DH: Hey guys, welcome to Keep on Pushing radio. I am your host Devon Harris and yeah, you know what we do here, right? We share ideas and insights that are going to challenge you, inspire you, to keep on pushing and live your best life. So, is that something you’re interested in, even remotely? Well, if you are you are definitely in the right place. So again, welcome to Keep On Pushing radio. Our guest today is a Jamaican Trailblazer. Back in 2011 in the NJCAA he won double titles. He was the 800-meter as well as the cross country Champion that year. He then went on to become an All-American with the Arkansas Razorbacks. He has set several Junior National records in Jamaica and was the first Jamaican high-schooler to win the high school boys 3000 meter race at Penn Relays.
He has qualified for four IAAF World Championships and became the first Jamaican male runner to compete in a distance final at the world championships. He is a five-time national champion and is a Jamaican record holder for the 3,000, the 5,000 and 10,000 meter races. Of course, he’s an Olympian. He represented Jamaica and competed in the 5,000 meter race in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio Brazil. A truly accomplished young man and an all-around great guy. I am excited to welcome Kemoy Campbell to the show. Kemoy, welcome to Keep on Pushing.
KC: Thank you for having me.
DH: Yeah, man, it’s great to have you. Listen, I want to start off by reading a post from Instagram. I think in September of this year, 2019…… September 5th, I believe and it goes like this,” it’s with a heavy heart or half of one rather, I must say goodbye to the sport. I will no longer be competing. I have given my all to the sport. It has taken me to places I have never dreamt of going and gave a shy boy from a rural area in Jamaica the opportunity to prove himself to the world. I believe I’ve done my part. I have represented myself, my family and my country proudly.” So, Kemoy, I’m not going to delve right now into the life-altering event that prompted you or led you to write the sports, but I just want to know though upfront, how are you doing physically?
KC: Physically, I’m doing well. I’ve been working out just as I used to….. well, not as I used to, but I’ve been just trying to stay in shape physically and mentally as best as I can. there are certain restrictions, but I’m trying to just work with those restrictions and just try to stay as healthy as possible still.
DH: Yeah, understood. So, in your post you mentioned the shy boy from rural Jamaican and I’m kind of curious. I’d love to get to know the shy boy. So if you don’t mind, can you pull the curtain back a little bit and reveal the shy boy to us?
KC: I mean, anybody on the national team like in the Federation and even athletes that I’ve made teams with, could tell you that I was the type of person who did not speak at all. Even around my community I didn’t say much. I was a person who didn’t say much. It’s not that I didn’t know how to communicate with people I was just shy. And for me, it kind of took me away from just going out there to seek conversations with people, and I just think that’s kind of what it was for me like I just didn’t talk to people. If someone said something to me all I would do is just smile and maybe answer them with “yes” or “no” if it’s a yes or no question.
DH: So in your communit……… you grow up in Manchester, where?
KC: I grew up in Rose Hill, Manchester. That’s in south Manchester. There’s a little farming community back there but for me, it was a great place growing up.
DH: It was home. So talk to me about your family. How many siblings you had? What was life like then?
KC: I have four brothers. I’m the middle one. So I was the one who basically learned from the bigger brothers. Whether it’s something good or something bad I learned from whatever they did and then I would try to teach my young brothers so they wouldn’t make the same mistake or they know that hey, this is something that can help you to achieve something that you need to achieve so, I think being in the middle one had its benefits for sure.
DH: Indeed. You are the middle child and took advantage of that position. That’s awesome. So this shy boy from Rose Hill Manchester grew into one of the preeminent distance runners in Jamaica. How did that happen? How did you get into running?
KC: Yeah, that’s actually a funny story because when I was younger, I was basically training myself without knowing. Whenever my parents or my aunts or uncles would send me to the shop, I’d try to go there as fast as possible just so I can get the praise of, “hey, you went to the shop pretty quickly, did you make this stuff right out the door” or something like that? So I was training myself without knowing but how I got into running was at a sports day. My music teacher……..I was in the purple house if I remember correctly. They wanted to give the house some points and they asked me to run the 5K. When I got on the start line I asked my math teacher……. that was a starter back then…….I asked him how much laps it was and he told me it was 12. So I immediately tried to get off the line and he’s like no son, you’re already here you have to do it. So I ended up running it and beat most of the track guys and came third with only two of the best guys on the team beating me. So after that my coach, Dean Tomlin…… High School coach recruited me and decided hey, you can actually be very good at this. So yeah, that’s how it all started.
DH: It’s amazing because I think Jamaicans can relate to the idea of being a kid and being sent to the shop and trying to get there and back home as quickly as possible. It’s almost a point of pride to say you went there and you came back. And something else interesting that you said, and I find that to be true with people who have succeeded tremendously. Sometimes you just kind of bounce into something that you didn’t fully understand. So here it is that your music teacher sends you into a race and you didn’t even know until you got on to the start line how many laps you had to run and here you are now being as I said Jamaica’s preeminent distance runner and you obviously had talent. You have also shown remarkable range from 800-meters to 10K and I read where you were thinking of stepping up to the marathon. Did you have, in the land of sprinting Jamaica, did you have any Idols, any athletes that you looked up to at the time?
