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In a world where it seems like almost nothing is in our control, it is natural to try to cling to the things that we do have control over.  Being able to plan ahead and predict certain things gives us a sense of peace of mind and a delusional, yet comforting idea that we know what to expect in this crazy world we live in. Lately, there have been a lot of things in my life that have been stressing me out and most of these things are out of my control. I have always hated feeling like things are out of my hands, but it is simply a part of life. All we can do is trust that the path we’re meant to be on will unfold in front of us and keep living each day as best as we can.

Over the past few weeks I have obsessed over my upcoming race in December. About a month ago, I got sidelined by a minor hamstring injury and had to take about two weeks off of training.   At this point, I still had ten weeks left until race day, but by the time I was able to get back to training I was down to less than 8 weeks, which is TERRIFYING to think about. I am not where I need to be fitness-wise. I wake up at night stressed out wondering if I will be ready when race day finally arrives. There is a giant question mark in the back of my mind, but all I can do is take it one day at a time and focus on the things that I do have control over.

Tuesday was the first run in about a month where I finally felt like myself again. I had a long track session at marathon pace, and although it still seems crazy to think that I’m trying to run 26 miles at that pace, the pace felt surprisingly relaxed. I walked away from that workout with the belief that it can still happen. Awhile ago my coach sent me a text that I keep repeating to myself. 

“Keep the small details in focus. The dream will begin to reveal itself. Don’t stare at it, only glance. The day to day and the small things are what to watch.”

I am trying so hard to not look too far ahead. I will keep doing the little things and hopefully all these little things will add up to one monumental performance on race day. I don’t know what will happen on that fateful day in California, but I do know one thing. I know that I am doing all that I possibly can to be ready on December 2nd.  I am controlling all the factors that I can to put myself in the best position to reach my goal. All I can ask of my body is to do its best and hopefully everything else will fall into place. 

Here’s my takeaway. Instead of focusing on the ‘what if’s’, I am going to focus on the dream. I know that even amongst the chaos, there is a reason that dream is still there. Perhaps the future will look slightly different than expected, the dream may change over time, but in the end, it will be exactly what it was meant to be.

“Belief is everything. Without it you are only a fraction of yourself, and with it you continue to realize what else you can achieve.” – Allie Kieffer

The other day as I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, I read something that jolted me into the present moment. 

Alexi Pappas, 2016 Olympian and one of my running idols, stated, 

“Write down your goals so when you get them, you’ll remember you were brave enough to want them.”

I have always been a person who sets goals for myself, works hard to achieve them, and then moves on to the next challenge. However, I think my fear of failure stopped me from ever letting these goals be known to the world. I would keep these goals hidden within myself so that if I didn’t quite reach them, in my mind, at least the world wasn’t aware of my failure. It takes a certain amount of courage to express your goals to the world, especially when they are BIG, SCARY goals that seem so out of grasp sometimes that it leaves you feeling utterly terrified. Others question if you can do it, you question yourself, and there is that little part of your brain that is telling you that you’re crazy for even going for it. But what if? What if you do achieve it? What if all the doubters out there, including yourself at times, are wrong? You will look back at those moments of fear and realize how brave you were for going after something so challenging. You will be stronger. You will be more resilient. It will be beyond worth it.

So here I am, in the midst of training for this big, scary goal that I have made known to the world. I want so badly to be on the start line of the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials on February 29th. I want it more than I think I have ever wanted anything in my life. I know that I will get to race day in December in the best shape I can possibly be in to achieve a  sub-2:45. I am working harder than I ever have, and I truly believe that if you want something enough, if you believe you deserve it, and you are willing to do whatever it takes to go the distance to get to it, you WILL do it. But I could fail, and that thought leaves me feeling unable to breathe. But it is the reality of life. And if I do fail, at least I will know that I was brave enough to have written down my goal and shared it with all of you.

A few days ago I finished reading the book, What Made Maddy Run- The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen. As I was reading the book, I sent this text to my parents and my brother, 

“This book is strikingly similar to many past emotions I have felt throughout my life. It is enormously sad, but also something I think all people should be aware of. For my birthday, I want you guys to read this for me. As I read the book, I literally find myself tearing up because so many details hit so close to home. I feel as if this could have been me. I’m so grateful for the three of you and your unconditional love and endless support.”

