Jackie Edwards a five time Olympian represented the Bahamas in the long jump in the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympic Games. In 2003, Edwards was ranked 5th in the world in the long jump. Other athletic accolades include her induction into Stanford University’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2008. Twenty years after her graduation she still ranks as the school’s indoor and outdoor record holder. Edwards retired from professional competition in 2009 due to an achilles tendon tear. In her post competitive career she is enjoying being a partner in Urban Safari Design.
In this three part interview Edwards shares insights that enabled her career longevity which includes an inner motivation to push herself to improve as an athlete, good health, and a Master’s Degree in Sport Psychology.
SZ: You’ve enjoyed a stunning 20 year career competing, which includes five Olympics, first qualifying in 1992. How did you manage your schedule in between Olympics to remain motivated and maintain the mental/physical endurance to compete at this level?
JE: One thing most people aren’t aware of is that track and field is a professional sport. You compete year in and year out. The fact that the Olympics come around every four years is an addendum to being a professional athlete every year. I was on the circuit in Europe competing indoors from January to March, then outdoors from May to September every year. My motivation was that I was competing on the professional circuit with the same athletes that I would be competing against in the Olympics, or in the World Championships. The events I competed in each year were how I made my living. In the sport of track and field the athlete is paid either through a shoe company, bonus money based on how the athlete finishes at each competition and appearance fees. I earn a living I traveled to meets all over the world. I’ve competed in 56 countries.
World Championships are held every two years, every odd year there is a World Championship. I qualified nine consecutive times from 1991 through 2007. World Championships for track and field competitors are as important as the Olympics. There is prize money at the World Championships which there is not at the Olympics. There is significant motivation to do well and your shoe contracts and other sponsorships are based on how well an athlete performs at the both the Olympics and the World Championships.
The motivation to keep going isn’t like having to wait four years for the next Olympics. It’s an ongoing process. I trained 10 1/2 months out of every year for all those years and I would have six weeks off per year to rest and regroup.
SZ: When you compete in the Olympics for the Bahamas do they pay you to be on the team?
JE: No country pays their athletes specifically to be on the team. There is no prize money from the Olympics. The way an athlete receives any sort of money out of the Olympics is if they make the finals. Usually the shoe contract will have a stipulation that the athlete will receive “x” amount of money if they make the finals or receive a medal. I competed for the Bahamas and my government paid me to represent them and included incentives that included a year round monthly stipend. Additionally the athletes had bonuses stipulated for winning gold, silver, bronze or reaching the finals.
SZ: Twenty years of competing professionally is a long time.
JE: I really enjoyed it. I always felt like I had not yet quite jumped as far as I was capable of jumping. I was healthy for the majority of my career. Injury prevents a lot of people from reaching their peak. I was luckily blessed to be relatively healthy because you’re never 100%. I didn’t have major setbacks that prevented me from making progress in my sport year to year. Other than a couple of years in there, I just always felt I could do better. It was like proving something to myself certainly much more so than proving something to anyone else. There are always people who would say, “Why are you still competing? Shouldn’t you get another life?” If I listened to those people maybe I would have stopped ten years into my career.
SZ: At your level of expertise and accomplishment it seems like after 10 years any athlete in whatever sport starts to receive those questions. How did you address the retirement questions particularly after a subpar result? Frequently the media jumps on it.
JE: Right, and being from a small country it’s magnified. In the U.S.A. if a track and field athlete has a poor track result you, your coach and a few people in your immediate circle pay attention. But being from a small country where track and field is the sport, people care and make commentaries about your performance. What kept me going is when there are really good results in training you know what your body is physically capable of. Week in and week out I was achieving things in practice that sometimes audiences didn’t get to see in the meet. My challenge was to duplicate that training performance in a competition. I knew what I was physically capable of, my coaches had a belief in my athletic ability. There are certain components to a long jump, that is speed and power. At one point in my career I could squat 350 lbs, that shifted to 375 lbs. In practice I was running 60 meters in 7.35 seconds, and then I was able to run it in 7.28 seconds that means something in regard to how far I can jump.
