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