After five minutes of being harnessed in and looking 75 feet down, my heart raced and my palms sweated. I felt scared – very scared – but leaving the platform via the stairs wasn’t an option…
I was committed to the jump. it was just a matter of gathering the courage.
How did I know in my mind I would do it? Because leaving one’s comfort zone is like a muscle – the more you do it, the easier it gets, even if it still feels difficult.
Ever since moving across the country as a teenager to accept an athletic scholarship to a college where I knew nobody, I’ve slowly gotten comfortable feeling uncomfortable – a skill that has consistently helped me to conquer fear and live a fuller life.
Think of all the brave things you’ve done in life.What’s the next scary thing on your list?
A limiting belief I’ve told myself for over a decade is that I can’t run high mileage without getting injured. (I started to try once, when I first got to college, and…got injured, with a stress fracture, after increasing from 25 miles a week in high school to 50 miles a week, within less than four months).
Three months ago, when covid wiped all of my races off the calendar for a few months, I figured it was time to go for it again, using all the information I’ve gathered over the years from reading running books, and observing my training and others’.
“What did I have to lose?” I figured.
This week’s training stats of 80 miles of running (along with 53 miles of biking and a couple hours of strength training) exceeded my goal of hitting a 65 mile week (after hovering around 45-50 most of my athletic career).
Looping through trails may not lead to a cure for cancer, (though I am learning quite a bit about cool topics like neuroscience, social psychology, grit, and motivation from my self-help audiobooks), but it has allowed me to expand what I think is possible, a discovery I’m confident will flow over into other parts of my life in a positive way, and inspire my daughter, too.
And while this piece of running mileage is setting me up for a potentially excellent season, if I get so fortunate as to safely have one), it’s done that much more than that for me. It has proven to me that I can focus and get more organized than I thought I could, resulting in accomplishing more than I thought possible (at least for the disorganized, monkey-minded, stress fracture-prone me, who, even if her body could handle the mileage wasn’t sure her mind could).
Tips for increasing mileage:
only increase mileage by no more than 10% each week (so if you run 30 miles in one week, only add up to three more miles the following week)
so the two weeks up, one week down method: incrementally increase your mileage for two weeks by 10% each week, and then decrease by 20% for a week before building on to the previous weeks total by 10%
proactively schedule and self-care, such as dynamic stretching before your run, static stretching after, doing mobility work, foam rolling, and putting your feet up the wall
eat plenty of nutrient-dense food and always have a water bottle nearby for adequate hydration
And if you start to feel rundown, in the words of my Georgetown track coach, “When in doubt, take a nap“ or a day off from running.
Whenever I hear the comment, “You have, like, no body fat,” I cringe a little inside…
The “nice girl” in me awkwardly says, “Thanks,” knowing it’s meant to be a compliment, but the grown-ass woman in me wants to say, “Of course I have body fat! If I didn’t, I’d be dead!”
You can’t see much on my arms right now, but it’s because I’m genetically pear-shaped, so it prefers to live on my thighs more than on my arms and abs.
In order to live the healthiest version of themselves, most people are looking to lose fat, but some people actually need to gain some fat to keep their body functioning and their hormones happy. It’s all about balance.
AS LITTLE BODY FAT AS POSSIBLE IS NOT A HEALTHY GOAL!
If I hadn’t have kept enough fat on my during my 2016 race season, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my period and get pregnant one month after the long, grueling Spartan World Championship, and I cannot imagine my life without our precious Taylor.
In my decade as a personal trainer, rather than focus on a particular weight or body fat percentage, I encouraged people to work out using the peaks and valleys method (hard day followed by easy day), eat healthy 80% of the time, and try not to overthink or over analyze anything.
If people work out consistently and eat well in general, the body will find a healthy composition for it’s unique self, allowing people to enjoy their lives rather than constantly fight their body to look different.
Another comment I get sometimes is, “I’m just not that disciplined.”
My answer to that is usually “Oh, exercise is my therapy,” or “I get paid to work out.”
I realize I could just say “thanks” and leave it at that, but when I see other people, usually women, looking at me with less with a smile of admiration and more of a critiquing frown on their own body, I feel compelled to give some context to my body, and acknowledge that I got there originally because I had a stressful childhood and running (as opposed to singing or art) happened to be my therapy of choice.
Couple that with some natural talent and good coaches and I started getting rewarded for it (high-fives! hugs! scholarship!), so I doubled-down on my dedication and eventually became a professional athlete.
Now I literally get paid to work out, so even though yes, it still takes a lot of discipline, it’s not the level of discipline required from someone with an 8-10 hour job, plus a family to take care of and/or a social life to navigate on top of trying to find time and energy to work out well.
In the same way that it would be silly and stressful of me to compare my mediocre cooking to a professional chef, I encourage anyone looking at photos of professional athletes to remember that not only do we get paid to work out, but the photos you see of us are generally action shots with muscles engaged. (Sometimes I’ll look at a photo of me swinging on an obstacle and think, “My back does not look like that when I look at it in the mirror.”)
And most important, we all have different genes and body shapes, with no one particular size/shape defining what is healthy or fit.
I’ve spent just enough time on the comparison train to know it doesn’t make me happy, so I’ll take my defined arms/abs + thighs that sometimes rub together while others can have their apple-shape with defined legs + love handles, and still others, their whole-body curves, and we can all dance away to the beat of our own drums.
