Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A recurring Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 February 2017 source ↗
Five years ago, a concrete plug, a little bigger than a baseball, fell off a building on Hollywood Boulevard when I was riding in an open convertible. It shattered the windshield. It really shook me. I still have it on my mantel.
I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death. But nothing prepared me for the early morning last June when I came to consciousness feeling as if I were actually shackled to my own corpse. The whole cave of my chest and thorax seemed to have been hollowed out and then refilled with slow-drying cement. I could faintly hear myself breathe but could not manage to inflate my lungs. My heart was beating either much too much or much too little. Any movement, however slight, required forethought and planning.
An emergency landing in a snow storm in Philadelphia.
When I was drinking, there were many times when I was out for the night and didn’t come back for a week.
Overthinking about the future.
Yeah, I say put mental health first because if you don't, then you're not going to enjoy your sport and you're not going to succeed as much as you want to. So it's okay sometimes to even sit out the big competitions to focus on yourself because it shows how strong of a competitor and person that you really are rather than just battle through it.
My parents: they raised me to be the best I can be.
Just a few days ago. I was overtired.
Yes. Today has been really stressful. We had a workout this morning. It went okay. And then just that five and a half hour wait or something. I was just shaking, could barely nap. I've just never felt like this going into a competition before. And I tried to go out here and have fun. And warm up in the back went a little bit better. But then once I came out here, I was like, "No, mental is not there. So I just need to let the girls do it and focus on myself."
Literally can not tell up from down. It's the craziest feeling ever. Not having an inch of control over your body. What's even scarier is since I have no idea where I am in the air, I also have NO idea how I am going to land. Or what I am going to land on. Head/hands/feet back…
Adam Peaty, Bradley Wiggins, Chris Bonington, Chris Hoy, Harry Redknapp, Jonnie Peacock
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