The Story We're Writing

Junior Nationals 2011

I like writing stories. It’s what I do for at least four hours a day. It’s what I’m going to university to study.

But I can’t finish this story, because the narrative hasn’t been written to completion. It’s been four years since my last triple jump PR, and equally as long since I’ve competed at my last Canadian University (CIS) championship for Dalhousie—I was nineteen years old.

            I thought I already had everything figured out.

                        Haha.

                                    Hahahaha.

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And now it’s like those past four years have never happened. Except I’m not nineteen anymore, I’m twenty-three going on twenty-four. Now I’m the old guy.

I have two years of university eligibility left, and I want to make the most of them. A fresh start. I like the idea of that. And I hope I have a few things I can teach the rookies when I compete next season with the University of Saskatchewan. Maybe a few things not to do.

***

I'm nineteen. I'm young. I'm cocky. I'm feeling good, and coming off a season I good a bronze medal at junior nationals. I’ve never medalled nationally before, but I’m greedy for more. My physiology classes teach me about sodium/potassium/water retention.

Through trial and error, I learn I can lose five pounds by manipulating my electrolytes. It works. I jump a PR and break 14 meters for the first time. 

I try it again, except this time I cut my calories. I've never been this strong before. I'm six foot, 155lbs and can power clean 265lbs. I live off 2200 calories a day and like the way my body looks. I cut my sodium and take a dandelion root diarrheic to thin out even more. Over the course of ten days, I taper my sleep schedule until I’m going to bed at 7:00pm and waking at 4:00am because the jump time at the next competition is 10:00am.  It works again. I PR again. 14.28m. I feel good. I want more. I have no idea what's coming, the train about to hit me.

15.00m Champagne. 

Our team is travelling to Montreal. In two and a half days, I’ve consumed less than 100mg of sodium. I weigh myself in the hotel room in Trois-Rivières the night before the meet. I've lost eight pounds in twenty-four hours, and I buy a bottle of champagne that I scribble "15.00m on". I post it on Facebook and it gets twenty likes in two minutes. Validation. 

The next day we're back on the bus going to Montreal. We're an hour outside the city when the nausea starts. We get to the hotel room and I vomit in the sink. I feel a little better and then vomit again. My roommates seem concerned. They tell me not to jump. I don't listen. 

A day after the salt incident
in Montreal.

I'm at the track. The nausea is like a blanket over me. I can't see straight. What's happening to me? I tell my coach what I did. He tries to help. He buys me salt, Doritos, and a bottle of Gatorade. It almost works, but the blanket is pulled over my head again and I race to the bathroom with vomit dripping through my fingers. I can't find it. My stomach contents excrete onto the floor at my feet. Shame. 

I run away, back to the hotel and sleep for the next twenty-four or maybe it's thirty-six hours. 
It's a sixteen hour bus ride back to Halifax, and my teammates are whispering “Is he okay?” I’m awake but pretend to be sleeping because it’s easier that way and nobody can ask me questions. They seem happy. Some of them are drinking.

Something inside of me cracks. My confidence is broken.

I drop my calories down to 2100 hours a day and start napping in the afternoons because I don’t have the energy to stay awake for sixteen hours a day. Within a month, my hamstring gives out. It heals a little and then tears three days before the CIS Championships.

I’m in Winnipeg, and after trying to take one jump and worsening the hamstring injury, I’m watching the competition from the upper deck of the bleachers. The winning jump is 14.50m. A month ago it seemed like such an easy thing to do, and now it seems impossibly far.

I count every micro and macro nutrient in my food, allowing myself to increase my intake to 2300 calories a day. My fat intake is 28g a day. I give myself a cheat day. I eat 1kg of peanut butter over the course of six hours. I’m still hungry.

The sharp dips in body weight are from the electrolyte experiments

The summer season opener is poor. But a month later, I jump 14.38m. The wind is too strong to count as a PR, but it’s still a confidence boost.

I finish seventh at the Olympic Trials, within 15cm of my PR. I’m disgusted with myself. I can’t believe how poorly it went. I break dishes. I break the mirror in my room. Glasses shatter. There’s a hole in the corner of my room, again, next to the bed.

