Strength in the face of adversity

POLSON — While pole vaulting is an individual sport, Polson’s Melinda Owen has found that there’s a whole team supporting her quest to go to the 2012 Olympics in pole vaulting.

“I feel so fortunate to come from a small town where people care,” Owen said. “It’s such a neat feeling because I have an entire community to share the experience with.”

Owen, who graduated from Polson High School in 2003 and went on to excel at the pole vault at the University of Idaho, has made a lot of progress throughout her international career. Last February, she placed third at the Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden. Her jump of 4.4 meters was behind the No. 1 and No. 2 ranked vaulters in the world.

Since vaulting into the forefront her senior year at the University of Idaho with the highest jump in the nation in 2008, she now spends most of her time training at the U.S. Olympic Center in San Diego when she’s not traveling to meets.

It would be easy for Owen to forget about Polson, since she doesn’t get back very often, due to her demanding schedule. It would also be easy for the people in the Polson community to lose touch with the vaulting phenom, who had to borrow her first pole from Charlo High School when Polson didn’t have the proper equipment.

However, that hasn’t happened. In fact, it’s been the exact opposite.

Last October at the Live Locally 5K race in Polson, Country Pasta owners Amy and Fred Kellogg donated $10,000 to Owen. On top of that, the charity race raised $4,250. That’s an essential amount of income, as an Olympic-level athlete doesn’t necessarily earn a salary and Owen still has to foot standard living expenses along with travel expenses to meets.

“It’s pretty phenomenal that she is training at this level,” Heather Knutson of County Pasta and Live Locally 5K race organizer said. “She’s truly a remarkable young gal.”

While in the past, the community-minded Live Locally race has donated over $7,000 to Mission Valley Aquatics to fulfill their dream of a swimming pool in Lake County, once they reached the groundbreaking phase, Live Locally found another wonderful cause to support.

“Last year, Melinda’s Mom was in HealthCare Plus and I got to visiting with her and realized Melinda’s dedication and heart at reaching for her goal of the summer games in 2012 and thought what better way to help support this individual than to use Live Locally to promote and assist our own local Olympic hopeful in reaching towards her dream,” said HealthCare Plus employee and race organizer Sarah Bird.

Last year’s contributions were extremely important to Owen, and she couldn’t have been more surprised and happy about the community of Polson supporting her.

“Its definitely not easy financially to compete professionally,” Owen said. “[The 5K] race was the reason I was able to compete last season.”

Over 191 people ran in the 5K race last year to support her, and 231 total walkers and runners registered, with some just contributing the money for Owen’s cause. The support for one athlete surprised the organizers of Live Locally.

“We had people just stop in the office to donate money, people who weren’t going to partake in the race but wanted to support such a great individual, and to be honest, until I met Melinda I didn’t know how great she was,” Bird said. “She truly is one class act, with the heart, desire and dedication to bring home the Olympic gold. She not only has a passion for competing, she has a passion for people, and while she was at home she took time to get involved in the local school system and tell her story, offering support and instilling the message that hard work is worth it.”

And as impressed as people are of Owen’s success, she’s equally blown away by what the community of Polson has done for her.

“I couldn’t be more grateful for what they did for me last year,” Owen said. “I feel so fortunate to come from a small town where people care. A lot of athletes that come from bigger cities don’t have that.”

OVERCOMING ADVERSITY

A true testament to Owen as an athlete is the way she’s been able to overcome injuries and excel at the sport. She suffered a torn quad her freshman year of high school and broke her leg her sophomore year, but placed at state regardless. In her senior year, she was a state champion.

During her career at the University of Idaho where she really came into her own, Owen placed 10th at nationals her senior year and earned the attention of U.S. Track and Field coaches. However, she had to have surgery first on bone spurs in her foot.

And just this year, Owen had to have surgery yet again on her foot to remove spurs, but it will ensure that this tough-as-nails pole-vaulter is more ready than ever to compete.

Before the surgery, Owen had made really big strides. She was invited to top-tier meets, put up the No. 2 jump in the nation at 4.51 meters and was nearing her goal of making the U.S. Outdoor Track and Field national team.

“I felt like I was on a roll,” Owen said. “I was setting PRs at every meet.”

However, her ankle had been giving her trouble since the indoor season last winter. She had five MRIs and no one could figure out what was wrong with it. Owen then decided to take it easy for a month to let the ankle heal itself, but for some reason it got worse.

“At the New York [Madison Square Garden] meet, I was vaulting well, but at the end of the meet I couldn’t walk on my ankle,” Owen said. “At Nationals, by the first warm up, I could not walk and my ankle gave out.”

Unfortunately, Owen had to pull out of Nationals, but that didn’t dampen her spirit as evident from the last line of a blog post she made explaining what had happened. It spelled out to the tee what kind of drive she has:

“Watch out 2012, I don’t get mad… I get even ?,” she wrote.

Owen turned to her doctor in Missoula, who had done her foot surgery in 2008 and again found that bone spurs were the root of her problem.

“As I would run on it, it would cause an abrasion and it calcified into a bony block,” Owen said.

When she took more time off to let her ankle rest, it allowed for the bony block to grow bigger. While it was nice to get the problem solved with surgery, there was a glaring question mark… how long would it take to rehab?

“They were pretty positive that there was cartilage damage,” Owen said. “When they operated, they found that it was damaged but with no bare bone showing.”

That small detail saved Owen from a potential six-month rehab process. Had the bone been exposed, doctors would have had to initiate a micro-fracture break to allow it to heal properly. Luckily, that wasn’t the case and Owen was on the fast track.

“I’m at three months now and I’m having no pain,” Owen said. “I should be good to go. I’m pretty much cleared to do anything within reason.”

Owen spent three weeks of that three-month rehab in Polson, namely, under the care of her parents.

“That’s the longest I’ve been in Polson since high school,” Owen said.

She’ll be back in town for the Live Locally 5K on Oct. 22, but then will focus on the upcoming indoor season with the World Championships in Turkey as a goal for the spring.

A RACE FOR OWEN

Over the course of five years, the Live Locally 5K has helped fuel MVA to break ground on the aquatics center, and hopefully in 2012 will see Owen compete for her country in the Olympic games.

This year’s race will take place Saturday, Oct. 22 at HealthCare Plus on Main Street and 7th Ave. in Polson. While it’s called a race, there’s a lot more that goes into it.

“We want to support the businesses and organizations around our community,” Knutson said. “It’s a different type of a race. It’s a race and a community event.”

With a community like Polson and an athlete like Owen, this race already looks like a winner.