With my annual exams ahead of me, I was most of the time glued to my desk studying for the final exams of the very last school year I would ever have to go through. The closer the exam came, the more nervous I got. I was looking for something to get my mind free of all the worries that I had. Luckily, it was summer and the weather was quite nice. So I decided to do some sports. I went through my agenda and schedules for the next few weeks. In about a week from now, I found a small athletic competition that included: high jump, short distance and long distance running. It looked quite interesting and appealing to me, as I still had time to prepare and was not the worst in all these disciplines.

With that in mind, I signed up for the competition. I always left an hour a day free from any activities to train well, meaning I still had enough time to study for my exam. I trained regularly each day. It gave me a good feeling to have this regular distraction with a clear target ahead of me. While preparing, I also felt that my shape had improved and I got more and more confident in my athletic skills.

Finally the big day that I had been training for was tomorrow. With a good weather forecast and myself, I felt in excellent form. On the very day, I packed my sports bag and was well on time for the competition to start.

When signing my name into the list of participants, an elderly man at the front desk said, “You seem to be well motivated, I wish you good luck on this very beautiful day.”

I replied saying, “Although I made up my mind not too long ago, I’m extremely motivated to do well.” The old man finished with a thumbs up and with that he handed me over my registration number. I stuck it on to my jersey.

I started with a warm up. It included stretching and jumping back and forth to be ready for the first discipline, which was high jump. After many attempts,  I was about to go for the decisive height that would allow me to actually place or even win in this category. I was extremely concentrated in putting all my efforts into this jump so I rushed towards the bar. However, when I did my final takeoff jump, I already felt that something had gone quite wrong. I had taken off in the wrong angle, which made me land on my shoulder and therefore making my knee hit my face, like a punch. When lying on the mat it did not hurt that much, but I felt a warm liquid trickle down my face. I was so shocked that I could not move. All of a sudden a yell yanked me out of my absence.

“You’re bleeding, don’t move!” The next thing I knew, there was a paramedic hovering over me.

He said, “It’s not that serious... but it looks like you’ve broken your nose.” He continued with, “I’ll call the emergency for you.”

It was within a few minutes that they arrived and brought me to the closest clinic, where my short sportive adventure ended with a diagnosis of a broken nose.

I had to go under a surgery and felt relieved that I could at least still study and prepare for my exams. From that experience, one simple lesson that I took with me was to keep the balance between leisure and duty - also when doing high jumps.