Sitting on United flight 1174, flying from Los Angeles, California to San Francisco, California, I find myself oddly contemplative. On February 12, 2008, I wrote a node about my current place on the Stanford University athletics team. Since then, much has happened.
First important bit of information: Yes, the axe did drop. Exactly a week after I wrote my daylog, our position coach came to me and told me that my services were no longer needed. Did this mean that I stopped training? No. I took a month off to concentrate on my studies, but I did return to throwing a month later. I vowed to myself that I would tryout for the team again next year, and make the team once again.
Where did this whole train of actions leave me? High and dry. I will be kicking myself for what I did to my grades last quarter, when I dedicated more of my time to athletics, as I unsuccessfully tried to defend my spot on the team. Additionally, I lost coaching, a track to train at, access to a high quality weight room, and access to physical therapists.
What did I do? I didn't meet my goals last year. I wasn't going to miss my goals again this year.
Since it is highly relevant, my goal for both last year and this year was to qualify for Junior Nationals, or in other words, the US track and field championship for people under 20.
I talked to a friend who graduated from Stanford a few years ago, and is currently training for the Olympics. He mentioned to me that I could train at Moffett Field NAS, a site 10 miles away from Stanford. For weightlifting, I would just have to use the general Stanford Weight Room. Not as good as the athletic team weight room, but still an acceptable facility. As for the other problems, I was on my own.
From mid March to now, I put hours of work into training. On Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, I would bike 10 miles to Moffett Field with 25 pounds of gear strapped to my back, throw for an hour and a half, and then bike back to the dorm. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I would sprint into the weight room in my lunch break and lift weights.
Things were going acceptably in reference to training. In practice, I was throwing the iron ball far.
On the other hand though, things weren't going well personally. Since this happened, I've been as stressed out as I can recently remember. I was doing way too much. I was running from class to lifting to lab to practice. I would spend the bike ride back from Moffett cursing everything, wondering to myself why I had to suffer this fate, and why the people who lived in my dorm could be able to enjoy their weekends?
Anyways, I eventually had to schedule my meets to try to qualify for Junior Nationals. The only two meets I would be able to attend would be a meet on May 24th in Los Angeles, and a meet on May 25th in San Mateo, Califoria. I bit the bullet, and decided to purchase plane tickets to go to the meet in LA.
One week before the upcoming meet, I am practicing. It is a beautiful, sunny Saturday. I am throwing well. The hammer is consistently going 56 meters, much farther then the 53 meters I needed to throw to qualify for Junior Nationals. I am mostly done with my practice, having taken 15 throws. On my 16th throw, the wire on my hammer breaks.
Losing my balance, I fall hard on my already injured right wrist.
I am able to move it, but it hurts a lot. I can't do a pushup, and it hurts to make a fist, but I can do it.
Am I still able to throw with my wrist injured like so? Yes. I am. As well as before? No. Is it broken? Doesn't seem to be. Am I still going to the meets? Yes.
On the morning of May 24th, I wake up in my uncle's condo in Marina Del Rey, California. We drive a half hour to my meet. I can't get in a groove. My stomach bothers me. I feel like my legs are made of lead.
I have never had such an underwhelming performance.
In hammer, I throw 49 meters, well below the 56 meters I was throwing last week, and coincidentally, well under the 53 meters I needed to throw. In discus, I throw 41 meters. I have never thrown discus under 44 meters in a meet. I needed 53 meters in discus.
Somehow, I was able to hold off any real emotion until I got on the plane at LAX. Am I just jaded? I don't know. I didn't get highly emotional when I got on the plane, but I did feel sad and pissed.
I feel like there should be a better end to this. I wish I could say something poignant to sum it all up, but I can't. All I know is that right now, I am planning a possible trip up to a meet in Portland, Oregon, and then down again to Los Angeles, California next weekend. We'll see how it goes.