This book is the story of a seemingly perfect girl. Madison Holleran grew up in Allendale, New Jersey attending Northern Highlands High School where she was a star athlete and diligent student, popular among both boys and girls. Maddy led the Northern Highlands soccer team to two state championships, scoring 30 goals in a single season, and, even though she didn’t start running track until her sophomore year, won the New Jersey state title in the 800-meter run in her senior year. She was heavily recruited for soccer, but when an Ivy League school showed interest in her for her running, she took the offer.

When Madison began her freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, things took a turn for the worse. As athletic and academic pressures ramped up, Maddy, who was used to succeeding at everything in her life, began to doubt her own abilities. Kate Fagan, the author of What Made Maddy Run, describes Maddy’s struggles in the book. 

“She would get up early for morning practice only to arrive at classes feeling zapped of energy, which caused her anxiety about how she would make it through afternoon practice. At afternoon practice, she would stress about what she might have missed in class because she was tired, and by the time the day’s obligations were over, she had little energy left to go out and develop the kind of natural, easy friendships she’d had in high school.”

Although she felt like she was sinking deeper and deeper into a hole that she couldn’t climb out of, Madison was still able to portray an image of perfection on her Instagram feed. She filled her Instagram with shots that seemed to confirm everyone’s expectations that she was loving her first year of college. But the reality is, everyone presents an edited version of life on social media. People share moments that reflect an ideal life, an ideal self, not a real self. It makes sense that social media should provoke anxiety as we spend a significant chunk of each day absorbing others’ filtered images while we walk through our own realities, unfiltered. 

We currently live in a world where we are bombarded by images on social media of others’ lives that seem perfect and it leaves us feeling like we have to somehow match these impossible expectations. I know it is a trap that is easy to fall into (I am guilty of it almost every day), but we must learn that life is not composed of a string of edited pictures that people post on social media. Everyone has their own struggles, whether they choose to show them to the world or not. As perfect as someone’s life may seem, nobody is immune to the hardship that inevitably comes with life.

My senior year of high school I decided that I was not going to run competitively in college (something that I had planned on doing ever since I started running). While that was one of the hardest decisions I ever made, looking back on it now, I think that decision may have saved my life. I cannot imagine having had the additional pressure of competing on a Division 1 Track and Field team, while also trying to manage the academic rigor and social pressures that come with adjusting to the first year of college. 

As I transitioned from the effortless ease of high school to college at Duke University, my first few months there were some of the darkest, most emotional times of my life. I felt like everyone was smarter than me, more successful than me, more “put together” than me. However, if I look back on my social media or pictures of the time, it looks like I was having the time of my life. I felt that I had to portray this perfect image of myself that everyone was so accustomed to, and besides my parents and close friends from back home, nobody had any idea how I was truly feeling.

My whole life I had identified as a runner and without that title in college, I was at a loss as to who I really was. Additionally, I felt like I had to remain the ‘popular’ girl who everyone loved. I was constantly putting on a smile to the world, while underneath the facade, I felt like I was sinking and sinking further into a vast ocean and didn’t know how to come up for air. Little by little, with the help of a few close friends and the unconditional love of my family, I was able to find my way. I was one of the lucky ones. Every year, more than 40,000 Americans die by suicide. Among young adults, ages 10 to 24, suicide is the second-leading cause of death, with more than 4,500 young people taking their lives each year. Between 2004 and 2012, 35 student-athletes took their own lives.

Freshman year of college can be like running an obstacle course wearing a blindfold. Nothing prepares you for the transition, yet you go in with the expectation that everything will be fun and effortless. Madison was beautiful, talented, successful — very nearly the epitome of what every young girl is supposed to hope she becomes. But she was also a perfectionist who struggled when she performed poorly. She was a deep thinker who was aware of the image she portrayed to the outside world, and someone who often struggled with what that image conveyed about her, with how people superficially read who she was, what her life was like.

A week after Madison died, on January 23, 2014, the family launched a Facebook page, “In Memory of Madison Holleran”, which has more than 130,000 likes. The site is dedicated to suicide prevention and ending the stigma attached to mental illness. Included on the page are stories of Madison, and stories from people struggling with depression, looking for a community.

This book is a must-read for all. It portrays the unattainable version of perfection that so many of us struggle with and brings to the forefront the mental health epidemic that is taking our country by storm. If you or anyone you know are struggling, please reach out for help. You are not alone. And to those out there reading this who are struggling, please remember, whoever you are, you are enough.  As hard as it is to believe, I promise there is light and hope at the end of the tunnel. 