KC: I had a few. Asafa was one person. I definitely looked up to him because he was a humble guy, I thought and he kind of reminded me of myself. I was shy but then, one could say that was me being humble as well. I looked up to him and also for females I look up to Veronica Campbell or Campbell-Brown now. I looked up to her because she always seemed so determined, so focused and just over the years though I’ve just learned that it’s just your personality. That’s what it all comes down to. I’ve learned to like different athletes based on their personality. I’ve learned to look up to them in a certain way because some people might offer something different to the table and it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re cocky or whatever. It just means that that’s the type of person they are and that’s how they get through life. That’s how your personality within the sport brings a certain flavor to this sport, I guess. So I’ve just learned over the years I’ve just learned to appreciate different athletes just for who they are.
DH: Got you, and obviously, you’re right. There are different things that you can learn from different people. So like when I was growing up in Jamaica I ran the 800-meters and the guy I looked up to back then was Sebastian Coe. Were there any long distance Runners from somewhere else in the world that you aspired to be like?
KC: Not really. There are people that I have heard of but never really aspired to be like them and the reason why is because whenever I had a goal, I know what it’s going to take me to achieve that goal. I try to stay focused and just stay self-motivated because these guys are already doing what they’re supposed to. I’m a distance runner in Jamaica that needs to make himself known and then try to change other people’s mind and other people’s mindset towards Jamaican distance running. So we’re not coming from the same place. For instance, you have Kenya who’s predominantly distance runners or Ethiopians who are predominantly distance runners.
Those guys, if I was focusing or looking up to those guys…… they already have tons of idols who have helped encourage them to run fast. For me, being the only Jamaican I had to look within myself and say hey, this is where I want to be. How am I going to get there? I have to focus on myself and decide there are certain ways of doing it. You have to be self-motivated determined and all these things within you and I’m not saying you can’t learn from other athletes because you definitely can but if you’re not in tune with your own body and like just learning about yourself on a daily basis, you could focus on what these athletes are doing go out there and try to do the same thing and you still don’t get anywhere. So for me, like I was basically focused on myself, I guess.
DH: Got you. Understand. You said something important that you can still look to other people to see what they’re doing and learn from them, I think that’s an important part of our development. Whether it’s sports or sales or whatever it is that you’re doing you can always learn but most importantly…….what you said is that it starts with you and understanding your abilities and your talents and you did not use the word vision, but I heard that. Having this idea of where you want to be and then doing the work and putting in the goals to get there. So you had some talent, you showed some early talent, your coach started to encourage you and you started to train. When did you decide that you know what this is something that I could do, this is something I want to be good at.
KC: I decided after my first road race. That was in Jamaica when I was in high school after the coach recruited me and I went to the first road race on a Sunday. I think it was somewhere in St. Thomas and I won the 14 to 16 age group and I just realized people were saying, where did this kid come from? Because there were people in the sport already who have been trying to win their 14 to 16 and I just came out of nowhere and I was just good and people were like where did this kid come from?
They’re asking my coach, where did you find him? And then all of a sudden I realize hey, this is something I could take even further and my coach was saying hey, you can get a scholarship out of this to go to the States you can go as far as you want if you just stay focused and listen to me and work hard and stuff like that. So it kind of just started from there and that’s where my love for the sport really did start. Because I just realized this is a stepping stone. If you use the opportunity that you’re getting and you take advantage of it, then it might lead you to somewhere you’ve never been before.
DH: Yeah. Couple of things, it’s a stepping stone. It is an opportunity. A lot of times when people hear the word opportunity Kemoy, they think it’s……… the image I have in my head is a gift that’s wrapped in a nice little bow and you just untie the bow and tear off the wrapping and you enjoy it right?
But you spoke about just working hard and listening to the coach. So that was really important. He said that you could take it as far as you wanted to take it, wherein your mind did you think that would take you, where did you want to take this sport?
KC: I mean, at different stages, I had different goals. So I had set goals along the way just to help me to achieve and just appreciate what I’ve achieved along the way. My main goal was to win a medal for Jamaica in distance at the Olympic Games, but before I got to those goals when I was in high school, I started setting goals like okay, so I have to work hard enough so I can get noticed by a university or a college here. So that was some short-term goals that I had. So I started working hard, as hard as I could and then started running fast times for a high school athlete. Whenever I came to junior college, I started working hard in junior college because I realized the next goal that I have in the ultimate scheme of things is to get to university so I have to work hard in junior college so that a good university looks at me.
Worked hard there, did my best, raced well then after I got into university the same thing followed. I had to work hard to get a contract. And then the contract ultimately that’s where my main focus was where I can find a coach who can help me to medal at the Olympics. Within that whole time I was setting goals. The long-term goal was medaling at the Olympics obviously, but the short-term goals, those helped me to get there and whenever I achieve one of those goals, I can say hey, it’s paid off here, so it kind of encourages you to just keep going.
