Before every meet this season, Western Washington University track & field thrower Kathryn Chapin told herself to "just have fun." That mindset produced a school record throw of 56.75 meters (186 feet, 2 inches) in women's hammer throw, a GNAC gold medal, and her first national championship qualification.

With nationals fast approaching, we sat down with her to discuss the mental side of throwing, her growth as an athlete, and what she's looking forward to at NCAA's.

Q: What was the difference between throwing in high school and throwing here at Western?

A: There's just been a huge difference. In high school, there was a very small handful of kids that even cared at all, and that actually had talent and really had the drive to get better and go beyond high school. There was also just a handful of kids that were there because their parents made them. But here, there's varying talent levels everywhere you go, and we have so much talent in everybody. We're also a really cohesive group. We make so many more attempts to hang out with each other and just be a group, and we all really love each other. This team is very special and you're not going to find this in very many other places.

I only threw for a year and a half in high school. At the start you think, "Oh, I'm getting pretty good at this." And then you keep going and you realize there's levels to it. The better you get at something, the more you realize how much there is still to learn about it.

Track is also different where you compete against your own teammates—we're competing together, but we're also competing against each other. We all want each other to throw farther than we do, because that pushes us to throw farther. I think that's one of my favorite things about being here.

Q: What does it mean to have such a supportive team, and was that something you felt right away or was it a culture built over time?

A: I was very welcomed, especially [considering] I didn't come on a visit when I was in high school. I did come on a visit for jumps, but I didn't get to visit with any throwers or Damien [Fisher]. Coming in, having not met any of them other than Jessie [Polkinghorn]—who I met in one high school meet because we competed against each other—I was so scared, but they did a really good job of welcoming me.

Over the last couple of years the team has just gotten really good at organizing things to hang out on our own. Damien doesn't even need to be involved. Sometimes we'll have team dinners at his house, but he doesn't need to organize team hangouts because we all do it on our own—we just want to hang out with each other because we have a lot of really good friendships. It's very special to meet so many people that are like-minded in the way that we all want to be a group and we all care about each other. I think that is why we're such a successful group in the ring.
In the weight room, there's a really healthy competition. We all want each other to lift more than we do so we feel pushed to get even better.

Q: How has Damien helped you grow as a thrower and athlete during your time at Western?

A: Damien does a really good job of listening to us, and he's established himself as a person we can go to with really anything. After each quarter, we have an individual one-on-one meeting with him where you talk about what goes on during the quarter—school, life, and how it impacts track. It's helpful in building a stronger relationship and trust, and it makes it so he can understand you and how you work, and that helps a lot in practice.

I've learned so much about myself just through talking with Damien. Something I've learned is that I don't do very well on travel days. On travel days, especially with flights, those days were rough. We'll get to the location and immediately go straight to the track and do a shakeout, and my practices are always really bad on those days. He helped me realize, through talking about it and experiencing it several times, that that's just got to be a day where I get my body moving and don't worry about how it goes, because it always works out anyway in the end. He's a very good coach and also just a very good person, so it's always nice to have him to go to.

Q: How much of throwing is mental, and what do you do to prepare on that side?

A: It's definitely like 90% mental. Obviously we put all this work in physically—working on hitting positions, doing things in the weight room to prepare our bodies and get stronger. But especially on competition days, everything's mental. You see so many athletes that have so much potential physically, but they just can't get out of their head. The athletes that really excel in their sport, especially throwing, are the ones that can let go of what they're thinking and just let their body act.

I read in a book that when it comes to sport, you have two selves. Your body is one self, and your mind is the other. During competition, you need to let go of your mind, because your body knows how to do what it needs to do. Your mind is what will get in the way. But your body already knows how to do it, especially with all the training we do.

That's what I did really well at GNAC. I did have cues—"I'm going to get around, I'm going to really throw the ball around, get around my left side"—but I wasn't forcing myself to do it. I was like, "I know what I need to do, and I'm going to let my body do it." That's when you have those really good days. The bad days are usually when you're not doing that.

One thing Damien tells us a lot is that each throw does not impact the next throw at all—they're independent throws. So if you have a bad throw, that doesn't impact the next one. It's hard to get out of that mentally, because if you have a bad throw you're like, "Oh my gosh, the next one's going to be bad." And the same works the other way—a good throw doesn't necessarily mean the rest of them are going to be good throws.

Q: What's been the biggest difference between this year and last year?

A: Definitely mental. Last year I would get in my head a lot. I had a huge shot put PR at the beginning of the outdoor season and I kind of didn't know what to do with myself. Going into every meet I was like, "I have to throw 14, I have to throw 14." So I would tighten up and throw like 12.8, and I was getting really frustrated.

This year I've shifted a lot—going into the meets just letting my body be free. Throwing free is really what I've been trying to do this year, and I did a really good job with that especially towards the end of the season. I had a lot of health problems during the year, especially around San Diego and Long Beach. Because I physically wasn't feeling good at all, I was like, "I'm still competing, I can't redshirt, it's too late for that." The mindset became, "Let's just do what I can, go into the meet, hit the positions, and do the best I can." That shift helped a lot—I still threw 52-mid with a bunch of problems going on, and that was really reassuring.

It's that shift of not focusing on the outcome but focusing on the process. That was the big shift that made this year so much more enjoyable. Even though I didn't hit the marks I wanted to—in shot put I only improved my PR like 10 centimeters—in hammer I improved a good amount and I'm happy with how this year has gone. I had a much better year, meet to meet and day to day, so I'm very happy with how this year has been.

Q: You won the GNAC title this year. Talk about your mindset going in and how it felt to accomplish that.

A: Going into GNAC, I was a little nervous and kind of in my head. But two nights before, I was in the hotel going to bed and I had a moment where I started thinking about what would happen if it went really well. That moment flipped a switch in my brain. I thought about celebrating if I had a good throw and what a good throw would actually feel like. I was really visualizing a good throw, and I did that over and over again. I had a day before I competed, and all throughout that day—and before I went to bed again—I just kept thinking, I need to execute [that feeling]. And I did exactly that when it came to competition day. It went really well—better than I expected—but there's still more in the tank.

Q: This is your first nationals. How are you feeling going in and what are you hoping to accomplish?

A: I'm very excited. I have goals—I want to be an All-American, first team, all these things—but really my goal is to just go and have fun. I know that if I go and have fun, it'll go well. I don't want to go into it thinking I have to throw this far or I have to do this and this, because if I do that it's going to end poorly. It's the last meet of the year, so I just want to make it memorable. We have four hammer throwers and one javelin, so we have five throwers going. I want to represent the throwers. I'm also very excited to cheer for everybody—there are 15 qualifiers. I'm competing Thursday, so I have the rest of the weekend to cheer everybody on Friday and Saturday. It's going to be so fun.

Q: What's your one mindset phrase going into nationals?

A: "Just have fun." That's what I say before every meet—"Let's go and have fun." And it works. Thinking back, there hasn't been a single meet this year when I had a mark that I was disappointed with, except for one weight meet at Dempsey during the indoor season. That was the only mark I was disappointed with all year, because I went into every meet with a mindset of having fun, being with my team, and enjoying the competition instead of worrying about how far I was throwing. That is definitely what I'm going to be telling myself going into nationals. And if I don't do well, that's OK, because I will be having fun.