The headaches start. The lethargy worsens. I refuse to eat more. I gain weight anyway. I can’t stay under 160lbs anymore. Even when I eat food, my body rejects it. Too much fiber? An allergy? Lactose intolerance?

Within a month of the next indoor season I tear my left patellar tendon. I spend most of the season in pseudo-recovery mode, sleeping ten to eleven hours a day and still not feeling well rested. The cheat days are now happening at least once a week, often more, and I can’t stop eating food. I minimize the damage and keep my weight down to 163lbs.

I used to weigh myself every day. The red lines are meet days.

The first time I compete is in January, in Montreal. The only reason I have enough energy to warm-up is because I took 400mg of caffeine. Even still, I cut the warm-up short to save energy. It’s not a terrible jump, but nowhere near my PR.

My knee doesn’t get better, lacking the protein it needs for recovery. On more than one occasion I skip practice or cut practice short because I don’t have the energy to finish.

At the conference championships, I’m a meter off my PR and fail to qualify for the National Championships. It’s the first time I haven’t qualified for a National meet since I was 14. I’m now 20. A woman who expects me to celebrate gives me a bronze medal. I drop it in the garbage can on my way out.

When I get home, I eat an entire jar of peanut butter off a spoon. I eat anything I can find, and don’t let my roommates see me eating so they don’t know that cracks running through me are turning into gaping holes. My body weight goes from 163lbs to 178lbs within a month. The headaches stop.

I have trouble triple jumping in practice. My knee still hurts from my injury the past fall and it gets worse through the summer. I am supposed to be peaking for Canada Games. It’s a national U23 Championship held every four years. And four years ago I made it my goal to finish top three, ~14.70m.

My knee hurts. I can’t jump anymore in practice and I’m not accustomed to all the extra weight. It feels like I’m wearing a weight vest all the time. I’m worried I might tear my hamstring again or the sinew of my tendon will give out.

I spend all my training time in the weight-room, squatting. It’s a mental break for jumping. I like it. I squat 405lbs on a knee that feels like it could give out at any moment. Somehow I’m still disillusioned enough to think I can jump close to 15m.

My teammate does jump over fifteen meters for the first time and beats me by two meters.

2013 Canada Games - Sherbrooke, Quebec

I open the season with low 13m and end the season at 12.80m. I feel like I’m falling apart. I re-injure my knee at least every second week. At Canada Games, the day before competing, I do a one rep maximum power clean because I want an excuse for not doing well. My final distance is “No distance” because I purposefully fault all three jumps. It’s a miserable trip even though it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for four years.

I’m miserable. My misery manifests itself in my interpersonal relationships. I think people can tell that I’m miserable so they avoid me. Or more likely, I’m avoiding them.

Maybe I’m just going crazy.

My last year begins. Training used to be something I loved to do, now it’s a chore. I jump at one meet. It’s 12.80m and my knee still hurts. I tell my coach that I think I should take the year off. He agrees.

I spend the winter mostly doing rehab. I’m happy because I’m not training. I go to the gym every night from 7-10pm. My roommate tells me that I seem happier.

I’ve lost my identity. It’s not entirely clear who I am now, but I don’t hate myself quite as much, and my knee starts to get better. I set goals for myself. I power clean 300lbs. I feel good about myself. I ease into training again.

2014 - Last competition before Korea

I graduate university and decide to teach English to children in South Korea.  I compete in the summer season before I leave and jump over 14.00m for the first time in two years.

My life is flipped upside down. I fly across the world and two days later I’m standing in front of a classroom filled with eight kindergartens expecting something from me. I’ve never even talked to a child before, now I’m supposed to teach eight of them?

A student (Kate) drew our kindergarten class

The work schedule is intense, some days ten hours with few breaks between classes. I continue going to the gym about five days a week, but the work-outs are jammed in the last hour before the gym closes. I go to the track a few times but it’s too far to go every day. Even though my last competition was less than a month ago, it seems like I’m stuck in this routine and that I’ll never get back to training. I’m locked into a one year contract at work and need the money.

I’m “Retired” from track and field. My only training is squatting 3-5 times per week and jogging on the treadmill. My body composition changes. My weight stays about the same, but I’m losing muscle.

I start dating for the first time in a long time. I like her. I travel, go to China and Sri Lanka.

