Layouts I designed in Quark

Table of Contents page for Southeastern's 2010 Study Abroad magazine

Content and design by me (story in the 2010 Study Abroad magazine)

Makings of the Media Package

Putting the actual media package together wasn't so bad because I kept up with posting my stories on my blog. I wish I had done the same with linking so it wouldn't have been so much to do at the end.

The hard part was getting the content. Erica Bartolina is really nice and open, but she's also busy. The initial interview took the longest to nail. After the interview, I noticed a problem. It was a good problem to have but still a problem. Bartolina gave me a ton of information, and it was difficult to pick out things for my stories - especially when I found everything so interesting. That was another issue...I love this stuff so I thought everything was awesome, but it wasn't easy to gauge what my audience would like.

I'd also like to note the photography. The pictures weren't easy to get. I took hundreds to get a few good ones, or I thought a lot were good but could only use so many. It was worth it though. I'm glad I have experience with all this now.

Olympian Erica Bartolina perseveres for pole vault dreams

While overcoming her injury last summer, one of Olympian Erica Bartolina’s goals was to get back to the performance level she was at last year during outdoors. Currently she’s staying healthy and near the conclusion of fall training, and she said she feels that she’s a better pole vaulter now than she was last year. The journey to get in this position to medal at high-level meets has been a tough one though.



Bartolina started enjoying pole vaulting in high school because it made her feel like she could achieve and accomplish something, but there have been times when she hasn’t liked it as much. In 2005, she landed on her back during a run away from the pit. Healing physically took a while, but that paled in comparison to her mental recovery.

“I got to the point that year where I just couldn’t pole vault,” Bartolina said. “I got tired of trying to try, so basically I said, ‘Okay I quit for the rest of this season because if I don’t quit now, I won’t ever like it again.’ ”

That was in June. Bartolina said it was a hard time because she didn’t want to do it then, and she was just hoping that she would want to do it again later.

“It was scary because I wanted to get away from this thing that I’m supposed to love,” she said. “But I think everyone needs to get away from things a little bit when it’s really important to them, especially if it’s getting too stressful or too emotional. Give it a little break, and then you can see it in perspective better.”

Everything worked out well because Hurrican Katrina hit shortly after, and it would’ve been hard to be focused on pole vaulting during that time. Bartolina resumed training in October.

In 2008 before she made the Olympic team, Bartolina thought that year may be her last year of competition.

“You know I was 28,” she said. “I’d been pole vaulting for half my life. I thought, "How long are you gonna do this thing?" I was chasing a dream.”

Though in the back of her mind, Bartolina was thinking 2008 may be her last year as a professional pole vaulter, she was committed to having a good season. She didn’t get distracted by where she’d move on to if she retired, and that focus made all the difference. She improved her height by six inches and made the Olympic team, and everything changed.

In the midst of those changes, Bartolina overlooked an important part of her competition. Usually every fall, she gives herself the option to choose not to pole vault. That way she doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to. But when she has made the decision, she’s committed for the year.

She didn’t do that last fall because she was on top of the world. Then she got hurt in January, and questions like “Do I even wanna be pole vaulting?” sneaked in. Bartolina believes part of that was because she broke her routine.

“I could’ve ended on going to the Olympics and having a good year, and move on,” she said. “That would’ve been okay, but I didn’t give myself the option, and I think in the spring I was like, ‘Here I am injured. I can’t compete. What am I doing?’ ”

Bartolina went through the process of asking herself if she wanted to move on. Her answer was no, so she followed the plan to get well.

This year has been similar to her year when Hurricane Katrina hit because she hasn’t been competing at all or training hard. Everything worked out well for her like in that year, too. Her husband and coach, Michael Bartolina, had back surgery, and she needed to take care of him. They were also able to build their pole vault facility. Those things wouldn’t have happened like they did had she been focused on pole vaulting.

“Everything happens for a reason,” Bartolina said. “God arranged things. Since I’m not competing, all this other stuff happened. And they were all things that needed to happen.”

Now her husband is healing, the pole vault club is going well and Bartolina is preparing to begin indoor competition and work toward the rest of her goals.

Link to story on NOLA.com

Olympian Erica Bartolina vaulting

Erica Bartolina

Olympian Erica Bartolina: a day in the life

What good is it to have goals and make plans if there are no intentional daily decisions to make them a reality?

Erica Bartolina pole vaulted for the United States in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and she has many new targets – the biggest is the 2012 Olympics in London. Every day she chooses behaviors that advance her ambitions. One of the biggest things is remembering why she has these aspirations in the first place.

“I like pole vaulting,” Bartolina said. “I like the fact that you always have something you can work on, you know? You’re always striving for a little bit more. Your technique is never perfect, so you can always be a little bit better. And as long as you can always be a little bit better, you can always jump higher – and that’s more fun.”

