The TAKEOFF Magazine

IF I KNEW THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW...

I would never lose sight of my WHY.

by DIAMARA PLANELL CRUZ

When I first started pole vaulting, my coach told me it takes about 10 years to truly “master”pole vault. Well, here I am, year ten and I am one hundred percent still figuring it out.

Pole vaulting is a physical event, but if I have learned anything in the past decade, it’s that pole vaulting is just as much mental as it is physical. You are constantly learning, perfecting, and changing your vault, and that can become very frustrating. Every professional vaulter will tell you they have been through dry spells where their vault didn’t improve, or they didn’t PR no matter how hard they tried. It comes with the territory. You just have to power through, as there is no way around it. For some, it is the reason they fall out of love with the event itself.

When asked what I would tell my younger self what I know now, I immediately thought I wish I was as carefree now as I was when I began. The truth is when you start pole vaulting you don’t know any better. You are just excited to be there. Everything is new, you know no fear,and rarely question anything.

As you continue, you learn about the event, yourself, what can go right, and what can go wrong. With that comes the second-guessing, the doubts, and the practices and meets when you are all in your head. I am definitely guilty of this. It may result in tunnel vision and forgetting all the reasons why you even like pole vaulting.

Pole vaulting is hard. You are never truly perfect and there is always something you can do better. You end every meet with a fail. As time goes on that wears you down and you lose touch with who you were when you first decided pole vaulting was it for you. My biggest breakthrough was realizing sometimes you need to reset, go back to basics, cry it out, walk away and come back. Always come back and remember that this is something you do because of ‘blank’. What is your why?

Try to recall why you started and continued, and why for some insane reason you chose arguably the hardest event in track and field.

I continue to strive to be as carefree now as I was when I first started, because that is when I loved it most. It is when I worked the hardest, and what always kept me coming back. If I could tell my then self anything, it would be to never lose sight of the reasons for walking onto the track every day, because that is what gets you through the injuries and the mental breakdowns. Your reasons eventually lead you to your success.

Diamara Planell represented Puerto Rico at the 2016 Olympic Games. A 4-time NCAA All-American at the University of Washington, Diamara is currently training to make the qualifying standard for the 2021 Olympic Games. Follow her on Instagram @diamarapc.

Photo credit: University of Washington Athletics