DH: Yeah, so you just gave us and I appreciate that. Thank you so much for that quick lesson in goal setting. You started off by…… you didn’t you again use the word vision but this idea of becoming the first Jamaican to win a medal at the Olympic Games in distance running that was all the way down there, but then you spoke about all these intermediate goals that you set for yourself, doing well in high school so you can be noticed, get into junior college working really hard again so you can get into a university and so on and so forth. So again, thank you for that because people sometimes think that you kind of jump from where you are to this massive goal and that’s how it should work, but it’s actually a process that you have to as I say you have to keep on pushing yourself to get there. So you end up at University and then you became pro and now you’re competing. When we look on the world stage, the world championships, the Olympic Games one could reasonably expect that you’re going to have Jamaicans in the sprint events, not just in the finals but definitely contending for a medal but here you are, as I mentioned earlier, you’re the first Jamaican male to compete in a distance final at the World Championships. You finished tenth in London, I believe. What did those accomplishments mean to you, Kemoy?
KC: It meant a whole lot because as I said, it’s steps leading towards my main goal and for me starting from high school where obviously there were people in Jamaica better than me at that time and then just working my way past those people and coming to America and then working my way past a bunch of people here as well especially when people are always talking about Kenyans. I even beat a bunch of Kenyans in a bunch of races here and people don’t really realize that and one of the things is it meant a lot to me finishing then because then I can say to a little kid in Jamaica….. like a little shy kid or something, hey, if I could do this you can do this. All you need to do is just have a dream, have a dream that you want to do this visualize where you want to be in life and work to get those goals, that’s just what It ultimately comes down to. So to answer your question, it meant a lot to me just doing that because it just states that hey, Jamaica’s just not a sprinting country. It’s all in your mindset. If you know you can achieve something and you work extremely hard for it you will definitely get there one day.
DH: Yeah, you said something, mindset, it’s such a powerful and important part of the success process. My daughter, a number of years ago she was running track and I went to her meet and I saw some Jamaican girls and I go so, what event are you running? Are you running the 800? And she laughed and she goes Jamaicans don’t run those races, and so you’re absolutely right man. It’s a mindset and I mean, I appreciate you and I said you’re a trailblazer and I appreciate that the trail that you’ve blazed because I think you have set an example for you know many young Jamaican who go, you know what? I may not be able to win anything under 400-meters but if I apply myself maybe I can become a good distance or middle-distance runner as well. So, what’s the advice you would have then Kemoy, for that shy little boy or girl in rural Jamaica who aspires to become great at track or anything else for that matter?
KC: One thing I’d say to them is set goals. If you don’t have goals, it’s basically like you’re in just a rough sea with waves crashing into you from every direction. At the end of the day if you have goals and you surround yourself with people who are like-minded you will be surprised how far in life you can go. Because once you start checking off which goals you’ve achieved then you realize that you’re on the right path in terms of getting to that point in life that you envision yourself. And as I said surrounding yourself with like-minded people because if one day you don’t want to go to practice and the other person feels like hey, I feel great I can go, I want to go to practice. You’re going to look at that person and say hey, well, my brother over here wants to achieve something good. I want to achieve something good why not just go together and see what we can do. So it doesn’t matter like if you have a person who wants to achieve the same thing as you, it will rub off on you according to Jamaicans good will rub off on you. So you have to have like-minded people and you have to stay self-motivated because if you don’t believe in yourself at the end of the day who is going to believe in you?
DH: Agreed. Being self-motivated believing in yourself, surrounding yourself with like-minded people, that’s great advice not just for athletes and not just for young people but for all of us and I think it’s so important because we sometimes find ourselves in situations where the people that we’re around aren’t necessarily the ones who share the vision….. aren’t going in the same direction of what we are envisioning for ourselves, they’re not on that path and it means then that you kind of have to remove yourself from them and go find as you said like-minded people so you can get to where you need to go.
So let’s go back to high school because you dominated. You dominated Boy’s Champs, you dominated CARIFTA, then you were really successful at the collegiate level as well and certainly, in the Jamaican context you were and have been on the top of Jamaican distance running for many years.
Kemoy, there are lots of people who….I think everybody wants to get to the top, let me start there. And there are lots of people who get to the top but they don’t stay there. You have been at the top for a really long time, what’s the secret, man? What was the secret to your success to be at the top of Jamaican distance running? What advice you would give to someone else who wants to remain at the top of their career?
KC: One thing I’ll say for sure, I was the type of person who learned from other people’s mistakes, and I’ve followed a couple of like even distance runners before me and whenever they come to the States I realize their mindset changes. They don’t want to continue running and try to be their best selves within distance running and all of a sudden the sport is just out the door for them. For me, I wanted to take what they haven’t done and I wanted to show people like hey, you can actually make a life out of this thing. People think you have to come here and just go into like a different job, but if you are so determined to make it within the sport and you’re focused, you have a vision, you know exactly where you want to be in the sport and you know exactly what not to get like I guess, how to stay away from distractions then because that’s what it ultimately comes down to, people are distracted. So they find other things to do some time. For me, I stayed away from distractions because I knew until my goal was achieved if I go out there and party every single night, how am I going to get to that? So one of the things I would say to those people if you want to stay at the top you have to train harder than the next person that’s below you, you have to do what the next person below you is not, if he’s going out to party, you stay in and go to sleep. So you have to be more disciplined. That’s what my answer is. You have to be more disciplined.
