Kalsey getting ready for indoor season
This is the next installment in a continuing series of articles over the next year where we follow the progress of our local Olympic hopefuls.
Although the opening meet of the track & field indoor season is a couple months, give or take a day, away, Marissa Kalsey isn’t just sitting back and enjoying the view of her senior year at Westminster College.
Kalsey’s goal of vaulting at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Track & Field trials is alive and well, pushing her through her off-season workouts before formal practice begins.
“I’ve been lifting, sprinting and vaulting. We are getting in the best shape we can,” explained Kalsey, who is also student teaching first grade at West Middlesex Elementary School. “We can’t keep all those hard workouts during the season, so we are working hard now.
“Bradi (Westminster pole vault coach Bradi Rhoades) gave us our workouts, although he can’t practice with us now.
“I want to be as physically fit as I can be. Bradi explained at the end of the season I was fit enough, but not worn down.”
Kalsey didn’t compete over the summer, but that doesn’t mean she put the sport aside between vacations and a missionary trip to the Dominican Republic.
“I learned more technique from some coaches. It was a different way to think about it,” said Kalsey. “I learned a new way to (the runway), on a certain count when to start dropping my pole.
“It was something dramatic. We weren’t really working on it before. It’s a new way of thinking.”
Of course, for most athletes, thinking can spell doom. Rather, it’s just doing.
“I do have to think about it, but not too much,” said Kalsey. “If I don’t get the tip down, then I don’t get the plant down. The run comes first. The plant is the most important part of the vault.”
Ask Kalsey what mark she has to hit to make the trials and she is quick to reply, “14-3.”
“I have it written down everywhere. I know I can get it. Whether I get it or not is the question. I know I have the potential,” added Kalsey.
Kalsey’s personal best is 13-4.
“A foot is a great accomplishment, but I see and hear about it happening,” said Kalsey. “I’m stagnant for a while, then it comes. If I have a really good day and all things are on, (clearing 14-3) would happen.”
Although she has only made 13-4, Kalsey has cleared a greater height before knocking off the bar.
“I was over 13-8 at the Slippery Rock Invitational, but I hit it on the way down. If I would’ve had the standards moved, I would’ve made it. I was very shallow in the pit,” said Kalsey.
Kalsey said she needs to stay focused and patient.
“I can’t put a time frame on things. It never works,” said Kalsey. “Bradi said I cannot focus on the height. That’s how you make it. If you do, then your form won’t be correct. Think about the system, not the height.
“It’s hard not to do. Physically, I’m there. I just don’t need to think about it.”