From struggles to strides
How injuries made me an elite recreational runner
There’s an interesting paradox in life: the toughest circumstances tend to create the most amazing things. Atoms, when subjected to immense pressure, become diamonds. Grapes, when left to endure the harshest climates, produce the sweetest wine. My career and fitness journeys echo the same narrative: the greatest success coming from the greatest adversity.
I’ve been passionate about fitness for a long time. My proudest achievement is becoming an elite recreational runner. People ask how I got this far, so I want to tell the real story. It might not be what you think. Every inch of my fitness has come from years, even decades, of extremely hard work. Blood, sweat, and tears. Sometimes all three. Literally. There have been plenty of setbacks. But this is how I’ve come out the other side of each one better, faster, stronger, fitter than I was before.
The first wipeout
Here’s where the story really starts.
I was an active kid living in Canada. I’d been skiing since I was 3, so winter always beckoned me back to the sparkling snow.
One sunny weekend, the snow rested beautifully and the powder ran deep. We’d skied all day and were packing up when something pulled us back for "one last run." Little did I know, that run would alter the course of the next third of a year.
I pushed off and started down the slope. The next few seconds would change everything. I hit a patch of ice on the steepest part. I tried to regain my footing, but gravity had other ideas. I completely lost control and got swept down the mountain, doing literal somersaults. Skis are designed to release on impact. One did, but the other one never came off. After seconds of unintentional ski-acrobatics, I finally stopped myself towards the bottom, but it was too late. My leg was broken. It was a complex fracture that would almost leave me with permanent damage.
Everything that came next was a blur. As the ski patrol swirled around me, their voices faded into the distance. My mind was still trying to catch up with reality. I was in a world of pain, and for the first time in my life, I felt so utterly helpless.
When we got to the hospital, we got some good news. The doctors would be able to fix my leg without surgery. But they would need to get creative, and the healing time would take a while.
The next 4 months were filled with stillness as I recovered from the accident. This stark contrast to my previously ultra-active life was pure torture. I was sidelined, reduced to a spectator while life went on without me. When my leg finally healed, I couldn’t walk normally for a while. 4 months of immobility had taken a huge toll and it felt like a giant slap in the face.
Though I eventually made a full physical recovery, the mental scars remained. I was never able to ski the same again. That fearlessness and confidence I once had was gone. A few years later, I gave up skiing altogether and switched to snowboarding.
Snowboarding was freeing. It was a clean slate. It didn’t carry all the bad memories that rained on my experience every time I put on skis. And I don’t like rain. I’m not the band Garbage. I’m not happy when it rains.
Seeds of inner confidence
After the skiing accident, my mom’s perception of my body changed and she started seeing me as fragile. She wouldn’t let me do sports other kids took for granted, afraid I’d break my body again. Her perspective hung over my childhood like a dark cloud, ready to rain doubt on any athletic endeavor I wanted to pursue.
But deep inside, I knew she was wrong. I just knew it. I knew she was greatly underestimating what my body was capable of. I knew that her perception was limited to what she saw. And she didn’t see the big picture. But I did. And that was the important part. I saw my body when it was performing at its best. That’s what really mattered. She didn’t own my body, I did. I wasn’t going to let someone else write the narrative of what my body could and couldn’t do. That story was mine to write. Mine and mine alone.
From that point on, I cultivated an inner confidence that would carry me through many challenges ahead.
New heights
Fast forward through a few seasons. I’m living in Iowa, on the cusp of my teenage years. I’m doing a variety of sports, but I watch my fitness dissipate right before my eyes. The wake-up call is sounding its sirens: my metabolism has slowed way down. I realize that I need to pivot before things get worse, so I decide to start a targeted, intentional workout routine.
Dedicated workouts seem promising for several reasons. I’d like to get my fitness back. But there’s a deeper motivation: I desperately want to shed the “fragile kid” label that’s stuck to my body with some kind of Crazy Glue. I hate being labeled that way.
I get creative. My early workouts are a combination of cardio, dance, and strength training. I take moves I learned in sports like figure skating and cheerleading, and turn them into high-intensity exercises.
After a few years of dedicated training, I’m fit again. In fact, I’m fitter than I’ve ever been. The injuries have stopped. I can take a hard fall and walk away—my newfound muscle tone seems to have become a shield from harm. I’m cruising on cloud nine. I don’t have to be the “fragile kid” anymore, I’ve finally freed myself from those chains.