DH: It’s kind of interesting and this is true again in all fields of human endeavor, right? You work really, really hard to “dethrone” the guy on the very top and then you get to the top and you’re coasting and you seem to forget that the guy who’s behind you wants to get to the top. And so whatever it is that you did to get to the top If you don’t continue to do that and more than the guy’s going to dethrone you. So really good advice. Being disciplined, being focused, staying away from distractions as it were.
So the World Championships just concluded in Doha, Kemoy, and I read that the Jamaican government and the Kenyan government signed an agreement, whereby, Jamaica’s going to share their knowledge and expertise in sprinting with the Kenyans and they’re going to do likewise with middle and long-distance running with us. How do you feel about that arrangement? What impact do you think that’s going to have on middle distance and distance running?
KC: I’m going to say this, this is my take on it because I did see this and I think it’s not going to help at all. And this is my point we grew up in a country where no one paid attention to distance running. No one. Even, sad to say, the federation for distance running and every single kid that decides to run they started running sprint. Nobody wants to run more than two miles not even two miles nobody wants to run more a mile. So if you’re in a country where the mindset is the same, it’s locked in this box where it’s all sprint, sprint, sprint, sprint, sprint. I have to sprint to make my money. I have to sprint to do this. I don’t want to go out and run for 60 minutes. I don’t want to go and do this. It doesn’t matter if Kenya is giving you the best workout ever, nothing’s going to change. If the mindset of the people doesn’t change, nothing else is going to.
DH: Mindset is very important, I agree. But what about, because if you go to boys champs, we are contesting every event from a hundred meters all the way up to Steeplechase now and so there are those athletes who recognize that certainly at Boys Champs level they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell to win these sprints. What impact do you think you this new direction will have on those athletes? If you were, let’s say in high school now still when this program came on stream, how do you think that would have impacted you?
KC: My answer to that, there was a time when IAAF president, Teddy McCook, I think his name was….. passed away.
DH: Yeah, you mean the JAAA President.
KC: JAAA. He wanted me to go to Kenya to train. This is not going to help kids who are high school level. Whenever you’re running distance your body needs time to develop. It doesn’t just happen. Look at me for instance, when I was 16 years old and I ran the fastest 1500 in Jamaica for junior 3:42, after that year, my body was wrecked. It took me a while. I had to rest for like three months before I could get back into training and after that, I could not break four minutes. And it just shows you that whenever you’re training extremely hard your body needs time to develop. You can’t push your body beyond certain limits when your body is not capable of going beyond those limits and if even if it goes there, it can’t maintain that. So the Kenyan program, take it from me, I know most of this. When I’m training here, I’m basically doing what those guys are doing because I trained with Kenyans here sometimes. I’m doing what those guys are doing and if you’re a sixteen-year-old running 10 miles in the morning five miles in the afternoon doing a hundred and five miles a week it’s going to catch up to you.
So, if they’re talking in terms of trying to help high school athletes to be more capable of running certain times they can forget about it. High school athletes will not be capable of running certain times based on the Kenyan professional training program. You have to have a high school training program to help the athletes develop into the athlete they need to be. You can’t jumpstart something that is not meant for them. That’s basically what I’m saying.
DH: Yeah. So basically you’re saying that we need to actually go all the way down on the drawing board and start developing high school athletes giving them a chance to go through the process to eventually get to the point where they’re competing with the Kenyans at the professional level.
KC: Exactly, because for me whenever I started the whole running and I was doing well, I was using high school training to run fast times in high school. This is what I think, if I had gone straight to University and just jumped into a program where they started having me running eight miles in the morning, four in the afternoon, it wouldn’t have worked out well for me. Whenever I went to Junior College and I slowly started building up my mileage after my first day in University I remember the eight miles that they sent me on. For more than five months it didn’t feel right. It just felt like I was forcing my body to do something that it didn’t want to do. So I didn’t race well within those five months but after a while then I started building up to it. So as much as they might think, hey we can get a high school athlete to run this time. It just really doesn’t work like that.
DH: Got you. So let me ask you, when you look back on your competitive years, what would you say is the biggest lesson or are the biggest lessons you have taken away from it?
KC: I think the biggest lesson is patience. Every single year that I’ve been running, whenever I switch to a different stage, for instance when I went from high school to Junior College, I pushed myself within that first year so hard that I got injured because I wasn’t patient. Then the same thing happened when I went to University and for me, I just didn’t learn from that because I was like, oh, I can run five minutes pace every single day, nothing’s wrong with that. And then I started realizing like my body’s breaking down. You just need to be patient. Sometimes people don’t want to hear this but patience can go a long, long way within this sport. You don’t just get up one day and just decide. Oh, you know what? I’ll get up and run a 13, 14 minute 5K. I didn’t do that. And don’t get me wrong, people might say you weren’t working hard enough. Anybody who I’ve run with it here can tell you whenever I’m out there running they’re like, you need to slow it down a bit because I just saw myself like I have something to prove. I need to like work harder than the next person so I can like prove this but it’s all about patience.