SZ: You kept your sights on your goals and your capabilities, screening out the distractions.
JE: Absolutely. I knew what I was capable of and I knew that there were jumps where I fouled and they were never measured. Even though it wasn’t measured I knew that my body actually went that far so I knew my capabilities.
SZ: So it remained exciting.
JE: Absolutely. Everyday, well let’s not say everyday. Most days when I woke up in the morning I was ready to go and train. Fall training was a challenge. No-one is going to tell you Fall training is fun. It hurts. You’re tired, you’re exhausted. I knew that three or four times a week my body was going to be at its limit. In six weeks it’s amazing how much the body can return to a civilian body. In six weeks I was almost back to ground zero and then it took another 2-3 months to get back to where I was before I stopped training and competing. But I still needed to take that six week break.
SZ: For body and mind?
JE: Yes.
SZ: Were there phases of your competitive life where things were going on and you didn’t mentally or physically feel like competing? How did you pull yourself up through those segments of time?
JE: Personal situations, dealing with some sort of relationship sometimes made training harder. The last thing I wanted to do if I felt sad or upset about something was to run around a track.
SZ: (both laughing) Didn’t running around help you feel better?
JE: It might help in that hour or so, but leaving the house to get there, sometimes I didn’t want to do that. If I was having a series of poor results that made me question myself. I’ve had times when I over trained. I always wanted to do so much in practice sometimes to my detriment. When I was doing intensive training and the results weren’t showing it I knew people must be thinking, “What’s going on with her. Why doesn’t she retire.” There was a year I over trained and I was jumping at a high school level. It was embarrassing for me. This was leading up to my national championship in the Bahamas. I felt I couldn’t go home jumping this poorly. I made the decision not to train for seven days. I didn’t go to the track. I didn’t jog. I just laid around. I had been doing so much in practice and it wasn’t helping.
SZ: Did you shift mentally as well?
JE: Yes, I did everything that had nothing to do with track. I read books, went to the movies, went shopping, stayed up late, overslept. At the end of the seven days I flew home to the Bahamas. I jogged at the track one day and the following day was the national championship meet. I don’t know what happened but the prior to this meet the last jump I had jumped was 19’10” which is what a talented high school athlete can jump, to during the national meet, I jumped 22’3”, which is significantly different. I just think my body had become so exhausted. I hadn’t been listening to my bodies fatigue. I had kept training and jumping worse. My body reacted positively to the shift.
If I had not stopped to rest I don’t know what I would have done that season with my career because I was at wits end. Sometimes you have to step back and listen to your body. I always want to do more but sometimes you need to do less and it’s hard to pull back.
SZ: After that meet did you scale back and adjust your workout program?
JE: For an athlete like myself I can be hard headed. But it was so tangible to see I needed to scale back. Sometimes when I was struggling during competitions or not having good results I questioned what I was doing professionally. I attended Stanford with classmates who were using their brains and making 5x’s the money I was making competing in track and field.
SZ: What helped you make the decision to stick it out? Was it having free time, travel, the unique challenges?
JE: All of that. I enjoyed the lifestyle. I enjoyed to some degree having control over my own schedule and time. Even though I had a coach and when we scheduled a practice at 11a.m. I had to be there. But if I decided I wanted to go visit my friend for a week I could do that as long as there was a track nearby, or a weight room. It’s not like having a job where you can’t just go and do what you wish. I also enjoy being outside, interacting with people, traveling and the physical/mental challenge. Aside from the money disparities, the experiences that I gained were not comparable to any sort of money I could earn.
Next week 5X Olympian Jackie Edwards discusses, responsibilities as a professional athlete, unique Olympic moments and new technologies that enhanced her career.
*Featured guests are not former nor current clients of Susan Zaro
*This article can also be read @www.examiner.com
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