A banner year already
Davis Woodhall, husband celebrate her long jump title at US Championships
To see Tara Davis Woodhall, bedecked in a tan cowboy hat and pink running suit, ebullient and buoyant as she wildly waved her arms Friday after winning a national long-jump championship, it is hard to picture her battling internal issues.
“Marriage, mental health, body issues,” Davis Woodhall explained. “Everything you can think of.”
Davis Woodhall won with a best of 22 feet, 11¼ inches at the USA Track & Field Indoor National Championships at the Albuquerque Convention Center. The event finishes today with finals in numerous track and field events.
Yes, 2022 was a year of conflicting emotions for the long jumper. Her year immediately took a downturn when she was unable to even compete in the indoor championships last season.
“The weather,” Davis Woodhall said. “Fayetteville, Arkansas, everything was iced over. Canceled every single flight I was trying to get on. But it was fine. Everything has a reason. I’m here and I did what I did, so I’m really excited.”
Navigating the conflicting emotions and helping keep her on track fell to her new husband, fellow track athlete Hunter Woodhall.
“He’s been my biggest supporter,” she said. “He’s been there for every step. I don’t think I can do it without him.”
Hunter Woodhall, who competed in Albuquerque in 2015 at the Great Southwest Track & Field Classic as a high schooler, knows quite a bit about adversity. Born with the congenital birth defect fibular hemimelia, he had both legs amputated as a baby.
Yet that never stopped him from competing, and it perhaps made him the perfect partner for his wife.
“The biggest thing we are really good at is grounding ourselves,” Woodhall said. “Understanding that we’re both very much human. We both have a lot of struggles. We’re both feeling those nerves before a race. We’re both feeling those pressures to continue performing. I guess just being there for each when we need it.”
While Davis Woodhall carried home some gold, her husband came away with a 10th-place finish in the 400-meter preliminaries and did not qualify for Saturday’s finals.
But being there for his wife is more important than his own results, he said.
“Having the vulnerability to ask for help,” Woodhall said. “To be able to say you’re uncomfortable. You’re in a bad spot and just being to able to approach it, not so much as ‘I’m going to give you a solution, but I’m going to be here for you. I’m going to listen and I’m going to try and get to a conclusion and work on this together.’”
As an Olympic qualifier in the steeplechase, Valerie Constien also knows plenty about overcoming obstacles.
But when her own body started presenting those obstacles, it was harder to handle.
Constien, however, proved tougher
than her ailments, using an outstanding kick off the final bank to take the 3,000 run in 8 minutes, 48.29 seconds, 0.13 ahead of Whittni Morgan.
Much of the latter part of Constein’s 2022 was lost to a torn plantar and a broken foot. Then throw in a nasty bout with Covid and long Covid, and there was not much she could do but shut it all down.
“I had to take two months off,” Constien said. “No training. Healing, healing, healing. When the Covid symptoms finally went away and my plantar tear finally healed, then I just took it easy, worked it up and worked on it and made it here.” It stems back from her post-Olympics schedule, she said. “I think it was just after the Olympics, there was a lot of pressure to keep competing and keep training a lot. I think my body needed a break after the Olympics and unfortunately, I did not let it take that break. But I definitely learned my lesson. I’ll go for an easy run (Saturday), then take it easy and rest up.”
Also of note Friday, University of New Mexico senior long jumper Elizabeth White competed in her first pro event, finishing sixth by going 20-8½ for an indoor personal best.
“It was pretty cool,” said White, from Las Vegas, Nevada and a transfer from Southern Utah. “I’ve never done a USATF event, and for the first one to be a national championship was something.”
White, who habitually brings candy to meets, said she quickly broke the ice with the other competitors by sharing.
“I feel like to be a professional athlete, I have to get myself in the same room as them and compete like them if I’m going to be like them,” White said.