As the years go on, my workouts continue to evolve. I get addicted to seeing how far I can push my body physically. The post-workout feeling is a kind of euphoria I’d never felt before: unstoppable, like I can accomplish anything.
Another nosedive
Skip ahead to college. By now, I have a decade of intense fitness training under my belt. My reputation shines down on me with blissful rays: someone who knows how to get fitness results. I’ve created something of value to the world and it makes me really happy. But even though I’ve seemingly found my fitness stride, more tumultuous waters lie ahead.
One day, I notice my abdominal area doesn’t feel normal and it’s obvious something’s wrong. My mom happens to be a doctor, so I go to her for an informal checkup. The news is not good. She suspects that I’ve sustained several internal abdominal injuries and that I would need surgery. Upon formal examination at the hospital, it turns out she’s right.
The next few weeks pre-surgery are a mix of shock, disappointment, and coming to terms with what’s happened. This is the last thing I expected. I’m scared to death of surgery. I had hoped I’d go my whole life without ever having surgery. Yet, here I am, at the ripe, old age of 20. I’ve barely lived through 2 decades and my body is already breaking down on me.
I start questioning everything. Am I just not cut out to be an athlete? Have I been doing everything wrong this whole time? Or is it just bad luck and out of my control? I don’t have the answer to all these questions, so I simply press on in my fitness journey with a heart full of hope, trying not to think about it too much.
Despite all my doubts and fears, time will reveal that this is not the end, but only the beginning of what my body is capable of.
On the comeback trail
The recovery from abdominal surgery is 3 months long and very painful. I can’t bend at the waist very much. I can’t tie my own shoes. I have to have people do simple things for me.
The most humbling part is that for the first time in my life, I’m disgusted by my own body. My stomach is swollen and bruised in every color of the rainbow and it will stay that way for a long time. I can’t help but notice the irony: the physique I’d taken so much pride in, I can now barely stand to look at.
I’m once again faced with the fragility of the human body, something I thought I’d overcome. All the bad memories come pouring back. The uncertainty of my future as an athlete rings loud and clear.
During recovery, there’s only one form of exercise I’m allowed to do—running. But there’s a problem: running was not what I was doing to achieve my results. I’m incredibly scared of losing all the fitness I’ve worked so hard and so long for. Reluctantly, angrily, frustratingly, I switch to running as my main and only workout.
Sunrise of my running era
If I’m going to run, I’m going to do it full-throttle. I decide to pour myself into running just like I poured myself into my previous workouts. I don’t have much faith in running, but it’s all I have right now. It doesn’t hurt to try.
I go forth. I start replacing all my previous workouts with running. Then, something unexpected happens. I discover that you can do a run 100 different ways for 100 different results. You can do sprints, you can run medium distances, you can go slow and steady long-distance. You can sprint uphill. You can split the run into high-intensity intervals. There are endless ways to push and challenge your body.
As I continue to experiment with running, the results come in and they are much, much better than I ever imagined. My fitness, strength, and endurance don’t go away, they multiply tenfold. By the time I’m fully healed from the abdominal surgery and cleared to go back to any kind of exercise, I realize that I don’t need my old workouts anymore. Running is giving me way better results than I’ve ever had. I’m building serious strength. Serious muscle tone. Serious endurance.
My “running era” has begun. I would continue running as my main workout for many years. Running outdoors. Running on the treadmill. Running in the summer heat. Running in the cold and rain with the wind howling in my face. Each type of run works and loads your muscles in a unique way, building a high level of full-body fitness.
The most scenic route
My running era’s been in full effect and I’ve become a legit runner—I’m now among the fastest female advanced-level runners. In this season of my life, I’ve been thinking about starting a family and I’m ready to pull the trigger. I know that my fitness will likely take a big hit during pregnancy, so I set out to get into the best shape of my life in an attempt to minimize the impact to my physique.
I’ve been doing pure cardio for a long time and want to add strength training back in. But there’s a hitch: I’m still very shaken by my previous abdominal injuries. If you have them once, they’re much more likely to recur. I had shoved that uncomfortable truth into the back of my head for many years but it’s still there, and it stings. I’m incredibly scared of having to relive that surgery nightmare all over again.
