Like any athlete in any sport, on experience the highest highs and the rock hard bottom. One of my highlights was playing my first international tournament for the Norwegian national junior team and winning my national titles.
Memories that will never be erased and that will follow me forever.
These last weeks however have been some of the hardest of my life and I felt close to a burnout midway. It felt close to what it was like being overtrained 9 years ago, where it took me 6 months to come back. Only this time it was mentally. There were many factors interfering with this. There is no one to blame for it, maybe just faith for putting it all at the same time.
Pressure from school as the last 2 weeks finishing up presentations and exams, training squash fulltime is something I could have dealt with like I normally do. Sunday 12th of February I witnessed my girlfriend Cigany Sillevis, who is also a professional squashplayer rupture her 2nd achilles in the 5th/6th playoffs in the National championship. Seeing someone you love in pain is bad enough, but when it is your career and life it gets a new perspective. The week was from now on filled with hospitals, waiting, evaluations, idiot doctors, 5 castings in 4 days more waiting, driving back and forth, surgery and more casting. However my girlfriend ended up having surgery at the Bergman clinic which took good care of her and had luckily no idiot doctors.
In the middle of this I had to play league across the country, and last minute got into a tournament in Belgium. This lead to a lot of driving, very late nights, little sleep and school in the morning. In the evenings I tried to be with my girlfriend and help her out as much as possible. Squashwise, I basically played horrible. I felt physically fine, and did not feel like any excuses. I just did not play well. Not wednesday, not Thursday, not Friday. Which is a shame since they could all be good matches, world ranking points and money. My body told me that enough was enough. I was lucky to avoid what could have been a severe burnout, and I am now taking 2 weeks off, where I focus on finishing school, spending some time with family, friends and girlfriend, before I start preparing for the next tournaments which are Kean closed sattelite in Den Haag in March, Quatar in March and Oslo in April for the National championships.
Got to look up and forward.
Hard to really feel sorry for yourself when you have your girl at home in a cast
To read about her rupture (dutch) follow this link to squashlife.nl:
