May 20, 2009
Rookie ready for first trip to Nationals...
By Freshman Erin Hollinger (Chardon, OH)
The only thing on my mind coming out my freshman year is, “Oh my gosh...I’m going to nationals?”
It’s really strange. In high school, I always had trouble in the big meets and never got to go to states because of it, and now I’m going to an even bigger meet. It’s even stranger since I feel as if the season just started. Track is such a short season, even shorter when compared to basketball.
For basketball, we practiced for a few months before games even started, and in track, I had a handful of practices before I was off to the indoor conference meet! Even though I only had a week between the last basketball game and my first meet, the transition was a lot smoother than I thought it would be. High jump has always been kind of “natural” for me since I have the right body type (light, high center of mass), so after a little bit of practice, I was ready to go. It also helped that I was used to traveling to different places for competition, so driving out to NYC wasn’t that big of a deal: in the three weeks previous to indoor championships, I had played games in Emory, Boston, and New York.
Track season is almost over now, but it’s hard to believe that I’ve done so well. It’s always been a fear of mine that I will “peak,” as over the years, I’ve seen other jumpers not do the right things to stay in shape in the off season, and come back and not be able to jump nearly as high. I had set my own personal record in my sophomore year of high school, and I was so afraid that I had reached my peak and would never go over 5’4”. But at the outdoor conference meet, somehow I went higher. I still can’t believe it. After so many years of having the same PR, it’s weird to think that I finally beat myself.
High jump is a mental event; no one can stop me from going as high as I can, unlike in basketball where there’s someone stopping me from trying to go to the basket. I think a big part of winning that meet, along with qualifying, was I just wanted to win so badly I forgot that I wasn’t “supposed” to go higher (at least in my mind). After losing the indoor title in the longest jump-off I’ve ever had, I was ready to show that I could win, no matter how high that meant I had to go.
Even though the season was short, these last two weeks have seemed like an eternity. It was like I qualified and everything slowed down. School was over and I mostly practiced on my own. Also, it wasn’t for sure that I was going to nationals. I went to a “last chance meet” to try to improve on my mark (I didn’t end up doing so well there). So since then, I’ve had to just stay in shape and wait for news whether or not I was going. I was so nervous that I wasn’t going to get in. Every time I talked about it, I would remind people that there was a chance that I wasn’t going. But this past Friday, the last day to post marks, Coach Rubin told me that I was basically in.
It was pouring at the only meet left, so it was doubtful that I would be displaced from the list. However, the next morning, coached called me and said that enough people had gone higher than me that I would probably not be able to go. I was so disappointed, even though my friends kept on telling me that they thought I would go, but even if I didn’t, I had qualified, which is pretty cool. But, sure enough, on Sunday, I learned that I had gotten in.
Since then I’ve just been trying to wrap my head around the idea. I’m going to nationals. If I jump higher than 17 of the other girls, I’ll place. Now, the biggest challenge is believing that I can do it...that I can go higher. I don’t want this to just be a “good experience.”
I’m going to do my best to beat that 18th person to be All-American: myself. It’s going to be hard. But, like I said, I don’t like losing!
Allrighty then!
Erin
Posted by Creg Jantz at 09:58 AM
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Category: Women's Outdoor Track