The 2016/2017 season is over and it is time to reflect a little on it.
This season was preceded by one of the most difficult moments in my sporting career, my absence from the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, as well as a tremendously tough 2015/2016 season on a psychological level.
I returned from Madrid back in May 2015, with the aim of opening up new career path , which resulted in me being fortunate enough to work with students from many schools and high schools in the Region for a year and a half, and which I hope to continue sharing from the start of the next academic year in Madrid. However, my competitive running was going downhill and I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t get any better any time soon. Physically I was not feeling well – I gained about eleven pounds and I was overweight. Training was extremely hard and psychologically, my problems got worse as time went on.
This was the situation I was in at the end of January. However, I decided to do a complete U-turn. I left my apartment in Murcia and returned to San Javier, I changed my coach and I decided to start again from scratch. My aim was to get back to competitive sports and by the end of the season, I would decide if it was worth continuing training in high level sports.
This dramatic change meant that I had to train on my own for most of the open-air season. I went to Madrid for a few days every four or five weeks to consult with my coach and the rest of the time I trained alone in San Javier, which is why I have to thank people like Dario Romero and his father Juan Salvador as well as Juan Gaton for the support they have given me at all times. I was taught a lesson that will stay with me for the rest of my life- it’s in the most difficult moments that you have to prove that you really want be a winner. That’s what Antonio, my new coach, told me from day one. When I started working with him my competitive sporting life was in tatters. However, we set ourselves the objective of regaining my previous form and of becoming again the elite athlete I had been before.
The weeks went by. Thanks to the incredible work of Javi, my physio- I found myself getting better and better. I lost all the weight I had gained and the training sessions showed that I was matching my previous times.
In May, and with it the decisive phase of the season, with several international events and the Spanish Championship just around the corner, I began to feel better with every passing day. My body was running well and my brain was in gear. Antonio’s work, both on and off the track and Javi’s help too, meant that I was at my peak and I could prove to myself and to people who doubted me that no matter how bad a situation seems, there’s always a way out.
Now that I had achieved my main goal of the season – being on my best form and starting to enjoy running again – the time came for the greatest challenge, the culmination of my intense training, the World Championships. The championship put me again among the top ten athletes in the world in the 100m trials (tenth place), 200m ( tenth place) and 400 meters (sixth place and the best in Europe).
In short, a year of changes, personal growth and a year where I have been able to show that success only comes to those who fight.