Michelle Kyle was running out of patience with herself.
The Windsor junior stepped into the discus ring Saturday and gave the 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) disc a heave. Then she did it again. And again.
And she still was trailing the event leaders at the Class 3 sectional track and field meet at Lutheran South.
Finally, on her last throw, Kyle got everything just right. The toss sailed inches beyond Alicia Hager's meet-leading throw of 114 feet, 9 inches. The officials stretched the tape and called out the new leader -- Kyle at 115-4.
The 17-year-old Windsor thrower breathed a sigh of relief.
"I always seem to wait until the last throw," she said.
Some would call that procrastination. Kyle calls it motivation.
"I need somebody to beat me so I can beat them," she said.
Kyle's sectional title came a week after she teetered on the edge of what could have been the biggest disappointment of her high school career. At the district meet, she finished fourth in the discus. Her qualifying throw -- and, yes, it came on her final throw -- was only eight inches further than Shayo Oginni's non-qualifying fifth place effort.
"It was scary," Kyle said of the brush with being squeezed out of the postseason picture."I kept throwing barely out (of the discus sector)," she said. "It was really freaky."
The discus can be like that. Freaky. Really.
"It's a big mental sport," the 5-foot-9 Kyle said. Kyle tries to stay a step ahead of the discus's mind games through visualization.
"I always try to visualize myself throwing. I've been to all these places so I visualize myself throwing and see it going out 120 (feet)," she said.
At the district meet, there was more than visualization going on. Kyle tuned up for her final throw with an internal -- mostly, anyway -- pep talk. "I was, like, I can do this, I can do this," she said.
When it comes to throwing things, when it comes to marrying strength, athletic ability and technique, Kyle takes a back seat to few athletes in the state. A five-time Jefferson County Conference champ in the shot put and discus, she earned a state medal in the discus and narrowly missed grabbing a medal in the shot put last spring.
This season, she's been a little bit more successful at the shot put. Part of the reason for that: You can't misfire in the shot the way you can in the discus.
"In the shot, you never throw it out of bounds unless you fall," she said.
A three-sport athlete -- she also plays softball and basketball -- Kyle is not likely to fall. If anything, she is likely to soar.
A three-time state qualifier, Kyle has moved beyond the nerves that nearly made her freeze up at the state meet in 2009 as a freshman.
"It was terrifying," she said.
"I just felt like I was so little," she said. "My freshman year I was kind of just there to see what it was like."
That is not the case this spring.
Her season-best throws of 119-2 in the discus and 41-1.5 in the shot put place her among the state leaders in both events. The top Class 3 efforts at Saturday's sectionals were 123-6 in the discus and 42-1.5 in the shot, both within reach for Kyle ... at least by the time she gets to her last throw.
