Grace, Too

​When I set out to write a blog nearly five years ago, I did so in the hopes of both sharing my journey with those I care about and creating a time capsule documenting my career in the sport. I had just made my first senior national team and at the age of 22 it felt as if the future could hold nothing but success.
 
Indeed, the following years weren’t short of some fantastic experiences and achievements that I remain proud of: I navigated the depths of the pandemic better than most and came out with new personal bests across the board and an unstoppable feeling of momentum that pushed me onto an Olympic Team and the Olympic Final in 2021. In 2022 I went on a winning streak in the steeplechase and added to it new personal bests at off-distances to further bolster the all-arounder resumé that I tried so fiercely to maintain. I prided myself on the ability to push and push and push, finding some succor for what I perceived as the lack of opportunities being afforded to me by continuing to bury myself in my training and trust that my big break would come. I was in the shape of my life and felt that I was on the cusp of finally being rewarded for all the years of grinding, that I was owed something more by the sport in return for the years of my life I’d poured into it.
 
And then, perversely, I started drowning. Seemingly minor injuries that a younger version of myself could have pushed through began dragging at me, chipping away insidiously over months at a time until I was left broken, exhausted, and devoid of the trust in my ability to endure that had carried me so far. With my fitness went my sense of confidence and, more painful, my sense of place in the sport that I loved. No longer was I riding a wave of successes and enjoying the ego-boost that such successes entail, instead I felt I was being churned under the waves, smothered by an unshakeable disappointment in myself and, uglier still, a jealousy towards those who I saw vaulting ahead. I began resenting others who were clearly finding joy and success in the sport, and resenting myself for allowing such pettiness to creep in.
 
After a 2023 season that seemed nightmarish in its downward spiral, I built myself back up and retooled for what I thought could only be a step in the right direction in 2024. To that point in my career there had never been a depth so low as what I experienced and if that was rock bottom then—I was convinced—my rise in the new year would be made greater for it. I did the little things right, sought incredible support and guidance throughout and, slowly but surely, felt myself building positive momentum heading into the spring of 2024 and my window of opportunity to qualify for another Olympic Team. Hope sprung anew and I knew I was back, that qualifying was a certainty, and that this year, finally, would be the season where all the ambitions I had pinned on my running career for years prior would finally be realized.
 
And then I raced and could barely walk afterwards.
 
Through the fall and winter months I had worked so diligently to rehab, retrain, and strengthen the root causes of my previous injuries, turning weakness into strength and laying a new foundation that I was confident would carry me through an injury free year. I was amazed at the newfound robustness and beginning to find joy in running once again now that I was unencumbered by the pain and cloying mental strain of injury.
 
When I lined up to race my first 3k Steeple in early April I was gripped by the normal pre-race nerves, amplified by the abysmal track record I’d made for myself over the course of my most recent showings in the event the previous summer. The gun went off and those doubts quickly dissolved, I found myself competing and relaxing into the experience, running joyfully and effortlessly and kicking right to the line. This was what racing was supposed to feel like and rediscovering that feeling brought with it a sense of relief. I was made to do this and right where I needed to be.
 
 Within moments of finishing, however, a pain in my left Achilles tendon started revealing itself through the adrenaline. By the time I had cooled down I was limping badly. For the first few days I thought nothing of it, as the pain gradually settled and proved not to hamper my first few easy runs in Flagstaff, where I’d traveled post-race to begin a five-week camp. Five days post-race I laced up spikes again for my first session of the camp and was immediately rewarded with the same stabbing pain. With only a few weeks to capture any more fitness gains before my qualifying campaign began in earnest, I stubbornly gritted my way through the workout, convinced that some treatment afterwards was all I needed to set the ship back on course.
 
Unfortunately, the pain never went away and the next month in Flagstaff was a juggling act trying to modify training to rehab my tendon while also staying fit enough to compete heavily in the narrow qualifying window left available. My life became a 7-day cycle of obliterating my weakened Achilles with a specific Saturday workout and then spending the next six days gradually regaining the ability to walk and run normally, all before spiking up, jumping over hurdles and tearing it all back down once again. The pain and the limp became a preoccupation that ate away at my emotional bandwidth as much as the physical and with it came a downward spiral in workout performances that further shook my confidence. The shock of finding myself in the grips of yet another injury proved difficult to wrap my head around and I pushed deeper and deeper into self-delusion even as my race results plummeted and seemed to confirm the reality that I was still unwilling to accept, that it was too late.
 
