I remember the first day I ever vaulted: March 28, 2015. Getting off the ground and holding on to the pole upside down, it\u2019s the coolest feeling, like you\u2019re flying.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Before each jump, I look at the runway, take a deep breath, and push off to start my run. As I get closer to the pit, I throw my hands up over my head, stay as tall as I can, push up off the ground, and keep my form while staying tight to the pole. As I\u2019m going upside down, I point my toes over the bar. After that, it\u2019s just enjoying the fall back to the ground.<\/p>\n
The poles are made out of fiberglass and vary in length. The ones that I jump with are 13 feet, but they range up to 17 feet. Each pole is relative to the athlete and his or her ability, technique, and size.<\/p>\n
My best height is 12 feet flat, which I hit during high school. My freshman year at TCNJ, I jumped 11 feet and 11-3\/4 inches and broke the school record.<\/p>\n
I had two partially herniated discs in my back and compression in my spinal cord my freshman year at TCNJ. I was out for the whole spring season.<\/p>\n
My sophomore year, after coming back from my injuries, is one of the best memories I have of vaulting. I realized that I couldn\u2019t take the sport for granted. You have to get everything out of every single moment.<\/p>\n
With the 2021 season starting so late and no in-person training during the past year, a lot of the pressure to hit certain milestones is essentially gone. Pushing myself to reach new heights, literally and figuratively, is something that I look forward to doing my senior year. The track is my happy place, so if I can go there now to practice, smile, and laugh with my teammates, and compete a few times, then I can truly say I had a successful season.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always been a science nerd. When I was little, I got a microscope for Christmas and would take leaves and bugs from the backyard and put them under it. I want to work in a cancer research lab. The disease is close to my heart because I\u2019ve had a lot of people in my life affected by it, so that\u2019s a field I want to pursue.<\/p>\n
Photo: Bill Cardoni<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Record-breaking pole vaulter finds that her happy place is in the air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":327,"featured_media":11706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lions-roar","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/327"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11703"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12299,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11703\/revisions\/12299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}