Track and field athlete Mika Santos seems reluctant to be in the spotlight.

        “My coach is teasing me that the fame will come,” she rolls her eyes. After all, she just broke the Philippine record for women’s pole vaulting, setting the bar a little higher with her record of 3.2 meters. And for someone who’s been pole vaulting for just a year, that’s no mean feat at all.

        Currently a junior majoring in Management in Communications and Technology at the Ateneo de Manila University, the twenty year old was a gymnast in grade school and a volleyball player in high school. So why the shift to track and field? “In freshman year, I wanted to join the volleyball team, pero ang gagaling nila,” she says, “A friend asked me to try out [for track and field], sabi niya ‘Sige, madali yan, tatakbo ka lang.’”

        But apparently, it was more than just about running. Being in the track and field varsity team meant five training days a week, with a series of technical warm-ups and drills for three hours every training session. For pole vaulting in particular, you don’t just do the jumping part, she says. “Pole vaulting is one of the most complicated [events in track and field]. There are so many phases through the whole run-up… There’s so much you have to keep in mind, so many parts to the whole thing.”

        Most people have the misconception that all track and field athletes do is run around an oval or do sprints. And Mika doesn’t mind that. “Not many people really know what it’s like unless they’re in the sport. Like me, I have this whole new appreciation for track athletes, and I never even used to watch it before. I didn’t even know all of the events when I joined [the team].”

        It’s a shame that girls assume they can’t handle the physical demands of track and field. In fact, the lack of females in the sport is the reason Mika says she holds the record in the first place. “One of the reasons why I have the record is because I’m one of the only people [in the sport]. So if we can get more girls into [track and field], better. Because it’s a really fun sport and it’s something different.”

        These days, she’s busy training to see if she can qualify to join the National Team for the SEA Games in December. To qualify, she says there is a certain height that she must clear, and that height is higher than what she can currently clear. “[But] the National Team, if it happens, it happens,” she shrugs, “It’s not one of my goals; it’s not a set goal for me. There are other things that I can do.”

        Amazingly, she still manages to be a Dean’s Lister despite the hectic training schedule. “[My teammates and I] have this theory that if we weren’t in track and field, we’d do worse in school because we’d have all this free time to slack off,” she says. Being in track and field taught her to budget her time and use it wisely. “I only have this much time to study, so I’m sure to study. If I have only how many hours of free time in a day, I have to make sure that I use that wisely because I won’t have that free time anymore.”

        And in those free moments, she chills out like any ordinary girl. Aside from watching television, going to the movies, and reading good books, she says, “[If] I have a free weekend, I take that opportunity and I go to the beach with my friends. I love the beach. I love the outdoors.” And no, she doesn’t run along the seashore at the beach. She laughs at the thought, saying “I don’t run if I don’t have to.”

        Like any varsity sport, there’s a lot of self-discipline involved in track and field, and being part of a team really builds character. But unlike the other sports, she says, “The concept of track and field is you’re going against yourself. It’s more about trying to beat your personal best every time.” Despite all this, she shares her doubts about staying with the team for an extra year after college –as UAAP athletes are entitled to do—and it becomes clear that the sport doesn’t rule her life. She sees herself as someone who’s in touch with reality. “I’m just taking opportunities and seeing what happens to me, where it takes me.”

        After college, she and her friends plan to do something to help the tourism of the country. The beach-lover and avid scuba diver that she is, she enthuses, “I want to do something to promote scuba diving because the marine life in this country is just amazing. It’s better than the Great Barrier Reef or any other diving spot.” But all those plans are still up in the air, she says, so maybe we’ll just have to wait a few years to see what she has up her sleeve.

        She’s very pro-Pinoy, she says, and that’s why she wants to help the country. “The problem with the youth today is we tend to lose hope in the country,” she says, “People aren’t in touch anymore with their pagka-Pinoy, and they don’t have a sense of national identity anymore. We’re not united as a nation.”

        And it’s sad that the youth has so many things to say, but no way of letting out all of these ideas. “If I could empower the youth, I would give us a way to let our ideas out, give us a way to say something, and make sure that everyone else listens to what we have to say.”

        She goes on to say, “Youth power is the ability to make a difference, considering how powerful the youth is and can be. We can do things if we really wanted to, and we can do pretty much anything if we were just given the chance.”

        And because the youth can do anything we put our minds and hearts to, she has this advice for all the readers: “Don’t be afraid to do what you want to do.”

        Coming from a girl who seems to have done just that, it would do us good to follow her lead: to reach great heights with our feet firmly planted in the ground.