When Athletes Blog – Olympic Hopeful Brianna Glenn

Making the U.S. Olympic team is a life time achievement for many elite runners. Rockers AC/DC summed it up best saying "It’s a long way to the top if you wanna to rock 'n' roll." Long jumper Brianna Glenn has fought fear and injury on the pot hole filled road to achieve her ultimate goal of making the Olympic Team.

Brianna took to her blog to share with fans the most recent events in her experience.

"Well, on to my update…

This past week I have been back to regular training and at the end of the week I even did full approach pop ups. (Technical talk for doing take-offs in the long jump without landing). I am ecstatic because I’m still fast. Granted, I am not as fast as I believe I would have been without the setback, but I am definitely fast and this is one of my advantages to already being one of the fastest jumpers in the world (in my humble opinion). It was a bit nerve racking putting back on my spikes without knowing what to expect from my body. I did not step on a track surface for a month’s time and then I did a somewhat abbreviated and accelerated rehab program so that I could get back to doing what I need to do. Needless to say, this caused some achy joints and bones. I am not the spring chicken I once was!

As important as balancing on one leg and stepping down from a 1 ft. box is, I could not wait to start to be able to feel as if I was really preparing for my task in 3 weeks. Here is the thing about this whole process – it can be truly overwhelming if you let it. I have taken things one step at a time because that is the only way to feel as if it’s manageable. If I could only lie on my couch and squeeze my quad 25 times every hour, I made sure I stayed on top of it. Once I was able to jog in the water, I tried to be the best water jogger I could. (No easy feat as I am no fan of things done in the water.) When I was able to get on land and do things that were not too much impact, I put all my energy towards that. I could not focus on what I could not do, only on what I could. It was hard. I’m not going to lie. But for the most part I was proud of myself for staying in the moment and staying positive and continuing to believe that I would be ok."

By Jay Hicks.