DH: Patience is an important watchword for all of us I think, regardless of whether it’s again sports or other aspects of life because I think we work hard and especially if you have a competitive streak as athletes do, you want to succeed and you want to succeed now. But it’s not always possible because as you say, there’s a process that all of us need to go through regardless of our field of endeavor and if you are not willing to….. put the work in but recognize that it’s going to take you a while before the work kind of kicks into high gear, you’re going to create more harm than good, I would say.
So, Kemoy, let’s go back a little bit to the events that led to you writing that post. So, before February 9th, 2019, did you notice anything different, did you notice any changes that took place in your body during training?
KC: Definitely. There were a few times in practice and usually as I said, a regular Jamaican would say oh it’s too cold here, maybe that’s what’s causing it, or whatever. That was my explanation. I was in practice a few times and I realized I couldn’t breathe. If it’s a normal workout where I’m keeping a steady pace, I’m fine but if it’s a workout where I have to start sprinting at the end or something or I’m doing faster stuff I realized I couldn’t breathe and my heart started racing but for me, it was always whenever it was extremely cold. So I was like, yeah, it must be the cold. It must be the cold air affecting something and I never gave it a second thought. I never gave it a second thought because I was just like you’re running, obviously, you’re going to be breathing heavily. But then I started realizing like it’s happening way too often.
And I just didn’t know what it was and that time I didn’t really have health insurance as an athlete. So I was trying to figure out like ways to go to the doctor and I went to the doctor one day and they told me, she didn’t know what was going on because she was a sports doctor and when I explained she said to me, honestly, I can’t tell you because we can’t differentiate just by looking at you if it’s your lungs or your heart because I thought I had exercise-induced asthma and she was saying let’s come back and do a test. I had scheduled testing for the following Monday and I went to New York and raced the Saturday and the incident happened Saturday, even before I could do the testing stuff.
DH: Yeah. You mentioned something which I guess warrants a broader conversation about insurance for athletes, which we probably won’t delve into too much but I can speak from personal experience as well. When I was training for my third Olympics I had a torn meniscus in both knees and a swollen knee, but I didn’t have insurance so you know athletes, we’re tough guys you just kind of work through the pain and you get it done.
So obviously, the lack of insurance played a role in you not seeking medical attention sooner. But it’s Saturday, February 9th, 2019. You wake up, you go to the track, you warm-up, you get ready for your race. Was there anything that you sensed that was generally speaking, different about that day?
KC: The only thing that I remember from what you were saying, you wake up. The only thing I remember was me waking up going on the bus, talking to one of my friends, nothing after that.
DH: Yeah, wow. That’s interesting. Notwithstanding that, you’re the pace setter for this 3000-meter race and I believe you stepped off the track just short of the halfway point. So, I’m guessing that this is a decision that would have been made even before that day. Was that the plan for you to step off the track before the halfway point?
KC: No, good thing I remember what the plan was. So the plan was I would run a mile at 4:06 or 4:03 or something like that. That’s what I’d go through the mile in. I heard because I have to use “I heard”. I don’t really want to watch the video. So I heard whenever I got to 800m, I stepped off and clutched my chest and my fiancée said when she saw that she didn’t know what was going on. It seemed like nobody knew what was going on. And it must have been like for me whenever I was in practice here if I pushed myself a little bit and I felt something like that I’d be like, oh no, I’m backing off. There’s no way I’m going to push myself to that because I don’t know what it is. But in a race where you’re pacing people I might have just overlooked it and just say hey, it’s nothing. I’ll just keep going and it might go away but all I heard was I stepped off the track and held my chest and then went down.
DH: So yeah, and as you said, you don’t remember anything, but I have to assume that since you were supposed to go a mile and you stepped off well short of that, that you’re probably feeling something that forced you to step off. I’ve watched the video and what I saw was you stepping off the track and collapsing right there and then and again, you’re saying you don’t remember anything of that moment.
KC: None. Nothing at all. The only thing I remember is waking up in the hospital on Monday, seeing my fiancée in front of me, my two younger brothers and their faces just looking grim. And I asked them where am I, what am I doing here? And that was the Monday. So that’s all I remember.
DH: Saturday, Sunday, Monday all this time…. that part of your life is blank, it’s deleted. How long did they say you were out for Kemoy?
KC: You mean in terms of the time on the track?
DH: The track, yes.
KC: I’ve been hearing different stories because some people said that they took a while to respond to it because no one knew what was going on. But then I met one of the persons who did CPR. I’m met two of the persons who did CPR actually who kind of helped me to get oxygen to my brain or whatever but to my fiancée, it’s going to look like a much longer time because obviously, it’s somebody you care about. I can’t tell you exactly how much time it was, but I’ve heard they didn’t respond as quickly as they should or should have but I can’t tell you what time it was.
DH: Got you. But then I also read know that your heart stopped for a bit.
KC: Yes, it did.
DH: And the doctors are saying that only like two percent of people who have experienced the event that you have experienced kind of come back normal.
KC: Yes, so whenever I was in the hospital like we were just talking one day and I guess they weren’t giving me clear information because they kept saying like…….. we wanted to figure out what was wrong or what caused this and stuff and they couldn’t figure it out and my fiancée got mad at one of the nurse’s or one of the doctor’s because she kept saying “you died, you died”, but for my fiancée it’s traumatic hearing that constantly. So she said can you just stop saying that and stuff and then the doctor started explaining like listen, he went into cardiac arrest so his heart stopped so, clinically, like we call it whatever, but we can stop saying that. Then she was explaining like it’s a miracle that he’s here and functional because only 2% of people that this thing happens to come back with brain function and even can move around and stuff.
