Sometimes I wonder what it would take for me to get where I want to be. It seems like I’m paving my own way instead of living in someone elses footsteps. This is great but it’s harder than I thought it would be. In school or college there is a structure set up that allows you to succeed. It gives you focus and something to do. Now that I’ve been out of school for a little over a year, I realized you have to find that structure that works for you. In addition to this, I understand now why it is really important for you to do what you love even if you don’t have the best environment to do it in. There is a reason why God gives us a passion. For me when I am not focusing on Track & Field I feel like I am wasting my life. Which is really weird. I’ve accomplished a lot but in doing so I put track & field on the back burner sometimes thinking I would be able to focus on it more once I graduated. Now that I’ve graduated and am working in DC it is so hard to have the energy to get all of my workouts in without feeling discouraged or getting injured.  It’s really hard but everytime I find one way that isn’t working I search for another way that will. I know I’ll never quit but I’m so used to pushing myself and forcing myself to go fast pace. For instance, when my coachs’ used to teach me something, usually all I’d think about is getting that technique, drill, or anything down perfect. Then on top of that, I always wanted to prove anyone wrong who didn’t believe in me -coachs’ included. Now instead of constantly pushing myself or going fast pace, I am forced to slow down and really listen to my physical, mental, and spiritual health. Slowing down and being patient feels so impossible to me but until that perfect training environment and full time coach that I am praying for comes, all I can do is keep striving to get better with what God has already given me.

In trying to slow down I constantly ask myself “What do I really want?” At times I think it’s a husband, modeling, acting, writing, math, poetry, singing, starting an inspirational movement/business,  always Track & Field, and never do I ever want it to be what others think I should do. All of those things make me smile but none of those things have much to do with what my professional career is now. That realization is my everyday struggle. I believe I am doing God’s work in the work place but also believe there is so much more I want to do. I am working in a place where most people may dream of working, I went to college at a place where most people may dream of going, and I’ve competed in multiple (athletic and nonathletic) competitions that most people may have dreamed of competing in. After all of that I feel God is using it as a basis for the rest of my life even though I can’t see the correlation right now between my college/workplace and what I want to do in my future I know God can and I trust that.

In October I was blessed to compete in Korea and it was the first time ever that God provided me an opportunity that I really didn’t capitalize on. I got sick during that whole trip but I’m not used to accepting anything less than greatness from myself. lol that’s a separate issue within itself that I have to work on.. moving on… I remember feeling devastated for some of my teammates after watching those training full time do well (which was absolutely great!) but then watching others who were in the same predicament training wise as I was not do as well as they wanted to. When I compete, as cheesy as this sounds, I always want to make others happy and cheer my team up. I did the complete opposite. I competed so bad it was embarrassing in american standards but even more embarrassing at an international level. There were a lot of things leading up to this meet that went wrong-getting sick being one of them. However, I disregarded those things and moved on. On the day of my competition I was feeling a little better (or telling myself that). I got to the Track on time, sat and watched a few events while listening to music, then I started my warm up.

During my warm up, I felt little kinks in my body that I hadn’t felt before. I felt a muscle pull in my lower back/hip, and then my ankle that I hadn’t had issues with in the past month started getting sore on me. It was bothering me so bad that I had to roll out my hip on a lacrosse ball in front of my competition and then even worst I only was able to do one run through without anyone watching to help me perfect my mark. Lastly, the measuring tape was in meters and not feet so I had to find a translator to ask if they could translate my mark in feet to meters. After all the kinks were worked out the warm up was great! I was jumping well and could easily jump from the 36 ft board from a short approach (something I was never able to do in the past) and was jumping as far as the other Olympians during the warm up. (I know I shouldn’t have been paying attention to my competition but I was excited to be around a bunch of Olympians so I secretly watched a couple of their practice jumps.) My coach and teammates didn’t show up until after the warm up time was over. Then the competition started and I forgot the most important rule for myself  regarding Triple Jump. “Finish the jump even if you scratch!!!” I was sooo focused on not scratching over the board that I didn’t even jump. What was even worse is my teammates thought that my one jump that I didn’t scratch on was really me jumping and I tried to explain to them numerous times that though it was a little under a 40 ft jump it was not me finishing the jump. To put the distance into perspective the others were jumping over 13.5 meters and I only jumped (or not jumped) a low 12 meters. On the bright side I could feel that if I really had my run through together it would have been at least a 13 meter jump. I would have still been in last place granted my competition were all full time Olympians about 10 years older than me but I would have been satisfied with showing how far I could actually jump at the time. My goal was 43 ft my coaches goal was about 43′ 6″ and our goal for the end of the season is about 46 ft. All realistic but a bummer now that I am back at work, on the bright side definitely making a difference, but still struggling to find a balance in my training schedule.