I felt utterly lost. An MRI result in Mid-May revealed a torn soleus muscle sustained at the same time as the original Achilles injury. The limp in my stride was evident yet, with the realpolitik of an Olympic Year, I was given the greenlight to forge on. Races would finish and I could barely walk, I looked around me and nowhere did I see other athletes hobbling about. So obvious must it have seemed to the outsider looking in that I was in no shape to compete that I began to feel embarrassed by my own brazen self-delusion every time I lined up. To quit prematurely seemed like a betrayal after all the time and energy poured into me by so many people in my corner, yet to persevere felt like an exercise in the extents of self-delusion. I felt like an impostor, doing my best to impersonate an athlete, while beneath a thin veneer I was a broken and emotional mess.
 
I took a first stab at writing this reflection in the days immediately following a pretty gut-wrenchingly poor performance at the Canadian Olympic Trials that sealed my qualifying hopes. At that point the wounds were so fresh that I really couldn’t look beyond my immediate circumstances or begin to feel any measure of hope about my future in the sport. I knew as strongly as I ever have that my time as an athlete was not yet complete, yet from the depths to which I’d fallen a way up and out seemed impossibly daunting. A lot of what I wrote in that first draft came from a desire to apologize to all those I felt I’d let down, and to project a sense of hope that I didn’t yet feel for myself: the relentlessly positive version of John Gay that I wanted others to see and to know me for. When that hopeful message felt forced and disingenuous, I scrapped it and instead poured bitter words onto the page, embracing the ugly jealousy, cynicism and sadness that were eating away at me as I sat amidst the ashes of the identity, I’d spent years trying so hard to cultivate.
 
Admitting to myself the ugly truth of how I felt in that moment was cathartic, yet I was afraid of a future where those feelings of disappointment never came to an end. In the depths of my inability to overcome the sadness that I felt, I prayed for a way through, that this too would pass. After several weeks feeling lost and despondent I finally began to feel the LORD speaking into my life, starting the work of reparation and healing that would eventually allow me to move forward into an authentic hope. The first cracks in the casting of disappointment that bound me came when reading James 3:13-18
 
“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbour bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.”
 
As I have reflected on these words and sought God’s direction I’ve felt convicted in the “envy and selfish ambition” that I had allowed to dictate my emotions despite a veneer of (self)righteousness. I had “denied the truth” of how I felt in the hope that to trivialize my disappointment would somehow lessen my hurt, while the denial instead kept me trapped in self-pity and anger. At the heart of that conviction, however, I also felt an incredible sense of God’s grace towards me. These words were written not only for my reproachment but for my encouragement as well, from a God who cares deeply for us no matter how unworthy we allow ourselves to feel amidst brokenness and shame: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way, just as we are—yet did not sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-15). In the aftermath of what I perceived only as cataclysmic failure it was all too easy for me to lash out in jealousy, anger, and bitterness. I failed both to accept the grace offered me by Christ and to adopt a posture of grace towards myself. In doing so I let the bitterness of jealousy and selfishness dictate my outlook. Only in accepting the Grace of God have I been able to turn a corner and move on, and to that end I have been blessed by the prayers and support of so many people whose Christ-like grace towards me never wavered, even when I couldn’t embrace it for myself.
 
It has now been just over a month since my 2024 Olympic qualifying journey came to a disappointing end. More excitingly as a fan of the sport, it is also the eve of the Paris Olympic track & field programme kicking off. To say that I am not hugely disappointed to be on the outside looking in rather than returning to the Olympics to compete would be callous and wrong. Nevertheless, with every passing day my personal disappointment is receding and being replaced with a measure of perspective and newfound appreciation for just how special the Olympic Platform is, as well as an incredible sense of anticipation for all those who will be donning their national colours to compete at the pinnacle of sport. My story as an athlete is not yet complete, and while there is a great deal in my future that remains opaque, I have found a sense of peace to simply be present in this moment and witness the Olympic dreams of others come to fruition in the way they did for me.