Riding the train in Sri Lanka

Work is stressful. I’m exhausted and only sleeping six hours a night. The fatigue never goes away. For eight to ten hours a day, I’m working a job I have no passion for. I like the children I’m working with but they’re draining my energy. I love living in Korea, but I never have time to enjoy it. I think my coworkers sense that I don’t want to be here with them. I don’t even think they want to be here, but they’re better at faking it than I am.

I quit my job after six months, or they fire me, it’s not entirely clear. It takes me three days to find another job. The new job is in a different part of the city. I like my new neighbourhood. There are bike trails along the nearby streams and the weather is beautiful. I find a new gym—it’s a 70 minute subway ride away each way and is the only gym I can find that will let me do Olympic Weightlifting without having to sign up for classes.

            The membership is $250 a month, closer to $300 when the Canadian dollar drops.

            I can’t justify the expense, but I continue training there. One day I find a Vertec for testing vertical jump. I use it. It’s only a couple inches off my PR. The man who works at the gym tells me about a new gym opening that will be much cheaper. I join the new gym, and my wallet thanks me.

            The World University Games are being held in Gwangju, about two hours away by KTX train. I go to watch. One of my former teammates from Dalhousie University is high-jumping. I watch her jump. I watch the long jump, too. The winning jump is 8.20m—it’s the first time I’ve seen a jump over eight meters.

Gwangju 2015 World University Games 

            After taking a weeklong trip to Japan, I realize how much I miss competing and training for triple jump. I haven’t jumped in exactly a year.

There is only one rubberized track in the city of 28 million people that I can find with a jumping pit. It takes 80 minutes each way by subway from my apartment and I work until 7:30pm every night. If I change my clothes at the office, I can get to the track by 9:00pm and get home by midnight. I have to alternate track days and weight days except for on Saturdays. The full trip from home to the track, the gym, and home again, is three hours on the train.

I do this for four months. My testing numbers are the highest they’ve ever been. I start imagining competing again.

            In December the weather gets too cold and I have to take three months off from the track. Track days become plyometric days at the gym. I meet the Olympic Weightlifting coach who works there. He’s friendly and my weight days become Olympic Weightlifting days. He encourages me to compete in a citywide Olympic Weightlifting competition. I do. I have a lot of fun and it’s a great experience.

            By mid-February the weather is warm enough to train outdoors one day a week. I focus on jumping again but am getting grinded out by the nonstop schedule and long days teaching.

            I apply to the MFA program of five universities, and I get an email from the University of Saskatchewan with an offer of early admissions. I accept, and two weeks later, I get another email saying that I’ve been awarded one of their most prestigious scholarships, a Dean Scholarship. I accept their offer without hesitating.

Waiheke Island, New Zealand

            I plan to go back to Canada in June to compete in the summer track and field season but take a trip first. I go to China on my way to New Zealand. I try to use the track at the University across the street from my hotel. The guards are incredibly rude and won’t let me onto the campus.

            I maintain my training schedule in New Zealand while visiting friends. It’s a beautiful country. Afterward, I go back to Korea for two more week en route to Halifax. I get engaged to my girlfriend. It occurs to me for the first time that I’m an adult.

         

Espoir 2016- Faulted jump ~14.45m. Best of the day 14.16m.

   I compete at a handful of meets over the summer and my best jump is 14.16m with signs that a big PR is coming in the near future. All the stress and disappointment that used to come with training is gone. For the first time it feels like I can enjoy training and competing.

Everybody has to go through their own trials and tribulations, but in the end, we come out stronger because of it. The past four years have taught me the true meaning of perseverance, and maybe I’m no further ahead than I was in 2012, but I wouldn’t trade in all those life lessons for anything. I just want to keep pushing forward and enjoying the sport and the time I have left.

         

Aileen Meagher 2016, Halifax

   It’s not about jumping anymore, it’s not about the distance, it’s about evolving, and proving that I can do something that I had given up on. I hope that’s something everybody can relate to.

I don’t know how this story ends.

It’s still being written.

Even if I never make a National team, never win a national championship, or ever jump farther than 14.38m, it’s a story I want to finish.

           

             

           

In Kyoto, Japan hanging out with some new friends