“Think of all the beauty that’s still left in and around you and be happy.”              -Anne Frank

There is something about the scent of running in the summer that brings me back to my childhood. As I breathe in the smell of freshly, cut grass and flowers in full bloom, as I hear the birds chirping and as I feel the sweat dripping from every inch of my body, my mind goes back to those early morning summer practices where my only thought was on the popsicle I was going to devour after my run. Running always finds a way to bring me to a happy place. 🙂 

The past couple months, I took a semi-hiatus from blogging due to a hamstring injury which led me to a pretty dark place emotionally. With so much hardship going on in the world, I feel completely selfish and irrational admitting how upset I get over something as minor as an injury, but to me, not being able to run is utterly and completely heartbreaking. These days I consider running like my job (obviously a freaking DREAM JOB), but still a job where I commit most of the hours in my day to training, fueling, and/or taking care of my body in an effort to reach my maximum potential as a marathoner.  My closest friends and family know that I constantly struggle with the decision to focus solely on my training and take a pause on my career as I pursue my running dreams. There are some days when I am at peace with this decision and other days when I feel so guilty for not working that I can’t sleep at night. It’s pretty crazy to think that I am taking a few years off of working in the real world to try and chase down a goal that many days seems out of reach. I am eternally grateful for my parents who are supporting me in every way imaginable, and I am fully aware that many people wish they had the opportunity to do what I am doing. I am so lucky!!!

As much as I love running, I realize that my pursuit of greatness in the sport steers me to lead somewhat of a selfish lifestyle. My running takes priority in almost every aspect of my life. I train 2-3 hours/day, sleep 8-10 hours/night (I know don’t hate me!!), I eat nutritious and delicious meals, I get massages, and many times to the dislike of my boyfriend, I am in bed by 10pm. Is this selfish? 100% it is. However, to perform at the levels that I want to perform at, being selfish is a necessity. I am so thankful for the friends and family who love me and support me in this lifestyle, and I hope that one day I can do the same for others. As my dad always says, “Pay it forward.” I know my days as a competitive runner will not last forever and there will come a day when it will be my turn to support and encourage others to become the best versions of themselves. I look forward to the day that I too can “pay it forward.”

Last night as I was getting in bed, a thought crossed my mind. We only get to live our lives once. There are no second chances. As terrifying as this thought is, it is also quite empowering. We have one shot to do the things we love and chase down the goals we dream about. It is important to be grateful for every opportunity, but also to ENJOY the life that we have been given. Take chances. Pursue your dreams. Follow your heart. Most importantly, live every moment grateful that you are able to do what you are doing, because at the end of the day, all of these little moments will somehow make up the entirety of your beautiful life.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” – Henry David Thoureau

This will be a short one. My heart aches. It has been aching the past week as I struggle to understand why my body doesn’t seem to be able to stay healthy.

A few days before my half marathon, my left hamstring began to feel tight. I thought nothing of it and just stretched and gave it some extra love. Then I raced faster than I ever have. I felt like I was floating on air and that all the puzzle pieces were finally coming together. But in the back of my head I knew my hamstring wasn’t right.

The next few days, I just ran easy runs, but the pain progressed from a minor annoyance at the start of my runs to a limping pain throughout the entire thing. My PT thinks it’s a strain. How did it happen? I have no earthly idea.

I’m trying to stay positive and hope for the best, but right now I feel like I am sinking. I don’t want to lose all the fitness I worked so hard to gain. All I want to do is get back out there and keep grinding. But my body is not on the same page as my heart. I’m doing my best to stay patient and pray that there is a reason for everything. Hopefully this setback will just be a minor stumble on the path to greater things.

 

“When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.”

There are few races in a runner’s career where everything seems to go according to plan. Up until this past Saturday, I would say I have had two of those so-called “perfect” races in the 20+ years that I have been running. On Saturday, I moved that tally up to three. The 2018 DC Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon will forever be a race where I look back and reflect on as being one of my biggest breakthroughs as a runner. All those hours and hours… and MORE HOURS of running, cross-training, strength-training, rehab, cold/rainy long runs, windy, lung-zapping track workouts helped contribute to one of my biggest lifetime PR’s. When I look back at my splits over the course of that half marathon I am still in semi-disbelief of what my body was able to achieve. I ran the fastest 10k I have ever run in the last 10k of the race! However, as exciting as this race was for me, I am still not close to where I need to be from a fitness perspective to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Trials, but the goal actually feels achievable. I can feel the dream coming to life deep within my bones. I am so grateful to finally be healthy and able to train the way I know I need to in order to reach my goals.