I know I need to face my fears. I start adding strength workouts back in, using my own body weight. I go slowly, carefully paying attention to how my body responds. As I see that it’s responding well, I gradually add intensity. In about 6 months, I have solid abs and I’ve built up my core. I’m fitter than ever. The most gratifying part of all is that my previous injuries no longer have a hold on me. I haven’t felt this free in a long time.
I’m ready to embark on the journey of motherhood: the most scenic route yet.
Powering through pregnancy
Shortly after reaching my peak fitness, I get some exciting news: I’m expecting a baby.
Fast forward a few months, I’m halfway through my pregnancy and things are going well. On the fitness front, I’m excelling. I’m still doing the same runs I was doing pre-pregnancy, still clocking the same advanced-level mile times. My body is showing no signs of stopping or slowing down. Then, I get some unexpected bad news—not for the baby, but for my fitness.
I have a low-lying placenta, which means that physical activity is now dangerous. I’m instructed to stop all exercise. This is incredibly frustrating because things have been going so well. What makes it even more disheartening is that 90% of people don’t have this issue and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. How did I end up in the unlucky 10%? Maybe I would’ve gone on to run super fast throughout my whole pregnancy, now I’ll never know.
I need to pivot my fitness strategy, fast. I double-down on the healthy eating, knowing I don’t have cardio anymore to burn off extra calories. I take long walks. I try my best to hold onto my fitness level through nutrition.
In a few months, there’s a break in the clouds and the sun shines on my training again. My placenta is no longer in the danger zone and I’m cleared to engage in any form of exercise I feel comfortable doing. I start running again, but my decline in fitness hits me like a ton of bricks. Those few months of rest really took their toll—I’m nowhere near my previous mile times.
I’m determined to regain as much of my fitness as possible. I get some really challenging runs in and my fitness improves. Within a few months of running, I feel like I’ve gotten as close as I can get to my previous level.
I’ve made it over this fitness hurdle and I feel relieved. I think it’ll be the only one, but what I don’t know is that my toughest fight is still ahead.
The toughest fight yet
It’s the end of my pregnancy and I’ve given birth to an amazing baby girl. I’ve made it over the big and small pregnancy-related fitness hurdles and I’m cleared to go back to any kind of exercise. I think it’ll be smooth sailing from here, I just need to get back to my pre-pregnancy fitness. Boy, was I wrong.
I throw myself back into my full pre-pregnancy workout routine, I even add an extra run in. I’m running super hard, I’m doing strength training. I’m waiting for results. They’re not coming in. I keep pushing, I keep challenging my body. I’m eating super healthy. The pregnancy weight comes off, but my body composition is way off. Nowhere near what I had pre-pregnancy. I start realizing just how incredibly fit I used to be. I had set a very high fitness bar before pregnancy and I’m struggling to reach it.
I now have many more obstacles to my fitness, which I’m trying my best to traverse. I’m balancing my career, my fitness, and a baby at home. The days in the office are long and hard. I’ve been away on maternity leave and there’s a lot to catch up on. Sometimes I’m having to do intense workouts really late at night after work, or really early in the morning before work. My daughter is still not sleeping through the night, so I’m running on about 4 hours of sleep a night this whole time. I question the safety of doing an intense workout while being this sleep-deprived, but luckily the human body is very adaptable. I adapt, it somehow works. I do a hard run. Even when I’ve been awake for almost 48 hours.
After a few years of really hard work, I finally start to clock my pre-pregnancy mile times. But I still look very pregnant. I still can’t fit into any of my pre-pregnancy clothes. Something seems wrong. That’s when I find out I have a post-pregnancy condition where my abdominal muscles never came back together like they’re supposed to. It’s not common to still have this issue 2 years after giving birth; another stroke of bad luck.
Abdominal issues strike again
I research this condition and the outlook is very bleak. Everyone says that you’ll have a permanent beer belly or “mommy tummy.” That there’s nothing you can do. That you can try physical therapy, but it doesn’t help much. I spend hours, days, weeks, months researching this. I’m desperate to find even one person who would tell me otherwise. Someone who says they overcame this condition and went back to a flat, toned tummy. At least I would have hope. But I don’t find anyone, not even one person.
The only way out seems to be surgery. A surgeon can manually put your abs back together. But I’ve had abdominal surgery before and I know how messy and unpleasant it is and I’m not going through that again. At least not if I can help it.
