{"id":6266,"date":"2019-06-01T11:50:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-01T15:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=6266"},"modified":"2023-08-04T09:29:09","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T13:29:09","slug":"double-double-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/double-double-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Double DOUBLE Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\"Photographs\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
<\/td>\n

Amber Stratz<\/h3>

Health studies major
Runs: middle distance and cross country<\/p><\/td>\n

Brianna Stratz<\/h3>

Health studies major; biology minor
Runs: middle distance<\/p><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

Before Monmouth<\/td>\n Competitive runners since age 9, the Stratz sisters were members of the state-record-holding 4\u00d7800 indoor and outdoor relay teams at Central Bucks High School South.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Do you have a pre-race ritual?<\/td>\n I\u2019m not ritualistic, so I treat race day like any other. I don\u2019t want to get too \u201cin my head,\u201d because if I had a ritual and something went wrong, I wouldn\u2019t want to freak out.<\/td>\n I eat a lot of pasta and chicken the night before, but not much the morning of because of nerves. An hour before my race, I\u2019ll drink a double-shot espresso so I\u2019m really awake. And I always chew mint gum during stretches. <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
What\u2019s something you\u2019ve learned in sports that\u2019s helped you in life?<\/td>\n I never really wanted to run anything longer than a mile, but after my sophomore year at Monmouth, I tried cross country at my coach\u2019s suggestion. I loved it. As a junior, I set our school\u2019s record for the Paul Short Run at Lehigh. It showed the hard work I put in paid off. It gave me confidence, and it was a turning point in my running career.<\/td>\n When I ran the 1,000 meters at the USATF Indoor Championships, I toed the line with professional runners whom I idolize. I never in a million years imagined I\u2019d run competitively after college, but after that event my coach told me, \u201cIf you want to continue doing this, you can. You just showed you can run with the pros.\u201d <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Ever have one of those clich\u00e9 \u201ctwin moments?\u201d<\/td>\n In sixth grade, we switched classes to try to fool people. It was funny, but afterward we were like, OK, we did that. We can cross it off the list.<\/td>\n People who don\u2019t know us make assumptions. Whenever there\u2019s something I don\u2019t like, people automatically assume Amber doesn\u2019t like it either.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
What\u2019s your sister better at than you?<\/td>\n Speed workouts.<\/td>\n Distance running.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
What\u2019s something you\u2019re better at than your sister?<\/td>\n Distance. I can run for longer than she can.<\/td>\n Running fast.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Since timing is everything, particularly in track, who\u2019s older?<\/td>\n Amber, by 19 minutes.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\"Photographs\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
<\/td>\n

Tiyanna Jenkins<\/h3>

Marketing major
Runs: sprints<\/p><\/td>\n

Iyanna Jenkins<\/h3>

Marketing major
Runs: sprints<\/p><\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

Before Monmouth<\/td>\n Soccer standouts as kids, the Jenkins sisters took up track in their teens, and were co-captains of both the track and soccer teams at Linden High School.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Do you have a pre-race ritual?<\/td>\n I drink lots of water the night before. I listen to gospel music on the bus to the meet. When I\u2019m warming up, I listen to hip hop\u2014Meek Mill\u2014to get me excited. When I step to the line, I say a prayer to help me stay focused.<\/td>\n I lay out my clothes the night before\u2014headband, socks, everything. I also listen to gospel music the morning of a race, but I listen to YG Teck at the meet to get going. When I’m on the line, I say a little prayer and then let my mind go blank. <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
What\u2019s something you\u2019ve learned in sports that\u2019s helped you in life?<\/td>\n Running track has taught me patience. Some people might have a bad race and beat themselves up because they\u2019re training so hard and want to see immediate results. But I\u2019ve learned that when I focus on what I need to do from A to Z, the results will show in time. That\u2019s important. I can take that anywhere in life. <\/td>\n Transitioning from high school to college track was mentally tough. In high school, you might practice for two hours and then you\u2019re done for the day. In college, track is like a full-time job. I didn\u2019t realize that at first. Figuring out how to balance everything I had to do has been key. <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Ever have one of those clich\u00e9 \u201ctwin moments?\u201d<\/td>\n Iyanna will be thinking of a song, and I\u2019ll start singing it. Or she\u2019ll be thinking about a certain food and, without knowing it, I\u2019ll say that\u2019s what I want to eat.<\/td>\n Our parents dressed us alike as kids, but that stopped in high school. Yet even now we\u2019ll come out of our rooms unknowingly having dressed in the same outfits.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
What\u2019s your sister better at than you?<\/td>\n Track.<\/td>\n Being creative.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
What\u2019s something you\u2019re better at than your sister?<\/td>\n I was an all-around better soccer player.<\/td>\n Driving, and it\u2019s arguable what Tiyanna said about being better than me at soccer.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Since timing is everything, particularly in track, who\u2019s older?<\/td>\n Tiyanna, by 2 minutes.<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stratz and Jenkins sisters\u2014track teammates and identical twins\u2014talk running, rituals, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":7074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[94,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-play"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Athletics, Play","issue":"Summer 2019","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6266"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6819,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6266\/revisions\/6819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}