When considering Sharon Day’s long list of accomplishments at the collegiate level, the Olympic Games seemed almost like the natural progression for her athletic career. The London games will be her second time competing in the Olympics, but this time around she, along with fellow Cal Poly alumna Stephanie Brown Trafton, will take part in the two-day heptathlon event scheduled for Aug. 3-4.
“We got a lot of experience at what professional track and field was like early on,” Day said of her time at Cal Poly. “We got to go to a lot of bigger competitions and met a lot of international teams while I was still at school.”
A dual-sport athlete, the soccer and track star said she graduated from Cal Poly in Spring 2008 with a degree in kinesiology before beginning her professional athletic career.
Playing two varsity sports in college is almost unheard of, but Day played sports year round growing up and wasn’t ready to choose between her two passions.
“Soccer was my first love,” Day said. “When I came to college I wasn’t ready to give it up yet, and that is why I looked for a school where I could do both.”
Day has run track since she was 7 years old and competed for school teams since junior high. At Cal Poly she played soccer and ran track for four years.
“I had an experience that not many college athletes get to have,” Day said.
Day, who high jumped in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, will treat these games with the same intensity and focus she maintains at every other competition.
“She is a great competitor, but does it with a greater demeanor, even keel and treats it in a very businesslike fashion,” director of track and field Mark Conover said. “She does all the little things correctly.”
It was those qualities that allowed her to expand her abilities past competing in solely the high jump to becoming the best at the heptathlon.
Her coach Jack Hoyt said the bottom line was that she wanted to make the transition from one event to all seven in the heptathlon, and she was good at it.
“She is a professional; It is is her job and she is very serious about it (heptathlon),” Hoyt said.
The heptathlon is a seven-part track and field contest split into two days where each contestant competes in the 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 meters, long jump, javelin throw and 800 meters.
Because the heptathlon is so extensive, during training they try to touch on each event twice per week.
With under a month left until she competes in the Olympics, Hoyt has her doing serious technical workouts with a lot less volume to keep her fresh and ready to peak on game days.
During the regular season, Day trains for four hours a day which includes technique work for the seven heptathlon events, sprint, endurance, strength, flex training and yoga sessions for general stretching. She also has a weekly massage with a physical therapist to loosen her muscles back up.
All her hard work is culminating in the 2012 London games, where she will touch down ten days before her event to adjust to the time change and continue her practice routines. She has been to London previously to compete in an international track competition held there just before the 2008 Olympics in China.
The U.S. team coaches will film Day’s Olympic practices, and Hoyt — who will meet her in London a few days later — will watch the video link and return communications over the internet during her practice until he arrives in London.
Throughout the year, she attends invitationals throughout the country. She travelled to Austria in May to compete against the best female track stars in the world, providing her the opportunity to scope the international competition she would face during the London games. Though she meets her competitors at various events held during the year, she finds it most important to focus on her own mindset and game plan.
Day’s fiance, Dan Monroe, will cheer her on from the stands in London and said Day was the most competitive person he has ever met.
“She wants to win so badly, she is going to compete all the way through whether she is in first or in last,” he said.
Monroe said he is probably more nervous than she is when he sits in the stands because he knows how hard she has worked for this opportunity that only comes along every four years.
Her second Olympic experience reminds her of the first, in which she was able to attend opening day as well as several different sports competitions during her time in Beijing.
She said there was so much going on at the Olympics and she enjoyed all the new experiences she was able to take in, including a trip with her family to the Great Wall of China.
“Living in the village and being surrounded by world class athletes for two weeks was really cool,” Day said. “You never really get to experience that.”
Although she didn’t become an elite athlete overnight, she received much recognition during her college career.
Conover said that the qualities she possessed in college are exactly what make her the Olympian she is today.
“She was always a leader that led by example,” Conover said. “She quietly went about her business, but did so in a way that was a role model for all the rest to follow.”
Conover said Day possessed a tunnel vision towards achieving excellence and did everything right in order to achieve her specific goals.