In June 2019, I had just jumped 14 times in a competition to just win my first comp of my European season. My whole body felt exhausted. I felt like I needed a few weeks off. My manager excitedly called me that night, saying from my competition win, I got a late entry into the Golden Spike. It was one of the best competitions in the world. And it was 36 hours from when he called. I said yes! From it being last minute, all my preparation was thrown out, and I left Sweden by myself for an opportunity to jump high, curious and excited.
Well the next day to my surprise, was a 10-hour travel day. I flew from Stockholm to Vienna then took a train to Ostrava.
I was exhausted when I arrived at the hotel. I hauled all my luggage up to my room to find my key didn’t work.
I just sat down cross legged by my door, eating a peanut butter protein bar, crying tears of exhaustion.
It was one of those days. I eventually got into my room and then organised a physio appointment to get myself ready to compete again.
There was only one masseuse left for the night slot. His biceps were bigger than my legs and he spoke no English. I just motioned out what I needed done, and he nodded. He oiled up his elbows to put pressure in all the wrong places on my back, pulled my skin to crack some air bubbles out of my vertebrae and bent me into a shape sort of like a high jumper. It was so different than what I would ask for, but I was honestly too tired to question so just trusted him to do what was best.
He spent an hour on me and in broken English he said “You will be great tomorrow.”
Now from this moment, most people would have just decided with the preparation, to label this competition as ‘too far gone’ to compete well.
I woke up, and my body was not tight thanks to my Czech bone-popping masseuse, but the mental and physical exhaustion was beyond anything I had faced in my experience. My pre-competition sessions that had been finely tuned, down to the grams I would load on a barbell to activate my muscles, were all thrown away in the travel day. My competition diet that I had spent months trialling, gone! I’d slept through breakfast and was eating chocolate bars for the most part of the day so I didn’t have to walk to find a supermarket. My competition day that I usually carefully mapped out to do little bits of exercise, study and lying down.
all thrown away, i just slept.
I walked into the stadium hours later and heard a voice in my head. “If you got to the Olympic final after the qualifying round feeling this tired, would you decide it’s too hard, and go home? Or would you fight? And make the most of this opportunity to go out and jump with all you had inside of you, trusting the Lord as your strength?” I had started my competition warm up and ran about 100m before my quads felt on fire from how tired I was, but I was sobered in that thought.
“I am willing! I am not letting this pass me by. I am giving everything and nothing less.”
I entered into a stadium of 50,000 locals cheering and chanting us on. It was such a blur, but I was in tunnel vision. My coach was not present from how quick the flights were, so I just had my notebook to work out of. In the competition I started reading the lessons I had learned from the years of technique to try and find the best way to coach myself.
Every time I ran towards the take-off it felt like being punched in the leg. I would jump over the bar and be so tired I would pant like I had just run a 100m race. Yet fascinating, I was jumping technically the best I had all year, I had no energy to waste on attempts that weren’t perfect. That day I jumped the best I ever had, and qualified for my first Olympics.
It cost all i had, but I gained something I never would have achieved without the help of the Lord.
I achieved a height that day which I never could previously clear in my best and most polished shape. When I came to the end of myself, was where I truly had to rely on Him.
There were many excuses to why I shouldn’t have performed that day. Many good, reasonable ones. The preparation, the feelings, the history of usually not jumping well well without a coach present. Yet, in a split decision I chose which voice I was listening to.
Faith does that.
At times when we feel our strength is limited and coming to an end, we gain the opportunity to find where our strength comes from.
Now from that amazing competition I didn’t throw away all the competition preparation I had previously worked hard on (I kept the nutrition, training and planning for future). But it taught me to not disqualify myself from believing for answered prayers when I didn’t feel the part.
Why is it that I had to come down to the point of no strength to then start asking the Lord to intervene? That day I learned to not wait to get there, but to make that my first priority.
This time of year, many of you will have strength that is wavering and dwindling. Yet I want to encourage you to not cancel the anticipation and wonderful plans ahead, but to have eager expectation that you can enjoy them to the full.
This season isn’t about your availability of strength to cope, but your willingness to call upon Him who is the source of all strength.
Two verses that have helped reshape my hope upon Him:
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 5:3-5
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
Hebrews 10:35-36
