Hammer thrower nails many roles
Martin juggles motherhood, school, sports
Mikaila Martin has worn many titles over the past few years.
College student during the day. Record-setting hammer thrower on the weekends. Fulltime mother.
Thursday, Martin will compete in the hammer throw for the University of Houston at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships in Eugene, Ore.
Back home in Houston, 3-year-old daughter Camryn will be watching on a computer screen.
“She’s my No. 1 fan,” Martin said.
As Martin wraps up her collegiate career — with hopes of extending it a few extra weeks by qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials — she will have plenty of stories to someday share with Camryn.
How Martin competed in four meets before realizing she was six months pregnant. How Camryn was not even a year old when she attended her first UH athletic event, dressed from head to toe in Cougars red and white. How, with no job, no money for daycare and her father working out of town, Martin on occasion took her to class.
Camryn will watch videos of her attending UH track practice, pulling a chain with a nine-pound metal ball attached. She will be reminded of the day she attended her mother’s graduation ceremony.
“It was definitely hard,” said Martin, who graduated in May with a degree in human development and family studies. “You have people around you that push you every day and tell you can do it. You start to believe in yourself.
“You look at your child and say, ‘What do I want my baby to learn from me? What do I want her to see?’ I want her to see that’s me being a strong Black woman. When she grows up, I want her to look back at what I’ve done and be like, ‘Oh, wow. My mom was in college, and she was still throwing and got her bachelor’s degree.’ ”
Three years after giving birth to her first child, Martin is having arguably her best season. She finished runner-up in the hammer throw to teammate Taylor Scaife, Camryn’s godmother, at the American Athletic Conference championships in April. She shattered the program record four different times, the last with a toss of 219 feet and one-half inch (66.89 meters) at the Tom Tellez Invitational in early May.
Martin booked her first trip to nationals by finishing 10th at the NCAA West Prelims.
At one point, Martin was unsure whether she still had an athletic future. In late 2017, she was competing during the indoor season when she learned she was pregnant. “I felt perfectly normal,” she said. Almost in her third trimester, Martin received doctor’s permission to continue the weight throw before shutting down her training before the conference meet.
On April 29, 2018, Camryn was born. Martin jokes that the arrival was “perfect timing,” giving her enough time to resume training in July for the fall indoor season.
But there were obstacles to overcome. How could Martin raise a child and continue to attend classes, much less compete on the track team?
“I didn’t know how to manage a baby, school and track,” Martin said. “I really, at one point, thought I wasn’t going to make it and was going to have to give up something.”
Another problem arose when she resumed training.
“I didn’t feel the same. My body was different,” Martin said. “I actually cried on a few occasions. I don’t feel the same. I’m not the same. Everybody around me kept saying I just had to learn myself all over again. I didn’t want to do that.”
With the help of her mother, Yolanda, Martin found the right balance. She laughs about the time Camryn, less than a year old, came to her first indoor meet. As Martin prepared to compete, she could hear her daughter in the crowd.
“Oh, God, why is my baby crying?” she said with a laugh.
When out of town, Martin connects daily with Camryn through FaceTime. Mother and daughter spend plenty of time together at practices.
“She loves it,” Martin said. “Now that she’s 3, she watches me now. When I go over videos to critique my throws, she’ll sit there and watch with me and say yay at the end.”