400m runner Philip Osei has been racing within the Toronto space since he was in highschool and found that the 400 metres was the place he excelled. However his life hasn’t simply revolved across the observe—he’s additionally a videographer, and balances his time between work, household and his deep ardour for working.
In highschool, Osei raced his buddies within the hallways and skipped class often to observe observe meets in Etobicoke, Ont.’s Centennial Park, proper throughout from his highschool. He fell in love with the game and joined the college staff, the place his coach turned a mentor. “It was my first time being coached in my life,” remembers Osei. “He constructed that love and basis for the 400m for me.”
He excelled early within the 400m, and it began to repay: at 19, he was chosen for a staff to race in Mexico, and it was his first expertise travelling by air. “I’ll always remember that, since you form of dream of that stuff, particularly the place I grew up. However there, I acquired to expertise that observe setting, and I noticed some famend observe athletes racing and realized that I used to be amongst them. I felt like, I belong right here.” Since then, he’s raced in additional than 30 nations, and now, as he thinks concerning the subsequent part of his life and profession, he needs to assist others expertise that way of life.
Osei continued racing via school on the College of Guelph and signed with New Stability after college. Sadly, an damage took him away from racing, however he has since reconnected with the game he nonetheless loves. He’s again to racing, however he’s already fascinated by his subsequent part of life—after he makes his last Olympic bid.
Teaching and private coaching are on the prime of his thoughts as of late, at the same time as he pushes himself to be at his finest for the approaching season. “As an athlete, it’s important to be aware that your physique can’t final perpetually,” he says. “However whilst you acquired it, you bought it. I used to be blessed with this expertise, and I’m gonna preserve doing it, if I can. However that doesn’t imply I’ve to kill myself and make the Olympic dream, as a result of I’m actually content material with what I’ve achieved.
“Proper now, I’m bodily and mentally locking myself in as if I’m going to compete within the Olympics, and I’ll see the place that takes me,” Osei says. “I’m beginning to really feel fairly athletic.”
And if it doesn’t occur? “That point off with my damage allowed me to essentially map out how I wish to reside my life after observe,” he says. “I’ve a household now. I’ve a child lady and a wonderful spouse at dwelling. Earlier than them, observe was it. This was all I had, in a way. However now I’ve a house outdoors of the observe. And for me, observe is now changing into enjoyable once more.”
That’s what “Run Your Means” means to Osei now. “To me, it means stability,” he says. “Observe has offered me the stability and taught me how you can really feel inside my physique and carry out at a normal of excellence as an athlete. This sport has taught me a lot concerning the physique dynamics, practical motion, energy and conditioning, health, resistance coaching, mobility, yoga–all of the elements of health and life. We get to try this, as professionals and as poets. Observe is poetry: we get to show our artwork to the world.”
