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Running Issues With Elizabeth Carey: On Girls Running

Published by
DyeStat.com   Jul 21st 2020, 4:10pm
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How Highlights And Pitfalls Of The Running Journey Led To The Book Girls Running

By Elizabeth Carey for DyeStat

The prevailing narrative is that athletic girls face an uphill battle as they mature into women. We’ve heard the stories; we tell the tales. 

What if we told stories of triumph instead of fizzling out? Of gains in strength, endurance, and speed? 

What if we did not expect unrelenting, linear progress, let alone success with every step? What if we called out the adults who run athletes into the ground? What if we called out the industry that profits at the expense of athletes, and reinforces a narrow, archaic view of whose body is appropriate for what? What if we called for systematic change? 

I might sound like I have a bitter taste in my mouth. That’s because this is personal and, yet, not unique. 

coverTake, for example, my collegiate running experience. What an unmitigated disaster! A messy blur of injuries, disordered eating, compulsive exercise, and body issues compounded with the pressures of Division 1 athletics and Ivy League academics. I spiraled down, away from my goals and high hopes. I was ill-equipped to deal with this, not to mention with the culture around campus or life stuff like my dad getting late-stage cancer. 

I contorted my body, trying to conform to specific standards I heard defined “good” runners. These narrow sport-specific ideals and expectations still exist today. They’re nestled firmly within the context of larger cultural issues, including diet culture and racism

Mine were privileged problems, niche struggles in the face of incredible opportunity, and I let them consume me. But these hitches in my git-along are symptomatic of the archaic paradigm that’s controlled sports for, well, ever. It has shunned female physiology, silenced girls and women, and limited long-term development. 

This narrative says, “Shrink yourself.” Check the boxes: be quiet, nice, successful, pretty, fast. 

These standards distract us not only from the most beneficial parts of training, recovering, and competing at our best, but from the real work of being a human. As runner and coach Melody Fairchild says, being human means venturing into territory where mistakes are inevitable and vulnerability imminent; it’s reaching for something daring, with love and a growth mindset. 

The standards whisk us away from the present. They prevent us from embodying our truest selves. They maintain the status quo. These standards send many athletes down treacherous paths. They enable diseases that require treatment. 

Not all of my college teammates and peers experienced the outcomes I did. Many were successful and resilient. But many also got hurt, had eating disorders, and faced mental health struggles. Whack-a-mole injuries popped up frequently. We passed walking boots around like a pre-pandemic water bottle. Many quit. 

I tried to quit once. In the throes of an eating disorder, I felt like I was taking up space—and that that was a bad thing. I confessed this to the women’s coach. She kept me on to help lead underclassmen and focus on training while going through treatment on campus that year. The goal? Come back stronger for my senior year. 

It didn’t work out how we’d envisioned. The next fall, I wound up with a pain in my hip I couldn’t run through. An MRI showed a stress fracture, my third so far. Another coach, the head coach, called me into a meeting. He said I’d been voted captain by my teammates, but that the crutches weren’t a good look. So he appointed someone else. 

I was crushed. I’d over-invested in the team and sport — so much so it affected my major, job prospects, and future. I floated in a fog in the basement pool of our underground gym, with a pool buoy between my restless legs, wondering what exactly I was churning for. 

Between then and now, I’ve recovered (and relapsed and re-recovered) from the issues into which I fell headfirst. Running has grown into a river to which I return again and again. It reinvents itself and me too. It has introduced me to amazing people, including Fairchild. 

I met her at Steens Mountain Running Camp nearly two decades ago. There, in a verdant valley on the flanks of an incredible mountain, she asked stressed-out runners what made them happy — something many hadn’t considered. We and other coaches shared stories — good, bad, ugly, including the long-lasting effects of that toxic culture we had in common. We realized it was still present, right beneath our noses. 

That’s when Fairchild and I started brainstorming our book, Girls Running: All You Need to Strive, Thrive and Run Your Best.

Our aim is to empower young athletes to have a happy, healthy relationship with running. Inspired by Fairchild's remarkable journey, it includes current information and actionable tools that athletes can use during lifelong careers, should they so choose. We cover taboo topics like body image, puberty, periods, nutrition, plus training, competition, and more. 

This is a movement. Alysia Montaño, Allyson Felix and Kara Goucher led calls for better working conditions for pro women. Then a rallying cry to #FixGirlsSports was championed by Lauren Fleshman, Mary Cain, and others, with articles, videos, and even conferences. Yes, let’s #FixGirlsSports, but why stop there?

Our book is not just for the Melodys and the Marys. Not just for elite high schoolers or future collegiate athletes. This is also for the people at the back of the pack and the B team. For anyone who’s been told they’re not enough or too much. For athletes who’ve been otherized and ostracized: non-white, non-skinny, non-competition-winning, non-conforming athletes. For anyone who wants to run. To feel the wind in their hair. To reach their potential. 

Competing in cross country and track and field is a gift that should be as accessible as we say it is. Every athlete should be empowered to navigate their own journey, which is practice for life. 

 

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Elizabeth Carey (https://elizabethwcarey.com/) is a writer and running coach based in Seattle, Washington. Her first book, GIRLS RUNNING, co-authored with Melody Fairchild, is available here: https://www.velopress.com/books/girls-running/.



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