Getting Back Up
by Steve McGill
One of my favorite students this year, Ava Smith, is a very talented creative writer who also rides horses competitively. Not race horses, but show horses. She spends the majority of her time away from school at the barn, where she trains and also does a variety of everyday tasks that need to be done on a regular basis. In class, she is a wonderfully talented poet who also possesses exceptional analytical skills. In her creative writing assignments, she often discusses her life as a member of the “horse girl gang,” as she puts it, and in one of her more recent writings that was particularly personal, I found myself seeing similarities between a horseback rider’s life and a hurdler’s life, especially in regard to the mindset needed to stay on the grind, to get back up after falling, and to face one’s fears head on. Here are a couple excerpts from what she wrote:
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i’ve gotta tell you, they never go away – the questions, that is. to this day i ask: was it all worth it, the blood and sweat and bruises and pain and absolute misery? the broken bones and torn muscles and dislocated joints and the thousand, million tears? was it worth it, the hours and years and decades toiling away, working past the point of exhaustion and past perfection? the lost friends and uncalloused, soft hands you never had?
was it worth working hours upon hours in the freezing and boiling? to chap your hands and blister your feet running back and forth with saddles and bridles and tail sets and medications and 30 extra pounds of this and that, for not even a ‘thank you?’ to blanket, groom, tack, work, bathe, walk, towel, groom, blanket, feed, and medicate at the speed of ‘what time did you say it was?’ was it worth every night you stood vigil with horses and soothed them as they writhed, walking them for hours upon hours and crying into your sleeve as the vet checked them over? getting stepped on, kicked, thrown, bit, and crushed against walls all so one ornery equine could get her steroid injection? was it worth upholding the standards? always putting the horse first?
The question of whether or not it’s all worth it is one that hurdler’s face too. Mainly because our event involves obstacles in our way that other athletes don’t have to face. Hurdlers will have bruised ankles, knees, and feet from making contact with the barriers so often in practice while working on their technique. Hurdlers will have bruised egos when they fall and tumble. Hurdlers have to do all the sprint work that the sprinters do, all the speed-endurance work that the quarter-milers do, all the strength training that all track athletes must do, and we have to learn to negotiate the space between the barriers that are coming at us at lightning speed. And we have to constantly adjust our rhythm and reactions as our speed improves. Improvements in speed can lead to faster times, but they can also lead to crashes.
Crashes, or falls, can be devastating to a hurdler’s confidence, even if we come away unscathed physically. Unlike horseback riders, hurdlers don’t have to worry about getting stepped on by a 500-pound beast after falling, but the damage done to one’s self-esteem is real, and can be long-term, and even permanent if not dealt with healthily. Not all hurdlers who fall get back up. Metaphorically speaking, that is. They may continue to hurdle, but they become tentative; they lose their aggression and fearlessness. When they feel themselves getting too close to the barriers or if they feel themselves losing control of their speed, they’ll back off — not a lot, but just enough to stay safe, because avoiding another crash becomes more important than running a fast time or beating one’s opponents.
I remember one hurdler I used to coach a few years ago who had a mild fall during a practice session. It wasn’t a crash-and-burn, but more like a stop-drop-and-roll. And it was over a fold-up practice hurdle, and we all know how those hurdles basically fall to pieces as soon as they’re touched. So I didn’t think anything of it. In the next two or three practice sessions after that, I noticed that she was running more erect between the hurdles and was spending too much time in the air over the hurdles. I was confused and somewhat annoyed, because we had already solved those problems, and now here she was reverting back to her old habits. Then on one rep she was back to looking like her old self over the first hurdle, over the second hurdle, and then she put her hands on the third hurdle and pushed it down. I was like, “Why did you stop? You were rollin!” But I realized the answer before she even said anything. She was scared. She didn’t want to fall again. When I suggested to her that that was why she stopped, she reluctantly admitted it, and we went on to have a long talk about it.
My student, Ava, came to the conclusion that, yes, the struggle is worth the reward. She wrote:
it was worth every injury, sleepless night, and scolding. it was worth it to love every horse absolutely, and feel a piece of me die with them. it was worth being ignored, belittled, and forgotten, even though it hurts so bad. it’s still worth it, 12 years later, because i have never loved anything the way i love those horses, and never been loved the way they love me.
Yeah, it’s always the love that brings you back, even after the worst crashes, even after the most demoralizing losses, even when you see people who don’t work as hard as you run faster than you, even in those moments when you feel convinced that you will never be as good as you had once hoped you would be. Such was my own experience in my own competitive days, and it’s also what I have witnessed time and time again from athletes that I have coached or former athletes of mine who have gone on to higher levels. People who fall in love with hurdling, regardless of their ability level, always find that the pain and the struggle and the heartbreak are all worth it. Ava put it best:
yeah, it’s worth it. stick around, even if it’s like dying every time. you will be better than you ever imagined, and you will find people to believe in you. just, stick around. dedication pays off.
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