So, somebody was looking out for me then. It was just great that I think and this is one of my passion is trying to get people to learn CPR. Because I think that could save somebody’s life. I think if those two civilians that day didn’t know CPR, my brain would have been damaged. Because it was like a random girl who just decided to run on the track and give me CPR while I’m laying there. The officials at the meet apparently didn’t know what was going on. They didn’t know what was going on. So if it wasn’t for that girl, maybe I would have had brain damage.
DH: It’s really interesting because you know, until your incident and watching previous interviews of you I never gave thought to CPR in terms of the impact it would have on your brain. When I think of CPR, I think of your lungs but obviously if your lungs aren’t working, it’s not taking in oxygen and oxygen isn’t flowing through your body and your brain needs the air…..needs oxygen in order to survive and so you’re absolutely right. I’m glad they were there to give you CPR.
So you’re in the hospital and the doctors are telling you that, you’ve literally died and it’s a miracle because only two percent of people experience this even come back with normal brain function. What prognosis did they give to you then about your future and sports?
KC: So the minute I woke up they basically told me we don’t want you doing it again. I was optimistic because I as I said, I think I said this in an interview with The Gleaner, every athlete looks at themselves as superhuman. Every athlete thinks they’re working hard every single day, so nothing can touch them, no illness or anything, right? That’s how I saw myself. I was so focused on getting back to running that I wasn’t focused on, oh, this thing could happen again. Maybe this time when it happens, you’re going to die for real and the doctors were basically telling me this but that’s not what I was hearing. I was just hearing like maybe you can’t run again. That’s what I was hearing.
DH: Right, yeah, you’re looking for a window to jump through.
KC: Exactly. I’m just like, I have to run again because. I just don’t want Reebok to cut my contract either, you know? So I was saying like what do you mean I can’t run again? And they told me listen, this thing, we don’t know and because they don’t know what caused it so they’re afraid that if I go out there and run again the same incident might happen again. They don’t know what caused it. Multiple tests were done like genealogy testing, echocardiograms, blood, all sorts of tests were done they still haven’t found why. Heart biopsy, everything was done, still didn’t find out what caused it. And so that kind of just gave them the conclusion that like hey, listen, we don’t want you doing this because if you do this it’s your life at risk.
DH: Couple of questions, one, so right after the incident….. the event what kind of I guess physical activities did you engage in? What were you doing to kind of regain your strength?
KC: I mean, right after the incident when I was in the hospital they just had me walking around a bit. When I woke up the Monday, which this is really surprising to me, I had to basically learn to walk again and that was just two days of just like being out and that was kind of strange to me but after I got out of the hospital, I remember they were telling me like I should go on walks, don’t push myself, that I should go on walks. If I’m going up the stairs probably have someone standing behind me just in case I fall down the stairs. And I remember whenever I went on walks right afte,r my head would get so light and I’d get so dizzy and start seeing colors, like flashing colors. So I would just go on really short walks.
Sometimes I’ll end up just doing 5 minutes if I could reach that far. The max I went, I remember the first time was like 10 minutes and I was at my fiancée’s house because her family was kind of helping me out then so I would go on walks with them so I wasn’t by myself. So that’s what I was doing at first. Then I started, as I said being an athlete you start doing stuff you’re not supposed to do so I started pushing myself basically going on 15-minute walks and stuff and it started getting better but I realized while going up the stairs still my legs were extremely weak. I’ll get dizzy and start breathing heavily while going up the stairs. So I still needed a bit of help to go up the stairs and stuff but after a while, I started using the stairs as a way to like kind of help strengthening my heart again, right? Cause if I’m not pushing myself a little bit then… They told me to push myself a little bit but not go overboard. So that’s what I basically did.
DH: Got you, yeah. And so at the beginning of our interview you mentioned that you are active. Can you speak a little bit more specifically about what you’re doing and also what your diet is like now?
KC: So, right now my diet, almost all the foods I eat either have really low sodium or no sodium at all. Everybody likes the flavor to your food, especially if you’re Jamaican, so I’ve tried to use sodium substitutes now which adds the flavor but it’s not the same as salt obviously, but that’s what my diet has been. A lot of fruits, I’ve been eating lots of fruits and for exercising I mountain-bike a lot, I cycle a lot.
DH: How far are you going? How long?
KC: I’ve gone 35 miles on cycle and mountain biking I try not to go too far because obviously, it’s a different terrain so you’re climbing uphill. You don’t want to get your heart rate up too much. So if I do it, I’ll probably do like maybe four miles of it and whenever I get to a hill, I usually just jump off the bike and stuff and depending on how bad the incline is but I’ve been doing that and then every now and then I go to the gym maybe run for at least a mile or two miles and then I lift as well.
DH: So are you worried Kemoy, that this might happen again? How are you dealing with this mentally?