The week leading up to the race I was my typical, neurotic self. I was worried that I wasn’t tapering enough, worried that my workout at half-marathon pace earlier in the week felt too hard, worried about anything and everything. Thankfully my coach (Donnie Cowart) always knows what to say and he was able to keep me out of my own head. He is another reason why I was able to run the way I ran on Saturday. Donnie’s patience, humility, and compassion, in combination with his knowledge of the sport is a rarity. There were countless hard workouts and long runs in this training block where he would run the whole workout with me! Not once in these running sessions would Donnie ever mention how easy the pace must have felt for him or how many miles he was running that week. He helped me in my workouts in the midst of his own training cycle, where he was running workouts at paces that were so far beyond what I could ever run, it is hard to wrap my mind around it. If his name sounds familiar to you, it may be because you recognize it from the list of runners at the 2012 Olympic Trials where he placed 4th in the Steeplechase. Or perhaps you heard the name from the the 2016 Trials where he placed 8th! Yeah, that’s right, my coach is UNREAL!!!! Donnie is a one-of-a-kind human-being who always finds a way to help motivate and inspire anyone around him. He approaches life with such selflessness and positivity that it radiates outward to all who come in his path. I am so grateful to have found him as a coach and a friend and I look to him daily as a constant source of inspiration.

The race itself went by in the blink of an eye. The 38 degree weather was ideal for a distance race. As they started the countdown to the start, I finally felt the excitement take over the anxiety running through my veins. The first few miles I was a little concerned with the amount of females that were in front of me, but I chose to remain calm, trust myself, and simply run my own race. My splits were all in the low 6’s and I felt comfortable. Everything was going  according to plan. As we began to approach mile 6, I knew there was going to be a beast of a hill to conquer so I put my head down and focused on the shoes of the guy in front of me. The hill was definitely a challenge as I felt my quads burning and my lungs yelling out for more air, but I just focused on short, quick strides up the hill. Once I surpassed the hill I made the decision to not look at my splits and just race. When I switched my focus to competing and just passing people, the miles started to go by even faster. As I approached mile 10 I couldn’t believe that all I had left was a 5k. I put my head down and went to work. As I turned the last curve and saw the clock I felt an extra burst of adrenaline. 1:20:15, 1:20:16, …..I crossed the line in 1:20:20. I had just PR’d by almost 4 minutes.

This week has been a down week in my training and I am taking the time to recover, enjoy, and reflect on a pivotal race in my running career. I have worked harder than I ever have these past few months. Seeing the clock as I crossed the finish line gave me a feeling of pride and satisfaction that is indescribable. This race has put in me even more of a drive and desire to keep grinding and see how much further I can go. Nothing in this life is impossible if you work hard enough. Dream on, my friends!

“The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them.”

In most areas of life, I have found that it’s the little things that make all the difference. Whether it’s the excitement I get thinking about eating my frozen yogurt each night or thinking about the new Bachelor episode I’m going to watch next to my two kitties (no judgement allowed!), it is the little things in life that keep me happy. Not only do the little things have a huge impact in regard to my overall happiness, but they also go a long way in regard to my running.

It is interesting that to most runners, sixty minutes of running is a very realistic and standard activity; however, ten minutes of stretching and/or mobility exercises are some of the hardest things to get us to do! I’m not sure what it is about doing non-running tasks, but to us crazy runners, they are always the last things on our priority list. On my long road back from injury, I was told I should read the book Anatomy for Runners by Jay Dicharry. If you’re a serious runner and haven’t read this yet, I highly recommend doing so. The book opened my eyes to a whole new perspective on what it means to be a smart runner. It made me aware of how imperative it is to make time in your training routine for stability/mobility exercises, as well as strength training to improve running form and decrease your likelihood of injury.

Did you know that eighty-two percent of runners get injured? That’s a crazy, high statistic! Runners typically do a fantastic job of taking care of their engine (heart and lungs), but we don’t do such a great job of taking care of our levers. From a biomechanics standpoint, our body is just a bunch of pulleys and levers (muscles and joints) powered by an engine (heart and lungs). If we neglect the importance of taking care of our pulleys and levers, who cares how strong our engine is? A car with the best engine on Earth won’t run if it’s parts don’t work. To get the best out of ourselves as athletes, we cannot solely focus on our heart and lungs. We must be aware of our body and very in-tune with how it moves since it is our muscles, joints, tendons and ligaments that are allowing us to move in the first place.

