Obstacles arise for everyone, but for Lennex Walker, they always seem to strike at a most inopportune moment.

Take her freshman season. She spent all that year getting acclimated to college athletics, taking her lumps and building strength with an eye on peaking at the conference championships. The plan was going smoothly until a popped left hamstring at the Indoor championships left her unable to finish the pentathlon and unable to do more than run the 60m hurdles—which she earned a bronze medal in, on one good leg, somehow.

So. A set back is a set up for a comeback, right? One roadblock behind her, Walker restarted the process for outdoor season, with the same goal: unleash the full Lennex Walker Experience—the hurdles, the multis, the jumps—on an unsuspecting Ohio Valley Conference.

And she was doing it, too—she hit personal-bests in both the 100m hurdles and 200m dash at the in the preliminary rounds in Cookeville that year, and was a good bet, if not a shoo-in, to medal in at least one and possibly both.

And then.

Walker finished eighth in both events, securing points for the Govs but her medal aspirations were kaput for the year. She had a pretty good reason, though; her heavily-bandaged right leg, the result of another, more severe, popped hamstring, left her barely able to walk, let alone run. She could've begged out entirely, as those two points were not going to be the difference in a title or not that year, but instead she gritted her teeth and finished, nowhere near full strength, because she felt she owed her teammates that much.

Letting her teammates and coaches down is not and never has been an option for Walker. 

"They've always been there for me, before and after meets, pushing me in practices," she said. "To come to this school and have it be like a family, that's something that's important to me. So if I have a decision to make, I first think about how it will affect them."

The pedigree Walker arrived with at Austin Peay could have given her an inflated sense of self; as a senior at the Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences (CSAS), she pulled off one of the most impressive feats in TSSAA track and field history by winning five events (long jump, triple jump, 100m hurdles, 300m hurdles and the pentathlon). She was a star unto herself, with a lengthy collegiate career ahead of her. To think of oneself first in a moment when the stakes aren't terribly high wouldn't be unnatural; some might call it prudent.

But that wasn't her only motivation. She had earned the right to be in the finals, and even if she could barely move, she wanted to let her fellow competitors know it would take more than injury to keep her down.

"It's a privilege to make it to the finals and run," she said. "Even if I couldn't be at 100 percent, I wanted to show my face and let it be known that I was here and I had made it."

The experience fueled the fire for her training after her freshman season, and the results showed in her sophomore campaign—a gold medal performance in the 60m hurdles at the 2019 OVC Indoor Championships and a similar result in the 100m hurdles at the 2019 OVC Outdoor games.

She's settled into her groove over the last couple of years now. She's harnessed her versatility, used it to become a better across-the-board athlete while strengthening her mental game to accompany her natural physical gifts.

"What helps with competing in the different events is applying different skills across them all in training," she said. "They all relate in some way or another. Say I'm at hurdle practice, and Coach (TJ) Pride is telling me to be sure I'm up on my toes go through hurdle drills; I can apply that the next day when I'm going through long jump drills, to be sure I'm going off my toe when I take off at the board for the long jump." 

On meet day, no one is busier than Lennex Walker. Competing in myriad events each week, with staggered starts for heats and flights and plenty of down time throughout the day, how she manages her time and her mind is as important as how she performs when the gun goes off. A race can be lost long before its run without the proper preparation, but Walker's mental game keeps her at peak performance all day long. Good, bad or somewhere in between, her ability to compartmentalize the results keeps her focus fully on what's in front of her.

"I definitely have to remind myself to take it bit-by-bit and to have short-term memory," she said. "Since I'm going to be competing in so many events, I can't keep dwelling on the first event if I didn't do well. I have to be able to adjust quickly."

This approach helped her just as much off the track this past season. Because even though the Governors won an OVC Indoor title – thanks in no small part to Walker's 60m hurdles title and a silver-medal showing in the triple jump – the excitement and satisfaction was muted once COVID-19 wiped out the outdoor campaign. Not because the Govs didn't get to fully enjoy the title or anything like that; banners hang forever.

It's because they had grand plans on making it a sweep during outdoor season.

"It made it a little easier, but it was still heartbreaking because we were planning to go and do the same in outdoor," she said. "We felt like we were just getting started, but we had to see the bigger picture and acknowledge that everyone's health is the most important thing."

She has a new fight in store now. In May, mid-pandemic, Walker spent 10 days hospitalized before learning she was suffering from Crohn's Disease, which can lead to severe inflammation of the digestive tract and provide the sort of regular (and crippling) discomfort that makes it hard for an athlete to compete at their highest level. For anyone else, it would be the sort of obstacle that would reshape their own expectation of self.

For Lennex Walker, it's another obstacle to be overcome.

"Right now, I'm still learning to deal with the pain and flare-ups," she said. "I know taking care of my body, getting enough rest and eating what I'm supposed to eat will help me manage. I don't yet know what it will be like going 100 percent; I think I will be fine on that front, but the big thing will be listening to and understanding my body."

Another obstacle. Another plan to overcome it. Another season to spend proving to anyone and everyone—herself, her teammates and coaches, anyone foolish enough to doubt her—that a little bit of adversity won't stop Lennex Walker from reaching her dreams.