KC: It’s funny because I feel like I’ve gotten back into a regular routine and I just think I’m not doing anything intense to kind of trigger it, so I’m not really worried that’s the thing. I’m not worried and then they put an ICD device here, which you can probably see through the shirt, right here, which if the incident happens, it could potentially shock my heart back into rhythm. I’m not saying I want to test this out obviously because I wouldn’t but it’s just nice knowing you have insurance. And then I also think about like if I’m going mountain biking which I love doing I’m not going to go like a crazy man when I know I’m out here alone.
DH: Yeah. So how was that thing attached? Is it just like on a belt wrapped around your body?
KC: This is like a subcutaneous device meaning it’s under the skin and then they have a wire running from the device coming across under my pecs right here all the way up to here.
DH: And all of it to include the device is under your skin?
KC: Under my skin, yeah.
DH: Wow, that’s amazing. You use the term I think superhuman earlier, you know, obviously as an elite athlete you are fi. As a distance runner, especially, cardiovascular wise you are really fit, really strong and I find that, we tend to use the word fitness as synonymous with health and as athletes, yeah, you’re absolutely right we push our bodies so hard I mean, in ways that the average person would not understand or even appreciate and because we do that we oftentimes feel invincible. What advice would you have for fellow athletes, certainly in terms of them minding their health?
KC: One of the biggest advice I have for athletes is don’t ever think you’re superhuman. You are just as human as everybody else walking around in this world. The only difference is you have learned how to push your body beyond the limits of a regular human being that does not mean you’re not human. And your health is as important as a normal person’s health is to them as well. So if you’re doing more….. obviously as an athlete you are doing more, you need to make sure you’re taking care of your health more than the average person would, because chances are if something happens to a regular person where they’re like, okay, I’m out here walking, my leg hurts I’ve never felt that before they’d go to the doctos, say my leg hurts. Doctor asks, are you active? No. An athlete you’re in practice, every day your leg hurts because you’re in practice. You’re working extremely hard. If something’s outside the ordinary where it hurts like it’s unbearable that’s the time like I mean, you should stay on top of your health more than anybody else. That’s what I think.
DH: Yeah, absolutely right. We push ourselves so hard and we have such a high tolerance for pain and any sign of what I’m going to call weakness, we see as weakness…..you’re like stop being lazy, pushing through this and it could be not a matter of fitness, but a matter of health. And my advice to all of us…. so I sometimes say my doctor thinks I’m a hypochondriac because if I have pain in my elbows or my knees or whatever….. oh, please, you know what? I can live with that. If I’m feeling any pain that is supposedly internal I’m like doc, you need to check this out, right? And so that would be my advice to athletes and everybody else. Stop playing hero, if you think something is wrong, go and get it checked.
Because Kemoy, let’s face it, you literally came back from the dead, as the doctors would say. So, how has that changed your outlook on life?
KC: I mean one thing I’ve learned…I guess I was close with my family but not as close as I am now. Just looking at how much it affects the people around you…. people will realize that whenever this thing happens. It just doesn’t happen to you. And when you’re unconscious and you’re fighting for your life, you don’t know what’s going on around you, how it’s affecting the people around you, how much it hurts them. Then their health, they don’t take their health into consideration after that. So if you want to save you and your family and your loved ones some trouble you have to make sure you take care of yourself as well.
And to answer your question, I think that’s what it has done to me. I have appreciated every single moment I spend with my family. Every single day I am out here doing something whether it’s hiking, mountain biking, whatever, every single day….you don’t have to be on this earth, so I have appreciated these days much more than I used to.
DH: The old-age question I would say, Kemoy, about life is, is it fair or unfair? How would you categorize life?
KC: The only time I feel like I would say life is unfair, because I’ve always been this type of person and maybe that’s why people like being around me, I think everything happens for a reason and there’s a greater purpose, if something happens and it derails you to do something else. I think there’s a greater purpose. I think my purpose now is to educate people so the same thing doesn’t happen to them or to train somebody else to do what I couldn’t do. So those two things are mine. I’ve gotten the chance to improve my photography, I’ve gotten the chance to do a lot of other stuff that I couldn’t do while I was doing track and I think to answer your question is life unfair, the only time I see life as unfair is if I go to practice one day and I see one of my teammates acting like they don’t want to practice. That is the only time.
DH: So they’re getting an opportunity and are wasting it?
KC: Exactly, that’s how I look at it.
DH: Got you. When you look back on your competitive career, what would you say now is your biggest regret and by extension, what are you most proud of?
KC: I think my biggest regret is not taking care of, well, I would say not taking care of my nutritional needs better. Because I think if I improved most of my eating my performance would have been much, much better. And then my biggest accomplishment, it’s funny my fiancé always says, oh my God, you went to the Olympics that should be it but, no. It is finishing 10th at Worlds for me because Jamaicans understand that more than they understand, oh, Olympics. Americans understand the Olympics. Jamaicans, you understand position.
DH: Positions, placings, right.
KC: Placings, yeah. So for me finishing 10th at Worlds this I think can basically change a whole mindset as we go back to the younger people in Jamaica showing like hey, this guy did it, why can’t I do it?
