When I became injured at the Senior Canadian Championships in May, it was bittersweet.
This was because I could not lift, could not train, could not compete, and that was heartbreaking for me.
But on the flip side, I had more free time to spend with my family and friends, and do things that had been restricted while I was training full-time.
For a while, I was really enjoying my freedom, but as more and more time passed, I started to miss training and the thrill of competing.
Last month, I helped to coach a young weightlifter at the 2016 Ontario Junior Championships. That was actually the first competition I have been to since my injury in May.
It brought back a lot of old feelings, old memories.
This made me more anxious to get back onto the platform, anxious to move those big weights.
Just recently, I have started to train and am happy to say that my overhead range of motion feels great! In my heart I feel that in a strange way, this injury was a good thing because it forced me to take a step back and re-analyze my plan and focus on readjusting what I need to fix on my journey to the Olympics.
I am very excited to see where I will be in the next 3 years, because I know I’m going to just take my time on correcting my errors and work extremely hard towards my goal.