At this point I’m incredibly frustrated. I’ve been putting an enormous amount of effort into my fitness for 2 years now and my body doesn’t seem to care. It doesn’t seem to notice. I’m barely seeing any visible results. I know from experience that it takes time, but this is the toughest test yet. I’m on the brink of giving up. I’m angry at my body, livid. Angry at the circumstances. I’m starting to feel like that Linkin Park song: “I tried so hard and got so far, but in the end, it doesn’t even matter.”
So I stop expecting results and continue the exercise and healthy eating just because it feels like the right thing to do.
Glimpses of hope
I’m now in years 2-3 of fitness training since having a baby and I’m finally noticing visible results. My tummy has shrunk and I’m fitting into more of my pre-pregnancy clothes. It’s not the dramatic progress I wanted, but it’s progress. This gives me some hope. Enough hope to keep going.
Skip forward a bit more, it’s now year 3 of fitness training since having a baby. Suddenly, unexpectedly, my intense runs start to feel easy. Too easy. At first, I think it’s some sort of fluke. I just have more energy than usual today. Then, the next workout feels too easy. And the next workout. And the one after that. I realize that my body is ready for a new challenge.
I start clocking an even faster mile time. I’m now running the fastest mile I’ve ever been able to run. Then something really unexpected happens. That mile time starts to feel too easy. So I start running an even faster mile. A few weeks later, even that mile time feels too easy.
Surge in fitness
Within the same month, I end up breaking my pre-pregnancy mile time record 4 times; each time setting a new record, then breaking it again a few weeks later. I’m running way faster than I ever could before pregnancy. I’m now straddling the advanced and elite levels. Elite is the best of the best. The top 1-10% of fastest recreational runners. I’m so close to the elite level I can just taste it, feel it, smell it. I just have to shave about 10 more seconds off my mile time. I’m determined to do it.
A month later, I clock an elite-level mile time for the first time. It’s hard, grueling. It takes every last ounce of strength, endurance, and drive that I have in me. The last quarter-mile is so hard, I feel like I’m going to fall over after I finish. But I finish. That’s the important part. And I don’t fall over. I stand tall and proud. There I am, on a cold, rainy December day, by far the fastest, strongest, fittest athlete I have ever been in my entire life.
It’s now been 3.5 years since I’ve given birth. 3.5 years of extremely hard work in the gym, in nutrition. I’m finally seeing the dramatic results I thought would never come. I’m leaner, stronger, fitter than I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve blown all of my pre-pregnancy fitness records out of the water.
Not only am I fitting into all my pre-pregnancy clothes, most of them are too big now. I’m fitting into things I was never able to fit into pre-pregnancy. My abs are back and in full force. My tummy is lean and flat, flatter than it was before pregnancy. I beat the odds. All those people who said I’ll never have a flat tummy again were completely wrong. Turns out, I had to be the person to prove it.
My abdominal condition is still there, but it’s so minor now that you’d never be able to tell. I never went to physical therapy, I never ended up needing it. Healthy eating and exercise proved more powerful than even a post-pregnancy condition that was supposedly “permanent.”
Turning hurts into halos and scars into stars
It’s now been 4 years since I’ve given birth. I’m getting compliments on my fitness. I’m getting compliments on my abs. From complete strangers. Frequently. More often than I ever did pre-pregnancy. People ask how I get my fitness results. People say things like “You’ve given birth and you look like that???!!! How???!!!” It’s kind of funny, ironic. They probably think I’m one of those people who sailed through pregnancy and were fit right after giving birth. Little do they know that the complete opposite is true. That I’ve had to fight so hard for so long before finally seeing results. That I never thought these results were possible. That I was told all of it was impossible.
All the times I wanted to scream at my body, punch the scale, break the mirror. All the times I thought my body wasn’t listening or didn’t care about my fitness efforts. Turns out it was listening all along. It was changing, adapting, in its own quiet, yet consistent way. It just wanted to put me under immense pressure so I would become a diamond. It wanted me to endure the harshest climates so I would produce the sweetest results.
That’s when I realize that all the adversity I faced only made my fitness shine brighter than it had ever shone before.
Guess I AM happy when it rains.
A clean slate: After my accident, I became overly cautious on skis. Snowboarding didn’t carry that emotional baggage. I felt at-home on a board and gained newfound confidence.
