My Story of Stress and Success

It was 8.30am on a Thursday morning. I had run 20km already, followed by coaching for an hour, before rushing home to shower to then go straight into the office for a full day of work. My day ahead was jam packed full of meetings, with my second run scheduled for the afternoon. But here I was standing in the bathroom. And for a rare moment I stopped. I stared at myself in the mirror. My eyes were blood shot with deep dark bags circling them. Annoyingly one of them had been twitching nonstop for the past 6 months. In my hand was a bunch of my hair, for some reason unknown to me at the time it was falling out in chunks. My skin was inflamed and covered in acne. For the first time in a long time I was actually looking at myself and trying to process what had happened. ‘I look so old’ I thought, at the time I was the tender age of 26. Not only did I look 15 years older than I was, I felt 30 years older. My mental health was suffering from over stimulation and my physical health was deteriorating from the major fuel source of adrenalin. I was falling to pieces.

Throughout my early twenties all I wanted was ‘success’. I wanted to be in a position where I was working a job of status, I wanted to be an athlete with a well-known name, and I wanted to be working in the community to build others up. I was driven by the belief that I was a strong, powerful and independent woman, who can do anything I set my mind to…..and I can do all of this at once. Put a challenge in front of me and there was no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t going to be able to achieve it.

I spent 5 years in a corporate environment for a company I loved and was determined to prove to myself and to my colleagues that I deserved to be there. My time in this company was an incredible experience, but I never switched off. I was constantly under high pressure, working long hours, executing tasks at the most premium level possible and because of my love for the company, I gave (almost) my entire self to my work. The little I had left I was trying to focus on my training and racing to be on the world stage. I was running 100 mile weeks, I actually ran for three years straight without a day off, I was coaching numerous athletes and due to the fact I had no time left, I completely pushed any form of recovery or ‘down-time’ out the door.  

For years, my friends and family told me to slow down. That I will burn out. And for years I didn’t believe in such a thing……until I did.

 As athletes we are all so in touch with our bodies. We know what makes us feel good, we know what doesn’t. But a lot of us don’t know when we are pushing ourselves for progression or pushing ourselves to exhaustion.

There is an element of being an athlete that we learn to deal with pain, because even I can admit, that running does hurt. But it is the pain that we become addicted to, and the rush of endorphins that we feed off once we have completed a long run or a hard session. And if balanced well with the right amount of recovery then we can thrive as athletes. But when the recovery is compromised, and we are continually over-working our bodies and our minds, then slowly but surely, things will fall apart.

 Recovery is the ultimate piece of the puzzle that most people forget. And it isn’t just the sort of recovery you see elite athletes doing – ice bathing, massage, cryotherapy. The most important recovery that we all, as runners and athletes of all levels require is as basic as down time and sleep. In this day and age, it seems we are all living these highly stressful, fast paced, adrenalin fuelled lives, where we almost feel guilty to stop and breathe. But after years of being too proud to take more time for myself, to sit down a moment and appreciate the now, I have definitely learnt what an impact it can have to actually rest.  

By over-training, overworking and under-recovering my body fell into sever fatigue. I was constantly on edge, my anxiety was through the roof, I couldn’t sleep, and my mental health was suffering significantly. All because I wanted to be the best I possibly could be at everything I could do. I had no ‘off-button’ and I was living completely on fight or flight.

 The moment hit me that day in the bathroom, when I realized my menstrual cycle had been non-existent for 9 months, and how run-down I physically felt and looked, that maybe something wasn’t quite right. Not surprisingly, my running had been suffering, I wasn’t performing and unfortunately struggled through every run. Each step felt hard as my body wasn’t regulating oxygen to my muscles from the lack of iron, and my energy systems were down from interruptions in my metabolism.

It was time to take a break.

I quit my job that day. I knew that enough was enough and that my health needed to become my priority. I came off my high horse and admitted to myself that it wasn’t normal to feel the way I felt. I knew that in order to get better I had to let my body physically recover from the last few years of cortisol pumping through my systems, and my mental health to take a break from constantly feeling anxious.

It took a good 3 months of sleeping, eating, no coffee and minimal exercise to begin to feel slightly better.

 Over this period, I learnt about all the things that I did wrong. I didn’t fuel my body as an athlete for performance, I fuelled my body off the latest ‘fad diet’ trends (I didn’t eat carbs for 6 months!). I didn’t sleep through a night because I wanted to be seen as ‘that worker’ who stayed up late answering emails. I didn’t take days off or even morning sleep ins, because I was too proud to be thought of as ‘lazy’. I was always trying to prove something that was unnecessary and I was simply addicted to the grind.

What I was so unaware of at the time is the impact that stress can have on our bodies – and in particular on females. Our hormones are one of our greatest assets and throughout this time of under-eating, over training and over working, I drove my hormones into the ground.

The female physiology is something that until recently has not been spoken about enough. The way our (female) bodies work comparatively to men, how we recover from stress, what training we benefit from, the types of food we should be eating, are all so different. Not only are we different to men in these regards, but every day of the month our bodies are changing. The fluctuation in our hormones can have huge benefits to all females, especially female athletes, but by creating added stress and an overload of cortisol to our systems and not allowing ourselves to recover, will put these hormones out of balance. Without a natural cycle and natural hormonal fluctuations the impact can be exactly what I went through. Including a loss of my natural menstruation, significant hair loss, severe acne, a huge energy loss through a stagnant metabolism, holding weight, and not being able to perform, which all lead to chronic fatigue. Something that took me years to recover from.

It wasn’t until that day – at least 6 months-a year after my symptoms began – that it really hit home. I was sacrificing my health (both mentally and physically) in order to be seen as ‘successful’. But I was so sick – there was nothing ‘successful’ about what I was doing to myself. 

Nowadays, recovery and rest are just as important as my runs. My afternoon naps are my key to becoming more resistant to my training. The way I fuel myself is based on what energy I need to get the most out of my training that day, or the next. And I care more about how hydrated I am than my job title.  

Thankfully over the last year with healthy hormones my PBs have proved that my body and mind are back on track.  

Photo Credit: Riley Wolff @thewolfferine