Dana Lyon is small in stature but larger than life in personality, drive, and service to others. She threw far, in Colorado at that (javelins don’t like to fly in this thin air): She’s still top 10 all-time in the U.S. with a 59.92m PR at 5’2”. She’s been a javelin heroine of mine since a meet at Cal Berkeley in 2005: My freshman and her junior year of college. I had a huge PR to place second to her, more than a few meters ahead of me.
Two-time NCAA Champion, 2007 PanAms and World Championship team member, and much more.
Asking her to be my coach in 2017 was not weird or hard or intimidating. I missed her! I knew we could have fun together, and we did. Looking back, I don’t know what I would have done if she had said no. Figured something out, I guess. But I’m forever glad she agreed. I said when we started that it’d be up to me to check my ego and learn how she threw the javelin. “What might happen if we apply that to my 6’0” body?” The most consistent 4 seasons of my career is what, despite massive injury.
She taught me how to use my whole body in a throw, how to better laugh through frustration and tears-notably in a rainy Des Moines parking lot when a possum lumbered by-and most importantly, how fun it can be to work with your friends.
I always wanted to take her to the Olympics. I sat in Team Processing in 2008, naively and giddily filling out paperwork to go to my first Olympics while sitting across the table from my devastated friend, who would then barely toe foul an A standard throw a week later (and we only took two women to Beijing). So when I heard that she was separating from the military and taking a job as javelin and strength coach at USAFA at precisely the same time as I was ready for new technical input, I leapt at the chance to work together. My planned final Olympics were firmly in my sights, and my heart was wide open to new opportunity.
Cue mutual excitement for the first javelin session of every year, and every one after that. Conversations at practice that so easily weaved from friendship to coach-athlete. Work-so much hard technical work-getting done with that kind of excited same-wavelength feeling that we both knew was there, but didn’t acknowledge until a dinner later or the last practice before a meet that mattered. The mutual understanding that we were going places, together.
Europe (Zurich, Prague, and the Continental Cup) together in 2018 was amazing. For our first season together to result in an all-time Europe PR for me, 3rd at both meets, and magical recovery paddling days was a dream. One of my favorite throwing sessions ever-at Kladno-ended with lunch and coffee with Barbora. Seeing my friends become friends is always my favorite!
3rd in Ostrava at IAAF Continental Cup 2018, a few weeks after 3rd at Zurich DL Final & such a fun Prague stay.
The ups and downs of 2019 made us so strong. Training camp in Chula Vista and the way we missed that atmosphere together when we got home, but still had each other. Her face when I told her at Mexican food that I’d stabbed myself in the throwing hand. Dana letting me try a different grip, reluctantly, and not gloating at all when I switched back and finally threw how we knew I could. Her circling the airport for WAY too long with balloons when my javelins took ages to appear after PanAms victory. Our last throwing session in the HAC during a thunderstorm before Belarus. Fifth-the best finish by an American woman at Worlds in a LONG time-in Doha, where I was so, so, so proud of her for reasons that had nothing to do with javelin.
After 5th in Doha and drug testing, only ones left, happy, in the stadium.
2020 was filled with park days and leisurely convos after practice. Random departures on both of our parts but always coming back together. Extra time to try out technical things we just hadn’t gotten to yet, and the only certainty in the world being that we were both still in this, for no more reason than that it’s fun to do this thing we’ve always shared, together.
Both Jamie and Dana have described to me what they did after hanging up from my phone calls to each of them to tell them about my knee. I don’t think either one of them necessarily wanted me to compete that summer, but I felt awesome, didn’t want to skip a whole season, and also javelin is fun. To both of their enormous credit, I never perceived any blame from either of them, and never detected the devastation at the news that they both later described to me. They were only ever supportive, and Dana jumped right in: Walked Maddie even though I knew she didn’t have time, provided me with a distraction and new connection to the event that I didn’t know I needed in coaching Joe Nizich at the USAFA prep school, and understood the assignment in not letting me get away with bad technique once I picked a jav up again. Surgery or no, there wasn’t time to lose what we’d gained before my most recent injury. Of course I had many incredible things combine to make 2021 possible, but the single biggest reason I was able to return so quickly is the fact that Dana massively improved my technique over the previous three seasons, then held me to it in the crucial last one.