Since a day starts the night before, Bartolina places high importance on getting nine hours of sleep. That calls for being purposeful and actually going to bed, but she knows it’s worth it when at 7 a.m. she voluntarily wakes up instead of reluctantly waking to the sound of an alarm clock.

In the morning she eats breakfast and has coffee. Breakfast is usually oatmeal with blueberries, a bagel with peanut putter and jelly or Quaker Oat Squares. It’s pretty consistent so she’ll know when she will get hungry again and so she’ll be sure to have enough carbohydrates to get through her workout.

As far as her diet goes, the athlete doesn’t count calories or limit herself excessively. She just eats healthy and takes in plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. The key is leaving the unhealthy food at the grocery store.

“I try not to buy stuff that’s a temptation for me because if it’s in my house, I’ll eat it,” Bartolina said. “I don’t have that much self control. As long as I don’t have bad stuff in the house, then pretty much everything is healthy. I can eat as much of it as I want, and life is good.”

Her husband and coach, Michael Bartolina, doesn’t eat as healthy as she does. She just buys things he likes that she doesn’t really care about.

She tries not to plan anything in between breakfast and training. That way she’s not rushed and can use the time for mental preparation, whether it’s praying, meditating, journaling, doing relaxation exercises or visualizing.

Bartolina has a four-hour time frame for her workout. She may not train the entire time, but that leaves room for things related to training like treatment on the foot that she injured and ice baths. Her workout consists of a 45-minute warm-up that includes hurdle mobility, dynamic flexibility and sprint drills. The warm-up isn’t just to get ready to work out, it’s a workout in itself that maintains core strength and helps hip flexor muscles among other things.

Her warm-up is done every day. Then she does a sprint, stadium or tire pull workout. General strength exercises like pushups, sit-ups and lunge walks are also a big part of her workout. She doesn’t do a lot of weights so she won’t get bulky. Squats and power cleans two to three days a week are about all she does in the weight room.

Bartolina has added a few more things to keep her foot strong, but other than that her training days are consistent. She trains on four-week cycles where she works up harder every week for three weeks, and the fourth week is a rest week. She’ll go through December for fall training. During competition, she does half as much, but she just has to maintain the work she has already put in.

For lunch, Bartolina typically eats a sandwich with turkey breast, tomato, lettuce and other toppings. “I make good fat sandwiches with all the good stuff on it,” she said.

In the afternoons, she has personal training clients. She started about four years ago when she casually helped people who asked for help. She enjoys helping people be healthy.

Bartolina coaches her pole vault club Sunday afternoons and Monday and Wednesday nights. She and her husband have a new facility at their house now, so they’re no longer leasing a warehouse.

Dinner is whatever she feels like cooking, but she takes the time to prepare food. “I like to cook,” she said. “I’m not a fancy cook. I’m not a chef, but I like to cook food that tastes good. It may not look pretty, but it tastes good.”

Bartolina realizes what happens in the next couple of months carries a lot of weight and will affect her long-term goals. She said she wants to jump well at the early college meets so that she will be able to go back to the bigger professional meets.

Link to story on NOLA.com

Erica Bartolina coaching

Erica Bartolina practicing

Bartolina revamps thinking

[HAMMOND] – Olympian Erica Bartolina has high hopes for her pole vault performances this upcoming season, and her mental strength will determine if she proves successful.

Bartolina battled an injury this year, but the thing that holds her back most aside from that is belief in herself.

“One of the things that I really need to work on is just expecting more of myself,” she said, giving her psychological and physical goals equal importance.

“It’s hard to say that,” Bartolina revealed. “People look at me and say, ‘How can you expect more? You’re an Olympian,’ and it’s like yeah I almost did that on accident because I didn’t really believe it.”

It wasn’t until she was in the middle of finals at the 2008 Olympic Trials that Bartolina thought she could make the team. She saw that girls were already out, and she was still competing, focused and jumping well. Even then, the thought of going to the Olympics only became real when it was likely that she would actually go.

“I’ve always been just a little behind and not really expecting as much out of myself as I really should,” Bartolina said.

The first time the athlete ever thought going to the Olympics might be possible for her was in 2004 when she qualified for the Olympic trials. That was two years after she graduated from Texas A&M and made school history in pole vault. She had already decided to make an effort at being a professional pole vaulter.

Bartolina tries to balance high goals with realism in her goal-setting. She gives herself a bigger frame of time than Michael Bartolina, her coach and husband, would. She has the goal of improving another six inches but doesn’t think doing it in December is practical.

“Now my coach might say, ‘She can do it today if she just went out and did it,’” Bartolina joked.

