After 8 Days, 55 hours of traveling, and 4 competitions in 3 countries, I can officially say I survived.

I didn’t end on a good note, but I still surprised myself. I finished the Karlstad Grand Prix in 6^th place with a throw of 73.27m, but after all I have been through I am just happy I am still healthy enough to walk.

I have been through a lot of injuries in my career, and doing two meets in one week had always been a lot for my body to handle. Anything more and I risked injuring myself again from too much wear and tear on the body.

Javelin has to be one of the hardest events on the body. Running full speed, stopping on a dime, and throwing an implement up to 67mph isn’t exactly the easiest event on your muscles and joints.

Running events can have a slow buildup of miles that have escalating pain until an athlete is actually injured. I can be 100% healthy before a throw and in less than a second I could injury any number of body parts.

I am not exactly 100% sure what I was hoping to accomplish in the last eight days, throwing at four competitions. If anything I knew I was strong, and healthy, and that there was a good chance I could throw far if I had the right conditions.

On the other hand even if I didn’t throw “far” to my standards, I knew that I would learn a lot, gain a ton of experience. And I knew that these last eight days would not define my season. I will throw at more meets.

Karlstad GP was a great meet. The meet director treated us really well, and I think the athletes had a really great time. I know I did. The conditions were great, but considering our field, I just don’t know why no one threw that far.

In the end we had three guys over 80m. But considering our startlist included the Diamond League Champion (2012, 2013), and 2 other guys over 84m this season, you would expect bigger throws.

I felt good, a little tight in my hamstrings from my lift after Kuortane, but nothing that was going to affect my throws. But then when I started warm ups my back started to tighten up, and I knew today was going to be a painful competition.

After the first few rounds I saw that no one was throwing far, and that if I hit one right I could take the lead and win it.

After round two one of the Swedish throwers said, “You have so much explosiveness…” with a heartbreaking look on his face. He knew I should be throwing farther. I agreed with him and said, “Yeah, just not into the javelin.”

The field slowly started to throw farther but I stayed the same, struggling to hit a javelin clean.

Sadly my release velocity is high enough to throw 80m plus, but my javelin kept stalling out on release, which can cause my javelins to lose up to 15m on a throw.

I was going into the final round and I had tried everything to fix my throws. Nothing seemed to work. So I just decided to say, “Screw it! This is gonna hurt” and really just try and smash it. I actually threw a little bit farther, but still far off my personal best.

So what did I learn? I learned that I can put my body through a lot more than I thought possible. I built up a level of confidence in my body that I couldn’t have achieved otherwise.

The hardest part of coming back from injury is not physically the injury itself but the mental/emotional injury that comes with it. I know I have been physically ready to throw a PB for a long time, but I think I proved to myself over the last eight days that I am mentally/emotionally capable of it as well.

I had a couple meets lined up in Finland on the 20^th and 24^th of this month, but I decided to pass on them and rest/train for some other meets in early August. I haven’t actually had a training session in a couple weeks and it would be nice to get my technique back.

Rather than go back home and suffer the long travel again, I am staying in Germany where I can train and stay close to the summer meets.

I can travel almost anywhere in Europe in two hours and financially it’s smarter because some of these meets only give 200 euros ($270 USD) for travel and it costs $1200 plus to fly from the states.

I won’t make money doing all these meets. If I am lucky I can break even if I get in the top three enough times. But the experience makes it so worth it. I could be in the US rotting away on the couch because there are no competitions in the US or I could be chasing my dreams in Europe. I choose the latter.