I promised to log every month how's training been. I did so for October and November. Then I disappeared. I'm sorry.
It's April 3rd now. A lot have changed. February I almost arrived at my breaking point. It was so hard, giving up felt as close as ever. But I kept training.
Moments like these leave a mental scar on you. It's been 2 months now and I still question a lot of life desicions I made. Thoughts that were super intense in February still loom around in my mind.
Anyways, let's deep dive.
What happened after I stopped writing
We can break my overall life into:
- high-tech job
- new second apartment (I moved from Ramat-Gan to Tel-Aviv in Jan.)
- Training around 20 hours a week for track
- The balance between them that I try to achieve but never do
Here, I'll describe the overall changes I've been through, just as a background. The training itself - I'll specify in different blogs. One for each month. A lot of time passed - so it may not be written with fresh thoughts, but I'll try to give value in each blog.
So, here is what changed in my life since December.
December
I kept living in the new apartment I wrote about in the last blog until the end of December. I deliberately rented it (not a whole apartment. Just a room inside a 2-room apartment) for exactly 2 months. I had a temporary job near Ramat-Gan (at least I thought it's near the job. In reality, it took me at least 1.5 hours on average to get to and fro work). New job. First time living by myself (well, really, with a roomate I didn't know). It was a lot. The training stadium was super far. About 2 hours from my home. and even farther from my job.
All of that traveling was a real challenge I wanted to fix with my next apartment. I actually already wrote that in the last blog of November. So in December that challenge persisted.
That month, I tried to optimize my life even more. Train near home when possible. Not get carried at work and leave as early as possible. Manage time correctly. And a lot of that actually succeeded.
I slept the most I slept in a long time. I was super focused on track. I signed a contract for a new high-tech job in November (which is a story of its own, cuz I had no degree or job-experience in that area, just a portfolio). That month, I did some onboarding too.
It was a month of experiencing and a lot of traveling. In general, one of the big pain points in the last year (and it'll keep being so until the end of the season) - is traveling.
I. am. always. on. the. roads.
And that's impacting me on so many levels. I'm tired, I don't have a routine, I'm always working when I'm en route. It's hard to really explain but all of those train/bus rides have a huge mental and physical load on me.
Something fixed it for me in March. But we'll get to that.
January
I started working in that job I signed for. Moved to Tel-Aviv. Was kind of forced into an apartment as end of December was just around the corner and I didn't have any good options. I moved into a 4-room apartment, 4th floor, no elevator, with people that are now my friends. One of them was my friend for a long time. The difference between living with friends and just roommates is incredible.
By the way, If you are reading this from a country that is not Israel, I pay 3,650 NIS for that apartment monthly, which is, to this day: 1,166 USD. That is for one room out of 3 in that apartment. The cheapest room.
Rent is expensive in Tel-Aviv. Extremely.
I do have a good-paying job. Especially for a 21-year-old no-degree, no-nothing guy. And that really didn't bother me. I thought if that brings me closer to where I train and work - that's a huge win for me. I couldn't stand all of those rides.
I was wrong.
The distances became somewhat shorter (I measure distances in time because in that city's traffic, 1 mile can be 20 minutes). Still, that fixed a huge problem with a big problem. It got easier but it was still hard.
If when your schedule is full, you are 100% busy. Then in November-December I was 150% busy.
Now that I got into a much more dynamic job that lets me sometimes work from home. And the distances got a bit shorter. I moved from 150% to 130% busy.
But if you are past 100%, you don't actually feel that drop. I'm just saying "no" to people less or feeling like I'm missing less. But I still say "no" and still miss stuff. I hope it makes sense.
Around end of December to January I had a small injury in my left heel. It grew bigger and I missed almost the whole winter competitions season. Eventually I figured it out and got out of it, but it deserves it's own post. You can read more about December and January training in those links.
February
Both in January and most of February, I was on the roads so much, my days were starting at 8 am and ending at 10 pm. When I write "ending", I mean - I was getting near home around 9 pm, then buy groceries and stuff, and finally get to cooking at 10 pm. Sometimes I ate around midnight.
