‘Persistent Rafi’ is the title that my dear Rafaela Lelas Antić bestowed upon herself, while I, semi-jokingly, added that she reminds me of Kruno Jurčić, who, during a lengthy mandate, repeatedly returned to the helm of Dinamo. Regardless of the comment made three days ago, as in ‘why him’, today, all jokes aside, all the praises go directly to Rafaela.
Rafaela is the fourth person in our history to surpass the 50 workout milestone, following Ivica, Iva, and Mateja. Why do we persistently emphasize this persistence of hers? Because Rafaela’s story, and thus our interaction, started on December 10th, 2017. Although it may sound strange at first that it took us a year and a half to reach fifty workouts, the first thing I’ll emphasize is six months of consistent and continuous work. We completed our last, the 38th workout on May 31st, 2018. Us training together led to Rafaela completing her working season without experiencing pronounced back pain, first after a long time, which has been our main training goal and primary focus. After a grueling working season, I know it’s challenging to find time, motivation, and strength to catch the right rhythm. So, after initial attempts in October and November, which remained just that, Rafaela and I resumed our training journey this February, precisely on February 19th, 2019. A new beginning, a new training plan, but again that same consistency, persistence, and dedication that I saw in her from the very start of our story.
I know comments about longer breaks and training pauses could go both ways, but through my two and a half years of working with people, I’ve grown accustomed to it and fully understand how summer is specific for us, especially if you’re involved heavily in tourism, as Rafaela is. It doesn’t mean that time can’t be found for training, but dedicating those two hours a week to oneself during that period is indeed challenging, and I’m not writing this because I feel the need to justify anyone. Most of us are recreational athletes not preparing for anything specific so we’re not in a hurry to get anywhere. With that in mind, what I want to emphasize and commend once more is what we started with: persistence from the beginning of our journey, threaded with a certain amount of willpower and patience, which is rare enough for people like me to recognize and genuinely appreciate. Like they say, it’s not about how many times we fall but how many times we get up afterwards.
We’ll end it here to make sure this doesn’t become an overly philosophically emphasized article since it’s primarily a praise and a thank you to my friend, to whom I want to give my all in preparing those back of hers for the new working season in these remaining two months. A woman, a mother, a queen, and much more; my sincere congratulations on the first 50, with genuine confidence we won’t stop there.
Original release date: March 31, 2019