We made it to the Olympics. The tears I shed in Tucson last year, knowing we were going to make it, were so different from all my desperate tears through so many practices. She listened to me complain about my painfully slow learning curve at my job, understood when film review was cut short because I had a meeting, continued to make me feel welcome and valued at the Academy, commiserated about my healing when I needed it, and so much more.
I watched Dana grow as a coach, too. She saw my needs in new ways, especially in Tokyo. I’m incredibly proud of the effort we put forth and forever grateful for the journey we walked in the last four years.
She transformed my career, especially internationally. She gives all of herself to her athletes, and she did that and beyond for me. Hearing her say, “I feel like I let you down,” in Tokyo almost broke my heart again, because of course she didn’t: I would not still be in this sport without her. Dana showed me just how rewarding working with, traveling with, and sharing this part of life with a loved one can be. I’ve learned that lesson before, but she really drove it home.
Our first time as USATF teammates: Dana crushed everyone at NACAC’s 2006.
Thank you, my friend. I love you. I’m so lucky to have been your athlete.
I’m still blown away by my miraculous 2021 success, in the wake of my injury, but the cold, hard, objective measurement of sports fact-coupled with dwindling opportunities for field eventers in the world-is that I wasn’t good enough to get into meets at the end of the season.
I was crushed. Dana was incredibly supportive, as always. And even though Russ is often out of service, he was there to cry to exactly when I needed him to be. Despite being athletes together for the first 10 years of our relationship, we rarely competed in the same meets, or even in the same countries. So when he said over the phone, “What if I come with you next year, just for fun,” my tears stopped and my wheels started turning. At the end of his career, in response to a question about the future from my Mom, he said, “I’m DONE, but Kara has unfinished business.” We both won NACACs in 2015 (our first year of marriage), medaled at PanAms, and got to be roommates at Worlds, where I made my first final. He played the informal role of my coach in Rio, and made me laugh hard at a Brazilian BBQ in the midst of my devastation about 13th place. We used to have champagne and cheese time after practice when we lived in Germany in 2010. He came to London for his birthday and to coach me at Worlds in 2017. Australia together for their domestic circuit in 2012 will forever be one of my favorite trips. And spread throughout all that happiness has always been real, hard, supportive conversation about what we both need, at many different points of our individual lives that we choose to spend together.
Ever since we met, I’d rather be with him than anyone else: I looked at him recently and confessed, “I’m disgustingly happy.” When I couldn’t stop sobbing over the phone when I hurt my knee again he said, “Kara, whatever happens, it’s going to be okay,” and with Russ by my side, that has always been true.
The many hardships of my journey in 2020 and 2021, the pride I feel in this second comeback, the new essential team members I have in my PT Kelcie Wittman and even co-workers, the technical ferocity Dana instilled in me, Jamie’s continued fantastic training programs, and even the lifting of the American Record weight from my shoulders have all prepared me to tackle this last season with wide open eyes, a totally vulnerable heart, and a lightness I haven’t felt in a long, long time. I missed Russ so much in the chaos of last year: He was there when he could be, amazing as ever, but I didn’t have the time to fully honor the role he was playing in my life.
Now, for better or worse, we get to spend one last season in throwing sectors together, this time as coach and athlete.
It feels so right to finally listen to his ideas that have been great the whole time, but also to just have him there. We came to this decision independently of each other, standing on opposite sides of the kitchen, and in that moment I felt very taken care of, and more at peace than maybe ever. I think that gives both of us more confidence in the situation than if one of us had asked this big favor of the other. I truly do not care about outcome: I don’t need to prove anything more to myself or anyone else, I’m just here to have a blast with my partner in life, for one more season.
I missed my friend Dana, asked her to be my coach when the timing felt right, and we had a fantastic four years, weathering ups and downs together, her role directly resulting in some of my best years, and not just on the runway. I’ve missed my husband in this area of my life since his retirement after 2016 Olympic Trials, and while we’d talked about the possibility of him coaching me in the past, it didn’t feel right until this, my last year.
So far, so, so, so good.
We started our one year as coach and athlete at Mt. SAC with 63.29m. SO fun to be at a meet together again. No matter what happens, it’s going to be okay.