning my training than I ever had, and I had to practice that to be confident in it. It was a lot easier for me to trust Jamie and Dana than myself in the beginning of this new coaching and training process, but I absolutely love our teamwork now, and we all wholeheartedly believe in my abilities. It’s super fun to be reinvigorated by them.

That last bit leads me to the idea of finding your keepers. Build a community that continues to show up. People who make it obvious that they like you and want to be part of your life in positive ways. It helps a lot if you do that for them, too. Russ loved me through some of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with, and helped me grow enormously in ways outside of athletics. Dana had already been popping into my USAFA practices for five years before I asked her to coach me, and has always been a light in my life. When I found out I tore my ACL, Jamie and Maggie (his wife, my lovely matron of honor) were my first friends who knew and comforted me with quality time together, since Russ was out of town. Chris Garcia has been an incredible resource and enthusiastic supporter ever since I first met him in 2011. There are many more on the personal side. Recognizing these keepers shouldn’t be difficult with just a little bit of self-reflection. Is it easy to be around them? Do you feel motivated to be better when you leave them or talk together? Is there enough laughter? It’s okay to have great relationships with the people you work with. You also have to learn to deal with people you don’t like, but your inner circle should inspire you, and probably vice-versa. Lift each other up.

One of the specific questions I got about this phase of life was, “How do you balance the need for income while training professionally?” As the need for income as an adult is a real thing that everyone deals with and a necessary factor in anyone’s journey through life, it feels appropriate to address that a little in this blog. Without income, I wouldn’t have been an athlete for close to a decade now. I sort of attempted to answer this question (about the business of track and field) in a podcast I recently participated in. This world of sponsorship, ambassadorship, prize money, and donations from family and fans/supporters is difficult and ever-changing, but can be a really fun challenge. The true answer to this question is that I never expected to make money as a professional javelin thrower, but I have. Part 2 of that answer is that I am very careful with my money, and have saved and invested a good chunk of it. I’ve had a couple of really good contracts and a couple of pretty good prize money years, and the way I treated that income fuels the thinner times. I’ve always been aware that income in this sport is fairly unpredictable (and had a few good mentors to clue me into that fact), so my strategy has been to support myself between income opportunities by saving. I don’t ever want to be unable to train the way I know works for me because I’m frantically running out of funds. So I save, and I hustle.

Changing my training in 2018 to a lot fewer hours per week means that I have more time to devote to other projects. Some of those generate income, while others might in the future. In the same way that change doesn’t cause me stress, a lack of consistent income doesn’t necessarily either, but that is only because I am just comfortable enough with how I save money when I have it coming in in bigger quantities. I am the perfect amount of comfortable financially and motivated to continue attracting income opportunities. I also enjoy compartmentalizing my life in this way: Training is when I’m fully devoted to just getting better, and the other hours in the day are spent working to support that time (and spent with Maddie the Dog). I’m a huge fan of people who work full-time and also compete in track and field. If I had to do that, I would embrace the challenge. Many people with “real” jobs work out regularly, so if your training is focused enough, what really is the difference? You can pursue multiple dreams at the same time, you just might need to be a really good communicator. Which I think we all should strive to be. But that’s another blog.

I would be remiss if I didn’t credit the USOC and USATF for at least some of my financial stability. I have been part of the USATF Resident Athlete program at both the Chula Vista and Colorado Springs Olympic Training Centers for the entirety of my professional career. Training facility and sports medicine costs can be huge reasons that athletes (especially in the throws, I think) don’t last very long after college. I’m very grateful for these two organizations for lifting that burden for me. The coaching staff at the United States Air Force Academy has been very generous with their facilities and welcoming attitude for six years as well!

 Again, rapid-fire answers to the original question to wrap up!

“(College graduation) to present, how you became the athlete you are now, the steps that you took.”

1.       Be brave. I had no idea what this career would look like or how far it would go, but I was willing to embrace progress over perfection.

2.       Continually check in with and perhaps re-set goals. What’s working? What’s not? Has progress been completely derailed by injury? What goals can you set within that new framework?

3.       Have a companion. I can’t put into words how much I love my husband and his role in my career. (This doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship, but mine is.)

4.       Keep having fun. This is related to checking in with goals. Enjoyment and passion should be goals, IMO.

5.       Celebrate. Too many people just bore through some of the things that should enrich life. The little moments are the big moments!

