NATASHA HASTINGS
Photograph By Luis Sanchis for ESPN The Magazine
"I love the weight room. It's fun to get away from the track and show off. I do a lot of dead lifts and split jerks. I can clean more than my body weight; my max is about 155 to 160. The men sometimes talk smack, so I go back at them, 'Just remember I'm a girl, and I'm still breathing down your neck.' Or at a public gym, sometimes I'll jump in with the guys during a set, and they'll start taking weight off, and I'm like, 'No, I'm going to use all that.' But I also have my nickname, 400 Diva, which came from an interview I did as a freshman at South Carolina when I said, 'The girls on our team just look like divas.' I can still be a girly girl and an athlete. I put on eyelashes and a full face of makeup before a meet. That's just me. That's my personality. My college coach used to say, 'If you look good, you'll feel good, and if you feel good, you'll perform well.' I totally agree."