She and her coach have to be on the same page. They’re a team, and he helps her a lot. They also collaborate on aspirations. Bartolina usually sees the target in the distance, while her coach’s vision is more immediate.

She has learned that if she expects more, she’ll accomplish more. She doesn’t want to limit herself and underachieve.

Bartolina executes several exercises to adjust her thinking and focus, which is necessary in pole vaulting.

She doesn’t plan things before training in the morning so she’s not rushed and can prepare mentally. She does relaxation exercises, meditations, visualizations and journaling. It requires a lot of effort and self control since it’s not what she’s best at, and she could be doing other things instead.

Bartolina knows this works though. She recalled a time when exhibiting mental toughness paid off. One of the Golden League meets in Brussels following the Olympics was a big test.

She was by herself and had pulled a muscle in her back a few days earlier. The conditions were less than favorable: it was 55 degrees and raining. Opening height would’ve been a personal record for her earlier that year, and she was competing against the top eight pole vaulters in the world.

Failure was a clear option, but Bartolina had other plans.

“I just didn’t give myself the choice,” she said. Instead, she engaged in positive self talk. “It’s cold and rainy, and you hurt. And it doesn’t matter. Go clear a bar.” And she did.

Now her most immediate goal is to place in the top two in the U.S. National Indoor Championships in February to qualify for the World Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar in March. She said that would give her a lot of confidence going into outdoors.

Link to story on NOLA.com

Bartolina fights for future

[HAMMOND] – Erica Bartolina pole vaulted in the Summer Olympics and hopes to represent the United States again in the 2012 Summer Olympics, but a few obstacles stand in the way on her road to London, England.

Bartolina experienced a huge setback after the greatest year of her career. Following a plateau in her performances due to injuries, she bettered her personal best of 14 feet 5.25 inches by nearly six inches with a vault of 14 feet 11 inches to make the U.S. team and compete in Beijing. That was last year. This year she can’t jump at all.

Before her first indoor meet last February, Bartolina injured the posterior tibial tendon in her right foot during practice. It’s the tendon that runs down the inside of the leg and into the arch. “I was halfway down the runway and just felt a little clench. You know one of those things when you didn’t think it was any big deal, and it turned out to be one of the biggest deals ever,” she said.

That little clench changed her year. After getting treatment from a trainer and unsuccessfully trying to vault, Bartolina visited an orthopedist. He put her in a walking boot with orthotics for four weeks, and she had to limit movement her foot for three additional weeks. Recovery took longer than she initially thought. The injury ended her indoor season.

The outdoor season was still in sight though, and she planned to compete in the World Outdoor Championships in Berlin in August. But in May when she attempted to restart training and use her foot, Bartolina realized the healing process had just begun. Her foot would get swollen and stay that way if she did too much on it. Any activity had to be done gradually.

“I remember the first time I ran on it. It was like a mile of walking half of it and slowly jogging the other half. That was when I was really like wow I have a long way to go,” Bartolina said. She decided she wouldn’t compete at all this year. While it was a hard decision to make, she did not want to underperform.

“If I can’t go out and be good, there’s no sense in me going out and jumping,” Bartolina said.

Her foot has gotten stronger. She will have it assessed by a foot specialist soon and possibly get more supportive training orthotics. It’s no longer injured, but there could be damage if she isn’t careful. Bartolina continues to ice her foot and get treatment, but currently most of the work to strengthen her foot is done during training.

Now her goals are directed toward the 2011 World Outdoor Championships in Korea and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Her target height is 15 feet 5 inches. That six-inch improvement on her personal best would put her in position to medal in those meets. But that is in the distant future. She has more immediate concerns.

Bartolina has no mark this season. Next year she wants to get back to where she was last year at 14 feet 11 inches. This will be difficult. Staying healthy and judging how far she can or cannot go on her foot only makes it more difficult.

Her first goal is to place in the top two in the U.S. National Indoor Championships in February to qualify for the World Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar in March. Accomplishing this would make all her other goals a lot easier to achieve, like placing in the top three again in the National Outdoor Championships. “That would really make me feel like I’m back in it, I’m good to go and I’m going to go compete with the best,” Bartolina said.

She also wants to vault high enough indoors to get invited to the big outdoor meets. That way she’ll have the chance to accumulate points and have a shot at making it to the World Athletics Final. Cities are still bidding to host the meet, but the top eight or nine scorers from each event in the big meets are invited.

Accomplishing these goals will take consistency, another one of Bartolina’s objectives. “I’d love to go out and not have a meet below 14’6 next year. That would be awesome to me. That would really make me feel like I’m one of those top few, but we’ll see how it goes.”

Link to story on NOLA.com