Alysia and Molly talk to Team USA Discus thrower Valarie Allman about setting and AR during a pandemic, life as a thrower, what her other interests are and how to better spotlight and market field events.

Special thanks to Gatorade Endurance for sponsoring September's theme of "Inspiring Sports women of the Pandemic"
Get 20% off DE products with the code "Track20" here!
https://endurance.gatorade.com/endurance-products/endurance/?utm_source=KeeingTrack&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=TrainingForLife

And Thank you to Saucony for our season 2 support! #runforgood

Workout Wed with Val:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxuuG9z4cJU

The AR throw:

https://twitter.com/CoachSion/status/1289721823026753536

Doha World Championships

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0YHQ1MC4gk

Catchup: Molly and Alysia talk as Ro takes maternity leave, welcome baby Ruari!

Alysia’s August-did it happen if it’s not on IG?

She’s doing analyst work for NBC Diamond League-yay for races coming back!

Molly’s micro meet and upcoming 5000m

Intro to Val!

-Val’s start in Discus

She began in other  sports-soccer, full time dance , track and field other events

Lured to throws by spaghetti

Wanted to compete on a college team and that’s why she narrowed focused on discus

-Stanford years-everyone is good on that team, new pressures

6-How dance helps disc

-mental side of being an athlete during this pandemic time: from wanting to give up and go home to having the biggest throw of her life

Did she see it coming? 70 meters is a big barrier

Pandemic meet:

Happy to even be competing, had been focusing on getting stronger in weight room

-Volunteering at University of Texas, whats her day look like , training during covid shutdowns

Coach is Zeb Sion

- nugget of insight during pandemic: “It forced me to figure out what I truly need-pretty much all medical things closed in terms of getting physio and getting adjusted, and it forced me to shrink my priorities. That was actually great because I didn’t realize all the things I was trying to factor into my training that had become a distraction a little bit, that I think maybe that was one of the silver linings that came out of it.”

 - business and finances of track and field, how throwers support themselves, her sponsors (Oiselle and NYAC), and the importance of prize money, USATF funding and grants especially for field events 

- why the field events aren’t marketed as well and how it could be better connected to the audience

Discus is athletic-training includes partial movement,full throws,olympic lifts, cross training sprints/biking/swimming 

Fun facts may help (ex. javelin weighs as much as guinea pig)

28:30-what the competition is like-do you chat, interact? Stay in the zone? 

- Val’s story: 

“Sports is such an empowering thing-I feel so lucky that I found a community and a sport and a sense of purpose with my body, especially as a female, and in an event that I didn’t know was possible."

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