DH: Yeah. You started answering this question for me because you talked about a bigger purpose, right? And when we talk about learning from life’s unsavory experiences I described it as seeing the good in everything. As you reflect on what has happened to you Kemoy, you have had dreams cut short, you have the struggles and the joy of going through the process of achieving those dreams kind of being taken away, the days when you struggle to breathe because you’re running 10-15 miles and then at the end of it you feel this euphoria from the running, the fact that you almost died, in fact, that you died and the emotional trauma that your loved ones suffered as a result. What good has come of this? I know you started answering that if you could expand on that for me.
KC: I mean the good that has come from this I think is just, for me, I’ve learned a lot more about myself than I did. So I’ve learned I can endure a lot more than I thought I could and I’ve learned I can overcome. I think one of my biggest things is trying to overcome this. So I recently got invited to the army for Melrose Games and I think if I can go back there to the place where it happened and get over that then I’ll see myself as a person who can definitely overcome anything because for me I just think hey, it’s tough because it’s always going to be in the back of your head like, oh that’s were the incident happened. That’s where the incident happened but at the same time I think inner strength comes from how you handle things, how you look at things and I’ve learned so much about my own inner strength, and I think that it’s one thing going out there running and pushing through pain, but it’s another thing dealing with stuff emotionally and mentally. It’s totally different from physical pain and some might say……well, I’m going to say it’s much harder than the physical pain because at the end of the day the physical pain goes away, but like mentally it’s always there sometimes. So for me, I would say mentally I’ve become a much tougher person mentally.
DH: Got you. May we be able to deal with these unsavory experiences that life throws at us these curveballs and tap deep to connect with our inner strength and get stronger as you have. So, we talked about keep on pushing, kind of getting past the obstacles and taking life to the next level, what’s next at this juncture? You are retired at the young age of 28 from a sport you love, what’s next on the plate for Kemoy Campbell?
KC: So the next thing. I’ve been working on my photography as I’ve said. I’ve put a lot of work into that and then also I’m planning to start coaching a bit. Obviously, I’m still young so I’m going to try to learn as much as I can from whoever I’m with. I mean, I have a lot of experience from running so I know a lot about running. So that’s another thing that I’m planning on doing and then I’m working with I Too Have A Heart in Jamaica. I haven’t done much for them recently but yeah, I’m a part of their campaign and every now and then like once the Heart Foundation of Jamaica contacted me to do some stuff for them as well. Then I’m working with Team Jamaica Bickle as an ambassador. They’re a foundation that provides AEDs to high schools in Jamaica. So, incidents like mine don’t happen without them having some assurance of keeping that person alive. So I’ve been keeping busy, I would say.
That’s one way and that’s another way just to kind of helped build my mentality like just not to think about what happened because I cannot change what happened. I can only move on and just improve my well-being and my life. So, that’s some of the ways I’m trying to l even help give back or educate the public so they know t is necessary for you to get checked up. People don’t think that but it is necessary.
DH: So you can’t change what has happened, it’s important for you to move on and take care of your well-being and that is just…..I want to say deep, that’s just really good solid advice and a good example that you’re setting for people who have to deal with challenges as we can never change what has happened, but we can always choose how we move on from there. I asked earlier about what good can come of what you have experienced and what you just outlined to me just sounds like some great good. You working with the Heart Foundation in Jamaica, Team Jamaica Bickle and I guess developing a new passion for photography. So if people wanted to find you Kemoy, maybe they want to have you come shoot something for them or get some of your prints…..what kind of stuff do you shoot by the way? I should ask that.
KC: So, my main focus is landscapes and portraits so, I’ve been doing a lot of works on those. I’ve shot a couple of wildlife as well and if anyone actually wants to check out some of these shots they can go on KRCphotography.photos and that will help them see some of the work that I’ve done.
DH: KRCphotography.photos. All right, cool. What kind of wildlife are you shooting? When you say wildlife to Jamaicans we get very antsy, you know?
KC: No, so I recently had a trip to Alaska and I shot some bears, caribous, moose. I have this one really cool shot where I caught a bear with a salmon in his mouth.
DH: Not many people get to see that live.
KC: [01:09:32] Yeah, but that’s the thing, that’s my passion. It’s something that I’ve been doing for years, photography, but because of running it has kind of had to go on the backseat so now, I can do this stuff. So the only thing I have to do is just start selling them because they’re great shots, I think. If people look at it, then they can decide for themselves but yeah these are just some of the works I’ve done.
DH: KRCphotography.photos, right? Folks get over there, man, quick. KRCphotography.photos, that’s where you’re going to see…. the only place I would argue, you’re going to see a bear with a salmon in his mouth and he was shot by a Jamaican and when we say shot we mean with a camera, not with a gun.
Kemoy, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on keep on pushing. You have lead an exemplary life in so many ways. You’ve been as I started out this interview saying a trailblazer, blazing a trail in distance running in the land of sprinters and setting such a tremendous example for others. Whether you’re shy little boy or girl from Kingston or from the country or wherever else in Jamaica, but beyond that just in life and then taking this really challenging experience and turning it into a force for good. That my friend exemplifies the keep on pushing philosophy and so thank you again for coming on and I want to wish you just the best of luck in all your future endeavors.
KC: Thank you very much.
DH: Yeah, man. Thank you.