The words I write don't have the same effect as living those words. But life was extremely hard those 2 months.
I was trying to be a good worker, which is required when you are a nobody trying to succeed at the big league. I was trying to be a good athlete. With all my heart. And I was trying to not be hungry.
All of that absolutely destroyed my schedule. I just stopped being free. That was a thing of the past.
I love my job. And I kinda like training. It sucks when you're injured, but eventually I manage to move past it and recover. It doesn't happen without pushing through while being sad, unmotivated, tired and overworked - but at the end of the day, I'm getting there.
I thought a lot of that time, that even if I put everything I have into sports, it still might not be enough. Because you can be the best at training, but you can't cheat recovery or nutrition. You can't cheat not little focus on track. My job and track were (and still are) competing for attention.
Don't think that I'm some kind of a loser right now. I never miss trainings and I absolutely deliver for my job. I'm working my ass off. Not succeeding is not an option. But everything has a price.
And I guess, in February, I felt like the price is just too much.
The slap
February was the slap. I got slapped so hard I started questioning everything. I talked with a lot of people about this situation of mine. Even people I didn't talk with for months.
"You should live, not survive".
I didn't even think of living at that point, I wondered if I can survive.
It was really, really hard.
I had to do some big changes.
And I did. What got me out of there was communication. I asked from my manager to work more from home. I asked my trainer to not come every training session and to only come, possibly, on long jump days (and weekends). The trainer agreed. The manager agreed.
I made a change for the better. I made many changes that month. And it felt better.
Then, March came.
March
On February 28th, US and Israel attacked Iran.
I know that many of you got probably a lot of opinions on Israel. We all got opinions on everything. Keep in mind there are at least 9 million people in Israel. Most of them are regular working people that don't care about politics and just want to live peacefully. Anyways, the things you see on the news - are REAL and they changed my life completely.
This war actually gave me the break I never would have taken for myself. Yes, we were bombed constantly. But that's not new. What was new for me is that
- we started working from home
- I got out of my apartment, and that extremely busy life.
- I stopped being on the train and bus so much.
It was huge.
Eventually I ended up at my parent's house. Where I lived my whole life up until summer 2024 (army, etc. etc.). My life didn't become super easy - but they did become... manageble. I keep training each day and I keep working. I eat well, I sleep better, and I got out of the big-city busy life.
I now understand how bad travelling is. It's nice when done once in a week, maybe twice. It's terrible when it becomes routine.
On the other side, there isn't really a fix for that problem this season (until August). My trainer's stadium is just far from the job I'm in and even farther from the apartment I live in.
In retrospective, a better decision was to live a few dozen miles north near the train. It would save me a lot of time and money. And I even think I kinda understood it in December. I was just too busy and probably didn't understand how bad traffic is in Tel-Aviv. I guess some things you need to go through to understand.
April
Well, only 3 days passed in that month.
TL;DR (Though it doesn't really summarize this blog)
To sum up - I moved to a new job, new city, new life.
A graph showing how much I'm busy just kept rising and rising and rising. At February it touched the sky. I almost broke down. And I mean it. There is a limit to how much 8am-10/11pm days you can survive back to back to back. Doing workouts each day, being good at work. Theoretically you can keep that lifestyle for your whole life but the quality of doing them and your mental health will massively drop.
At the end of the day, I'm not doing this for anyone except me. No one cares about my athletic career. Or professional career. At least not now. No one even reads this blog. It won't bring me money or fame. And so, if I'm not happy, if I'm broken or devastated. No one cares. Literally.
Which means I need to make it sustainable. By myself.
March helped me a lot with it. It looks like at least until mid of April I'll keep living at my parent's house, working mostly from home and training here. War tends to stretch always farther then it seems so I might even find myself here in May. June? Who knows.
It doesn't even disappoint me that I keep paying rent while not living at my apartment. I needed this rest so much.
I hope to be more active here, but life is just being life right now.
Bye.
