Elm Creek’s Jaylyn Deurbrouck is entering her second season on the University of Manitoba’s track and field team.
Deurbrouck first started track and field while in elementary school in Elm Creek. Around Grade 8, her physical education teacher, Derek Tyler, told her she’d have a better chance of improving if she started working with coaches who knew more about the sport than he did.
Deurbrouch then contacted Lyle Myers from Carman.
“He started coaching me in high jump, hurdles, long jump, sprints, etcetera. In high school, I did the pentathlon, which includes shot put, high jump, long jump, 100 and 800-metre running.”
Myers and Tyler helped Deurbrouck get recognized by some Winnipeg coaches. From there, she made the provincial team to compete at the Tri-Provincial meet in Edmonton, and then the following year in Regina.
In Grade 10, at her zone track and field meet, Deurbrouck jumped her personal best in the high jump by 10 centimetres. She went from jumping 1.48 metres to 1.58 metres that day, but after that, had trouble getting over the 1.55 metres until university.
“I expected progress to come instantly, especially as I got hungrier for personal bests, so I decided to seek out basketball more seriously in Grade 11.”
Once the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, Deurbrouck went back to track and field because it was the only sport she could train for since it was outside and easier to do on her own at home. She fell in love with the workouts and got excited about track again.
Halfway through Grade 12 at Elm Creek School, Deurbrouck reached out to the university and committed to the school for the fall of 2021.
“I wanted to keep doing track because I am very competitive and I love sports. I’ve always been in love with hard workouts and the satisfaction I gain from doing them. With the pandemic going on, going to a close university made sense. I also already knew all my coaches at university because they worked with me in high school.”
Now into her second season as a university pentathlete, Deurbrouck notes that her time at the school so far has been a positive experience.
“I really love the team and coaches, and all of the other supports. I’ve switched my degree a lot more than I’d like to. It’s safe to say my time at the university has been more focused on track than school. I’ve decided now that I’m going into police school when I am done my arts degree. I don’t know whether I’ll do RCMP or city police, but definitely one of the two,” she said.
This season, Deurbrouck is competing in high jump and the pentathlon (high jump, long jump, shot put, 800 and 60 metre hurdles).
She last competed in South Dakota in February — marking the end to a tough indoor season.
“I took on a lot last year in December (and) January, thinking that I could handle it, but I found out really quickly that I couldn’t when I became severely burnt out,” she said.
“I was working full time, doing four courses instead of three for the first time, coaching on Sundays, training on the track six days a week for a minimum of two hours a day, and lifting three times a week for two hours while trying to maintain a good sleeping schedule and social life. I started sleeping in a lot and was really emotional at this time because of the lack of sleep, rest, recovery and expectations I had on myself.”
Deurbrouck made the university’s CanWest roster and was supposed to leave with the team for Saskatchewan a couple of weeks after, but with a nagging ankle injury, she couldn’t go.
“It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make so far because I wanted so badly to compete in the meet that I had been working for all season, but I finally decided to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t doing okay mentally and physically.”
Deurbrouck took some time off to let her injuries heal, and now her ankle is feeling fine and back to normal as she returns to training and gets ready for upcoming competitions that begin at the end of November.
“My goals for this season are to stay healthy mentally, emotionally and physically. I really want to be jumping consistently over 1.60 metres because I firmly believe that I should be,” said Deurbrouck.
“I am really prioritizing my mental health and just want to be my best so that I can compete because I learned from last season that if I am not doing well mentally, I will not have a shot at competing at the level I should be at.”