6.       Check your own ego. Javelin will humble you. Starting over is an opportunity to start better.

7.       Do something else, too. I didn’t realize how much I missed having other things in my life until I went to grad school. Grow in other ways alongside athletics.

8.       Take care of your body. Stretch a little every day. I go to the public gym just to go in the hot tub and steam room some days. Get as much sleep as you can. Recovery is everything.

My Athletic Journey (Part 1)

Two big things:

1.       Guts over Glamour. I’ve always trusted myself and what I think will work over what people might say or think I *should* do, even if I’ve stuck with certain things too long. The “best” coach or “best” program or most glitzy offerings were a) not available to me or b) not as attractive as opportunities that were right in front of me.

2.       Progress over Perfection. I was not the best in high school. I threw nowhere near as far as Erica Wheeler’s Washington State high school record or Madison Wiltrout’s national high school record. I never won NCAA Championships. But I kept pushing forward.

I’ve told the story of how I grew up to be a javelin thrower many times, but I want to describe some specific components of it that feel important to where my head is at right now. I have some takeaways from my childhood, the college recruiting process, and finding my way at Purdue that you might be interested in.

My Dad is not military (he’s a civil engineer), but we lived in seven different houses in three states before I entered fifth grade in Vancouver, Washington. We almost went to California again from there in the middle of my sophomore year, but he made the sacrifice to commute to the bay area instead so that I could finish high school in the same place. He later commuted to SeaTac for the same reasons.

I played tee ball as a tiny child with my brother in Seattle. I started softball and soccer when we lived in Hawaii. Craig and I were on a swim team together there, too. When we got back to the mainland, I added basketball as well. Spring of fifth grade was my first introduction to track and field via the adorable mown-into-the-hillside oval at Felida Elementary School. I played middle school volleyball but refused to dive on the floor. Sports were always my method of making friends after arriving in a new place. I used to take PE so seriously that I would wear athletic shorts underneath my jeans in 6th grade, when we weren’t required to dress down, but I WANTED to. This was just before breakaway sweatpants were invented. I would have been their ideal customer.

Towards the end of middle school, a few things happened that pointed me toward individual sports. A coaching blunder during a premier soccer team’s semi-final match that allowed me to be in goal briefly (as NOT a trained goalie) and get scored on, causing the team to lose 1-0, resulted in my own enormous guilt and vicious beratement by teammates. I hadn’t been on their team all year (had only been a practice body during the playoff season), but I caused their downfall. They hated me that day, and while I recognized very quickly that I didn’t deserve that anger (thanks for all those wise car conversations, Mom!), the experience was powerful. Similar toxic behavior had been happening on my softball team for years, plus I was terrible at batting, so I quit and tried track and field in the spring of 8th grade instead (middle distance, high jump and just a little bit of discus).

My high school sports were swimming, basketball, and track and field, which I won letters for all four years. I also sang in the concert choir sophomore year with my brother, and took German because he had done so (and ended up loving it and still using those skills to this day). Honors classes included English, history, and eventually calculus. My high school was young when I was there! I was the first-ever individual state champion for Skyview in 2002. I was a decent post player, but I’m sure I only got to go to the state basketball tournament with the Varsity team freshman year because I had finally grown and was a good teammate. Swimming is the hardest sport I’ve ever done, and the women I befriended in that pool are a few of my soulmates. I used to run a few days a week before school during swimming season to stay ready for the land sport of basketball.

My takeaway from playing lots of different sports, prioritizing academics and other extracurriculars as well, and moving a lot growing up, is to stay flexible and multi-faceted. After learning to adapt to new environments and people as a kid, I was not only brave enough to go across the country for college, but I now travel the world by myself. I absolutely credit my longevity in the javelin to being a multi-sport athlete growing up, and recognizing the value (read: fun) in participating in various activities (athletic or otherwise).

I thought that my best shot at a college scholarship would be division 2 basketball, but once I picked up the javelin, I realized what a blast it was to put effort in and see results come out. I had tastes of that control in swimming, but a natural knack for the event made my experience on the runway even better. My college recruiting process started the summer before senior year of high school. I had won two state javelin championships at that point, and had met Lindsey Blaine that spring at the Pasco Invitational. She told me the day we met that she was going to Purdue University, a place I had never heard of before! I set up official visits that fall to University of Washington, Stanford, University of Missouri, and Purdue.

