I have always been involved in sport, having played football for Bristol Rovers and at county level when I was younger. That continued after arriving at Oxford, although in several different forms. In my first year, I ran the London Marathon for Alzheimer’s Research UK. In my second, I rowed with my college, and more recently, I took up boxing, competing against Cambridge to pick up the illusive ‘Blue’ and accompanying blazer.
Trying to pursue sport alongside a PhD has not always been easy, but it has been one of the most enjoyable parts of my time at Oxford. It has helped me step away from work, manage stress and maintain a competitive outlet outside academia. At the same time, Oxford sport can become extremely demanding, so finding a balance is sometimes challenging!
There is always more work to do
One of the difficulties of doing a PhD is that the work never feels completely finished. There is always another paper to read, experiment to run, result to analyse or paragraph to improve. If you wait until everything is done before exercising, you may never leave your desk (which is sometimes the case).
Sport creates boundaries that research rarely creates for itself. Training begins at a fixed time, teammates expect you to be there and competitions cannot be rearranged around your workload. I have often gone to training feeling that I should have stayed at my desk, only to return less stressed and able to concentrate more clearly. Taking a break can feel unproductive, but spending another hour staring at the same problem is not always the best way to solve it.
What sport adds to academic life
Sport develops many of the same qualities that academic work demands. Training consistently requires discipline, progress is rarely linear and poor performances teach you to keep going when things are not working as you hoped. It also provides a competitive outlet and a clearer sense of progress than research often does, which can be valuable when your PhD feels slow or uncertain.
Just as importantly, sport introduces you to people beyond your department and gives you something meaningful outside your work. During a PhD, it is easy to let academic progress determine how you feel about yourself. Having another community and another part of your life that matters helps keep a failed experiment or unproductive week in perspective.
Of course, sport does not need to be justified entirely by the lessons it teaches. At the end of the day, it is something I enjoy doing.
When play becomes more work
Although having another ambitious goal alongside your studies can also be extremely rewarding, the difficulty is that sport at Oxford can quickly become a serious commitment. Chasing a varsity place can demand a great deal of training, recovery and focus. Sometimes sport may genuinely matter more than your studies (in the lead-up to a competition, for instance), and that is fine, provided it is a deliberate choice and that things are still kept in perspective, rather than something you have been swept into without considering the trade-offs.
Finding the balance
Balance does not mean dividing every day equally between work and sport, nor does it mean always putting your studies first. There will be periods when training deserves more attention and others when academic work must take priority.
Moderation does not mean lacking ambition. You can train seriously, chase difficult goals and care about winning while still maintaining perspective. Equally, working hard does not require allowing your PhD to consume every other part of your life.
Sport has made my time at Oxford busier and occasionally harder to manage, but it has also made it far more enjoyable. It has given me friendships, challenges and experiences that I would never have found through academic work alone. It may even have made me better at my PhD, but that is not the only reason it was worth doing.