(I’d like to give my friends in eating disorder recovery a huge shout-out for opening up about their experiences and working to change the conversation around body image. One of my biggest anxieties about having a daughter revolved around the fear of watching her potentially get sucked into society’s trap of judging her self-worth on what her body looks like, and I feel more encouraged each day that she can be free to love herself regarding of what the scale says. Thank you, Amelia, Bailey, Cali, Nell, and Rea!)
Let’s be real – many of us stay fit because we love to race and race well. Take those races away and it can be tough to maintain motivation. I applaud people who can push themselves to high levels of fitness without racing – digging deep at the gym or on a trail just for the pure satisfaction of it. I’m married to one of those – my husband, Tim, can SPRINT on the stepmill for 30-45 minutes, sweating profusely, for no reason other than to feel fit, vital, healthy, and alive.
Unfortunately, that’s not me.
I need start lines, big challenges, competitors to push me, and people to cheer me on. Maybe it’s because Tim, is the self-confident oldest of a small, normal, loving, attentive family, and feels he has nothing to prove, whereas I’m the 8th of a big family of nine kids – the youngest girl – stilling fighting for attention and respect even as I (gulp) push 40.
If anyone out there can relate to my experience, going through a long period without racing is tough. We miss the thrill of it, the accountability of it, the celebration after it. I’ve been there – while pregnant, I was fortunate enough to be able run throughout my pregnancy BUT being able to run without the ability to race (at least not all-out) also meant I had to find motivation to get my me and my belly out of bed and onto the track or trails with no races to try win or no personal records to attempt to set.
A few ideas for getting through this weird time:
1. Compete with yourself
Create personal benchmarks, e.j. fastest mile time or max pushups
Do virtual races/charity challenges
2. Compete with others
Chase local Strava segments and FKTs (Fastest Known Times)
Go for a creative Guinness World Record
Enlist a friend in some friendly head-to-head competition
3. Take a break from competing
Do whatever you want to, including something new, with no agenda
Work on mental game, flexibility/mobility/yoga
Take an extra long off-season and focus on other priorities, guilt-free
Whichever you choose – good luck, hang in there, and have fun!
This year taught me important life lessons: believe in yourself, be patient and persistent, forgive, empower yourself, and above all, never give up on yourself and your goals.
How did I learn them? The hard way of course…
One year ago today, I almost gave up.
After a distressing phone call from a long-time sponsor (a beet juice company) telling me they weren’t going to support me anymore because they “didn’t know how to market me” or that I, as I interpreted it, “wasn’t good enough anymore, since becoming a mom,” I realized they didn’t believe in me. They didn’t believe that I still had potential or fire, that anyone would still bother paying attention to who I represented and what I had to say.
I let anxiety get the best of me, turning that week into my worst Christmas ever. I stressed over every penny. We didn’t get a Christmas tree or gifts; Santa didn’t come for Taylor, which made me feel like a bad mom, a failure.
I felt the wolves of depression gnawing at my heels again, trying to pull me back into the woods, after I had finally clawed my way out of the depths of postpartum depression six months prior.
Amidst doubt and frustration, I also felt mad. The people at the beet juice company knew I was my family’s sole income earner while Tim stayed at home with Taylor, searching for a good post-cancer career after our move to Colorado, yet they’d waited weeks before getting back to me about plans for the following year, giving me no heads-up things would suddenly change after 5 years of working together. I felt angry because I knew they had been off enjoying a company holiday party without the courtesy of letting me know I was getting canned while I still had time to find another sponsor before the end of the year.
With no holiday plans or travel, I worked out HARD that week, taking my frustration out on wind sprints and ball slams.
But then despite doing nearly nothing to celebrate, a bit of Christmas magic must’ve found its way into my sad, angry heart, and I suddenly realized the only person who has to believe in me….is me.
So I chose to believe in myself, and that was all that mattered.
The good news? American Ninja Warrior, CLIF Bar (a loyal longtime sponsor), and, eventually, two awesome new sponsors, PurePower, and MitoQ, all chose to believe in me, too, and had no problem finding ways to market this mama, from a feature during prime-time NBC to a full-page print article in the New Zealand Herald.
As for fire, I used it to fuel my training, which propelled me to a podium spot at the first big Spartan Series two months later and secure a fourth place in the Series Championship standings.
They say “holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die,” so I let go of all anger and resentment, and choosing to focus on gratitude instead – for Tim and our playful toddler, for health, for sunsets, for hope.
They say “when one door closes, another one opens”…
Today, exactly one year later, I am happy and grateful to report that I just had the exact opposite experience: the fantastic CMO of MitoQ just wrote to tell me that everyone there values my partnership, and they are requesting to expand it next year!
If I hadn’t been fired by the beet juice company, which had expanded into supplements, I wouldn’t have been able to partner with MitoQ, and I would not have this fantastic offer before me, which will allow me to train better next year.
And even though at the time it was a tough pill to swallow, I’m also grateful for the lessons I learned, making me a stronger, softer, more grateful and resilient person.
This year taught me important life lessons: believe in yourself, be patient and persistent, forgive, empower yourself, and above all, never give up on yourself and your goals.
They say “when one door closes, another one opens”…
Today, exactly one year later, I am happy and grateful to report that I just had the exact opposite experience: the fantastic CMO of MitoQ just wrote to tell me that everyone there values my partnership, and they are requesting to expand it next year!
If I hadn’t been fired by the beet juice company, which had expanded into supplements, I wouldn’t have been able to partner with MitoQ, and I would not have this fantastic offer before me, which will allow me to train better next year.
And even though at the time it was a tough pill to swallow, I’m also grateful for the lessons I learned, making me a stronger, softer, more grateful and resilient person.