Becoming a Husky would’ve kept me really close to home, and I wanted to expand my horizons. Stanford obviously has prestige, but I wasn’t thrilled with the high-pressure situation I experienced on my visit there. I liked the coach and feel at Missouri, but I would have had no training partners. Lindsey was my hostess on my official visit to Purdue and became my fantastic training partner, there were four other female throwers in her grade on the team, Coach Rodney Zuyderwyk is exactly the kind of quiet-but-awesomely-motivating person I gravitate toward, and I really liked the big university in an isolated midwestern town. I also had no idea what I wanted to study, so the wide variety of highly-acclaimed academic programs at Purdue was attractive!

I did not get a full ride to Purdue. I only earned 100% scholarship during my final year as a Boilermaker (after making the 2008 Olympic Team). But where there wasn’t money, there was an excellent team atmosphere, great training partners, and the absolute best collegiate coach there could have been for me.

My parents and high school boyfriend were the people I talked to the most about where I wanted to go to school. Looking back, I can’t remember having any conversations with my high school coaches about my decision, which doesn’t seem that weird now: My parents and the boyfriend, plus some good friends, knew me best. I had always compartmentalized my sports (the only one that got anywhere close to year-round was basketball), so relying on those who knew me more completely felt more natural and reliable. The takeaway here is that trusting yourself is really important. Rely on yourself and just a few select others. It gets really easy to be overwhelmed and distracted when you solicit lots of opinions, especially when only the opinions of those closest to you (who have your best interests at heart) really matter in the long run. Do your due diligence in the form of research, of course, but ultimately, your decisions are up to you.

Lindsey and Coach Z. were such huge factors in my success in college and beyond, and an in-depth look at that deserves its own blog post. I think college athletics dynamics can be so challenging, and I’d love to share more about the ups and downs of my experience with these two leaders guiding me. Sometime. 😊

Lindsey and I at NCAAs 2006!

My third biggest takeaway of this first part of my athletic journey (I’m cutting this blog off at college) is to set big goals. I recently went through a box of stuff at my parents’ house, and I had forgotten just how early I started doing this. One of the many reasons I wanted to go to Purdue was that the school record had been an American Record when it was set (60.06m by Serene Ross). My high school PR was 48.64m. That precedent of excellent javelin throwing provided an automatic lofty goal. I hurt my back really badly in 2007, but had had enough success in the javelin before then to indicate (to me and Coach Z. at least) that the Beijing Olympics were a possibility in just the next year. I had to improve by more than five meters to hit the Olympic standard, in the year after a major back injury. An arbitrary-but-huge goal I decided on during the rehab phase of that injury was that I would have the best abs in the NCAA, haha. I don’t have the genes to display a ripped 6-pack unless I’m really restricting my caloric intake, but that thought process contributed to my serious commitment to extra rehab and core work, which for sure was a big reason I could throw much further and make that first Olympic Team.

Olympic Trials 2008

Part of setting big, giant goals is believing in yourself first, but also having people around you who believe, too (see takeaway number 2). In that box I just went through at my parents’ house, I found a piece of paper Russ made for me during that 2007-2008 push to the Olympics. I used to make elaborate colored goal sheets that I hung around my room as constant reminders of where I wanted to go. He took the initiative to make me one because he not only had similar goals, but wanted to support me in my process. Set big goals, figure out which steps to take to get you there, and bring your loved ones along on the journey.

I’m going to kind of quick-fire answer the question that sparked this two-part blog series in closing. Stay tuned after that for part 2 (post-collegiate, next week)!

Q: Beginning to present, how you became the athlete you are now, the steps that you took.

A:

1.       Was active in general. My brother and I were always outside.

2.       Tried lots of stuff. Many sports, many activities. New things.

3.       Talked about my path with loved ones. Spent so much time with Mom in the car and at the kitchen table, and recognized through his actions that Dad saw strength and potential in me.

4.       Kept it fun. Loved the people I was around and the excellent coaches I had through high school. If I didn’t love it, I looked elsewhere.

5.       Committed. Once I decided on Purdue, I was all in to that system.

6.       Listened and learned. When I had setbacks, I realized that I wasn’t equipped to deal with them yet, so relied on those who were prepared and willing to help.

7.       Worked really hard. Why would you not, when you’re able?

8.       Was grateful. Coach Z. learned right along with me as we developed my technique. Lindsey was such a leader in ways that she doesn’t even really know I appreciate. Other roommates and teammates were incredibly supportive. I tried to be as great to other people as they were to me.

There will always be more. But that’s all for now!