As winter quarter rolls around, Emily Thomason is ready for her first full year of track and field with Seattle Pacific University, with the indoor season taking place during the winter and the outdoor season during spring. During break, many of the athletes were not on campus and had to train by themselves.
Thomason is a junior business marketing major at SPU and a pole vaulter for the women’s track and field team who transferred to SPU in 2023.
Originating from Oregon, Thomason trained by herself over the break, which she said was harder than training with the team.
“When you’re with a team, you have a set time to work out with other people,” Thomason said. “But when you’re by yourself, you have to take the time out of your day and work out by yourself and it’s really hard to get yourself motivated when there aren’t other people keeping you accountable.”
With the beginning of the quarter and the resumption of indoor track season, the track and field team, including Thomason, is back on campus.
“Now that I’m back, I really like being with a team that motivates me to run faster and work harder, because I’m motivated by other people,” Thomason said.
Thomason has been pole vaulting for seven years, and she started doing the event due to a fluke decision in high school track.
“We had a two-story track shed and we were pushing mats off the first and second story, and I did a front flip off of the second story onto the first,” Thomason said. “And the vaulting coach was like, ‘Hey, how would you like to vault with me, you’re not afraid of heights,’ and it just took off from there.”
Thomason began her collegiate career in 2019 for Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. She competed in 2019, 2021 and 2022 before transferring to SPU in time for the 2023 outdoor track and field season. Her favorite memory from her career comes from her time at Lane Community College when she jumped 12 feet, 6¼ inches during a meet in 2019.
Her current best in pole vaulting during her time at SPU is 12 feet, 4½ inches, or 3.77 meters, third highest for women in school history. The school record for women is currently held by Scout Cai, who reached 13 feet, 3 inches, or 4.04 meters, during her senior year in 2021.
Thomason said she has two goals for track and field this year, one for the indoor season and one for the outdoor season.
“My personal goal is for track, for indoor, is to go to Nationals, qualify for that,” Thomason said. “And then my outdoor goal is to PR [personal record] for 13 feet or maybe [higher] to get a school record.”
