Thursday, May 17, 2012

What do i know - My Story (Part I)

Good morning, good morning,
Happy Thursday - weekend is so close but of course so far away - and considering i have a few days off to road trip down to Virginia to get away and see my best of friends :), my patience is definitely wearing. 


But, since I have a sufficient amount of time before going into work today, i decided i suppose today's the day to share my story. 


I manage a lacrosse store so of course i am asked daily if i do/did play. When i tell people I grew up playing in Farmington, and then went on to play only my freshman year at Messiah they are instantly filled with curiosity as to why I only played for one year. Well here's the answer, and a part of my life that has greatly influenced who I am today.


I applied to Messiah to go to school for youth ministry (early on in hs i decided I wanted to be a highschool youth pastor) and although at the end of senior year i decided to un-declare that as my major and go to Messiah undecided, it was still the school that I wanted to go to, and ultimately the only school I applied to. Their lax program was less intense DIII program (i didn't want it to consume my time there) and while also in hs I had spoken to the coach at the time about recruiting. 


The summer before my freshman year of college, they decided to bring on a new full time coach - a graduate of Messiah who played on the women's team during her time there as well. She was intense and had high hopes for completely turning the program around. And although I was a little intimidated at first by this I was of course excited and knew it would be for the better. 


We started practicing that fall ball and I loved it, the girls became my best friends. Throughout middle school and high school i was very competitive and concentrated a lot on sports (field hockey and lax) and always loved working out so when I started her new workouts including getting in the weight room for the first time I was super excited. 


I continued to play, run and work my hardest, and on the side declared Sport Management as my major. Since I had grown up working at Lacrosse Unlimited and loved it, and had a passion for sports I figured this was what was best for me. However, with this major came a requirement of gym and fitness classes as well. 


We began preseason in the winter and I quickly learned I needed to do some work with strength building. Once I had stopped playing field hockey fall of my senior yr of high school, I started running a lot more and lost the strength in my legs that I once had from running constant hills and squatting for hours while in game play. I was now much smaller than the other girls and am more built like a long distance runner - not only was I turning purple at practice but I was lacking the power I needed for college level game-like situations. Although I pushed the team in our runs, it was not the same in field play. That's when I decided I needed to work hard and build my body to how I thought it had to be. 


I continued to follow the team lifting and running workouts throughout the season. But since I was also still balancing the full course-load college life on the side didn't go to extremes to become the player I wanted to be. That's when summer came and things changed. 


I began researching all kinds of workouts that might help me become more powerful. Plyo's, lifting schedules and interval/hill running workouts consumed my life that summer. I also learned that I LOVED running longer distances (which didn't turn out to be a bad thing you'll find out) I was also balancing 3 summer jobs on the side to save money; so i was consistently busy and worn out. I would wake up at 4 or 5 to get high intense workouts in before work - everyday. I was always on the go and never giving my body rest.


Sophomore year started and fall ball began. Everyone noticed I had done some work which of course boosted my spirits, I had lost some weight and gained muscle so I knew my workouts had paid off. We began lifting workouts once again, and I was ready - my competitive spirit was ready to start a new season fresh As that fall went on though some bigger problems quickly began. I continued to wake up early to do team lifting workouts, and would practice with the team after class. However at the same time I also began my required fitness and workout classes for the Sport Management major and would also do running workouts after practice because I missed the runner's high I used to get from just running - what I always loved most. I was doing better on the field though, and that made me excited for the season. 


However, consequently, i began loosing A LOT of weight from working out literally all day, almost everyday. Since I do have healthier eating habits and prefer fruits and veggies over anything else, really I could not consume enough calories to make up for what I was using for my energy. At my lowest I was down to 97 lbs i think. What also happened from doing too many plyo's and hill workouts, I got tendinitis in both my knees and had to take some time out at the end of fall ball. 


That winter before preseason started I had a lot of things to think about. I knew my body wasn't healthy and I either had to figure something out with my competitiveness and constant mental desire to be better or physically take myself off the team. This was one of the hardest decisions of my life. I spent A LOT of time in prayer and scripture, trying to figure out what God wanted me to do. The girls on the team were my best friends and my stronghold, so much of my daily life was invested in this. I was completely torn, and the season was coming soon. Definitely a fight between my head and heart like I had never experienced before.




(part II) to come this afternoon,
peace&love,
kelly

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