Now that I’m back in full-swing with my training, I feel like most of my day is consumed by working out. When I’m running 80-90 mile weeks, doing the little things are not necessarily the easiest things to convince myself to do. Honestly, after all the training, all I want to do is sit on the couch with my frozen yogurt/cereal/sweet treat and watch my favorite shows! But then I remember how miserable and unhappy I was when I couldn’t run. By doing these small little things, I am minimizing my chances of being in that 82 percent injured statistic, and that makes it 100 percent worth it.

My new training regimen includes my standard running mileage, drills 4-5 times a week, daily rehab mobility/stability exercises and strength training with a physical therapist 2x/week. The combination of all of these things are time-consuming and often times boring, but nobody said the journey would be easy. While these things may seem small, I believe that the ripple effects of all of these little things will potentially be something extraordinary.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

Click to watch me trying to sprint 🙂

The first 24 minutes of 2018 were spent doing what I love most…RUNNING! To be even more specific, I spent the first 24 minutes of the new year racing through Central Park in New York City in sub-zero degree wind chills. Considering the fact that I’m the girl that’s always freezing, simply being outside on New Years Eve in NYC was a stretch for me. Now throw in the fact that I was attempting to move my body as quickly as possible, and I was definitely out of my element. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t change the way I rang in the new year in any way.

At 11:15 pm on December 31st, 2017, after taking a shot of Fireball (yes, that’s right, I TOOK A SHOT OF FIREBALL), my brother and I set out on our warm-up run towards Central Park. Dressed in 2 layers of socks, 2 layers of tights, 2 long-sleeve shirts, 3 jackets, gloves, hand-warmers, a hat, and a face mask, I was as ready as I would ever be. As frigid as it was, I couldn’t help but smile as I looked over at my brother running next to me. Yes, we were slightly insane- but insane in the absolute best sense of the word.

Fast forward through a couple miles, some drills and strides, and it was time to get on the start line of the NYRR 2018 Midnight Run. As I was standing a few feet back from the line, I looked up and saw a few of the elites, including Molly Seidel (who ended up first female overall) and the adrenaline and excitement began to pump through my veins. It was almost time…

The countdown to the start of 2018 coincided with the countdown of the race. You could hear music blaring and people chanting down the seconds; 5-4-3-2-1 and we were off! As soon as we started, fireworks lit up the night sky. It was the coolest start of any race I have ever run. For the first few minutes I couldn’t even feel myself running; I was simply being propelled forward by the energy and exuberance of my surroundings. With lights illuminating the midnight sky and runners all around me, I was filled with pure joy (and also pure numbness due to the -5 degree wind chill factor). 🙂

Approaching mile one, it was clear that the four elite females were in their own race and I would be battling for fifth. We came through the mile almost 20 seconds slower than I expected, but considering the elements, I just told myself to focus on the race itself and forget about the splits. For the next couple miles, it was just me and the ponytail of the girl in front of me. Her coach/friend was running with her and I would randomly hear him yell snippets of words that were definitely not English (after the race I googled her and it turns out Russian was the language of choice). The girl was throwing surges left and right, but we came through mile 3 neck and neck. I decided to make a break for it and pushed up the incoming hill; but she wouldn’t be broken. On that final mile, I kept telling myself to push harder, but my body didn’t seem to want to respond. I ended up 6th female overall, with the Russian beating me by a little less than 5 seconds. At the end of the day, while I wanted to be top 5, placing 6th, under conditions that I have never even come close to running in, isn’t anything to complain about.

About 30 seconds after I crossed the line, I heard “ADRIANA!”. It was my boyfriend who had been STANDING outside in the sub-zero temperatures for the past 30 minutes waiting for my brother and I to finish. If I thought I was cold, he was utterly frozen. Now that’s what I call love 🙂

After a slow mile trot cool down, we found our people and headed home. Around 3am, after showering and getting some food, I was finally able to let the past few hours sink in. That race was hands down one of the craziest (and COLDEST) things I have ever done, but it was also one of the most memorable. Would I do it again? That is still tbd, but one thing is for certain- if 2018 resembles anything like those first few minutes, it will be a year worth remembering. Cheers to the New Year- may it be filled with moments where we are so overcome with joy and happiness that we are brought to our knees…because our dreams have become reality.