Sunday morning. I wake up and feel for my watch in the dark, pressing the button to light up the screen. 8:13am - I've slept for almost 10 and a half hours. I swing my legs out of the bed, pad over to the window, open up the shutters and exclaim; "Ma, piove ancora!?" ("It's still raining!?") It's been raining since Friday. But then I remember the few hours of golden sunshine and clear skies late yesterday afternoon giving way to a starry evening. Life is full of deep contrasts - the good and the bad, rain and sun, day and night, summer and winter... running and injury.
It's a Sunday morning. I can hear the drip drip drop of the rain outside. The occasional splash and spin of wheels as a car navigates the bend on the street under my house, the hum of the fridge, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, the tick tick tock of the clock hanging on the wall. Time marching on. And here I am; a 22 year old girl, living in Malonno, Italy. My next door neighbour's kitten has climbed up over the roof and is following his usual morning routine; peering through my window watching my every move, meowing to be let in and purring like a tractor. He always puts a smile on my face.
I glance up at the clouds hanging low over the mountain tops. A blanket of grey, that somehow seems to wrap it's arms around me too. This greyness, the stillness - a familiar friend this year. The lack of what I came here to do, the gaps, the missing. I'm so sick and tired of not being able to run. I want more than anything to be able to lace up my trainers and skip along the trails, feeling the rain drops on my skin and the mud sloshing under my feet. The breath ragged in my lungs. The energy and strength in my legs. But my body is telling me again it isn't ready. This year, I've rested more days than I've ran. Between lock down and persistent niggles, it seems like 2020 is a year to test not my running strength but instead my mental strength. Living alone in a foreign country, unable to do the thing I came here to do. Can I hold on?
In my weakest moments, I'm learning how strong I can be. I've just got to keep believing... even if those days of running, fast, light, strong seem so so so far away.
But for now, the church bells strike 9:30 and play a jolly tune, beckoning the community of Malonno to Sunday mass. My mind drifts along the melody towards a race I know I would've been running today if only my body had been cooperative. But then I breathe a sigh of acceptance. Acceptance can be a powerful thing - It lets you move forward even if with a slight twang of regret.
And so... I lace up my trainers, shrug on my bright yellow adidas TERREX GORE-TEX jacket, leave the house and these thoughts of regret behind me. I think again about why I love to run. The freedom and the ability to explore. One foot in front of the other, one at a time until I can feel myself returning back to who I am.
It's Sunday morning, it's raining. I'm experiencing my home trails by foot. Not running, but simply walking. Enjoying the slow movement of this simple life I've created for myself here... with the hope and belief that one day soon, my body will allow me to pick up the pace and run again.
But for now I'm just walking. The woods are encompassed in a deep foggy cloud. There is no other human in sight. I move forward, one foot in front of the other. The rain drips through the trees. My hair is soaked and has turned into a soggy cushion of dampness on my head. I could've put my hood up I know, but like this I feel alive - closer to nature, closer to myself. I'm where I'm supposed to be, immersed in the natural world, just moving my body. I smile. I'm where I want to be. For now - this is enough. It has to be.
Thanks for stopping by. It's time for a new start.
And so, I've decided I want to write more. Or infact that I need to write more. When I write, I feel like I can write myself towards a better version of myself. I become truer to myself and able to face life with more honesty, compassion and empathy. When I write it comes from a creative space inside me which I've silenced for too long. It's finally time to listen.
And so every week, you can find me here, sharing some words, thoughts and snippets from my daily life with the world. Maybe it'll just be something I put out there for myself, for my family back in the UK to read and to feel closer to me. Or maybe a few other people will be interested and read it too. Who knows? Either way, I've been feeling like I need an anchor to keep myself swimming above the rough seas of 2020. Writing can be that anchor for me. 2020 is teaching me that whether you're alone or not - you just gotta keep moving forward.
The journey of the pen across the page, or fingertips across the laptop keyboard is like life. Sometimes all you have to do is take a deep breath, turn the page and learn to trust yourself and the lines of the story again.
This seems kinda particularly relevant now as I'm almost ready to start back running again after a persisting niggle. This is my opportunity to start afresh. To find a better relationship, a better balance with exercise, health and life. This is the part where I put all the mistakes I've ever made under my feet and use them as stepping stones to become the sustainable, healthy and strong athlete I know I can be - the person I want to be.
This is the part where I forgive myself, for real this time. For running on empty, for all the repercussions this has caused. Because I know life is too short to spend another day at war with myself.
I'm here, living in Malonno, in the mountains, my magic place. I'm where I want to be. I moved here to follow my dream of becoming a professional athlete but a year on I've found so much more than I was looking for. Now everyday, I'm learning how to heal, how to grow as a person - but ultimately I'm learning how to be better. The grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence, no. The grass is greener where you water it.
You can choose the pain of staying where you are, or you can choose the pain of growth. Time to start growing. My wings have always been there, I've just somehow forgotten how to use them along the way. It's time to stop holding myself back. It's time to fly.
The comeback is always stronger than the set back. Remember that.
Sending positive vibes into your week
Heidi 💛
(Ps: If you want to receive these blog posts into your email inbox every week - subscribe by inserting your email at the top of the page.)
Flashback... 6 or 7 weeks ago. In the middle of the woods above Malonno. I'm supposed to be doing a hilly run but instead I've stopped and I'm crying my eyes out. Here's a few reasons why..
1) FlettaTrail is only 2 weeks away and I'm nothing like race fit, I can barely even walk at a reasonable pace up the trail I seemed to skip so lightly up last year. I feel like an elephant and my lungs and legs are on fire. A hilly run has turned into a crawl and yes a crying session. People are going to expect me to produce something like last year in the race and there's no way on earth that is going to happen. I feel like I'm letting down not just myself but the whole of Malonno, my new sponsors adidas TERREX and everyone who has put their faith in me over the past year.
2) The one thing that I used to love so much is so hard and I don't know how I'm ever going to find my race fitness again. I hate my body. Everyone keeps stopping me in the street to remark that I'm fat or I've put weight on and that just keeps making me feel even worse.
3) I've done this to myself. The only person to blame for the sh*t show that is the 'athlete' Heidi Davies right now... is Heidi Davies herself.
And so why am I writing this? To be honest I'm not really sure. But hang in there with me, I feel like this blog post might make some kind of sense by the end.
But let's just get real. Maybe this is my chance to finally get honest, open and real with myself and it's what I need to do to help me move forward. And if anyone takes the time to read it then it'll maybe help some of you too.
So 2020... fair to say it's been kind of a crappy year. Covid has put a hold on pretty much everything. Quarantine, lock down, face masks, social distancing etc etc. I don't need to go into details. We've all lived, and are living this nightmare and trying to do the best we can given the circumstances.
If this blog post is all about being real, then I'm just going to admit it here. I've been struggling. Struggling to make sense of the world, of society, of the lives we live. Lock down made me question everything... what it means to be an athlete, what it means to be living this life, why we place so much value on competing when there are so many other important things going on in the world. Lock down made me question my choices, and it made me take some wrong ones too.
Maybe some people came out of quarantine the best version of themselves, having taken the time to focus on working out at home, cooking and eating healthy hearty meals, spending more time with loved ones and finding their inner balance again. For me, the exact opposite of this happened. Not being able to go outside and enjoy mother nature made me really lose my spark and made me lose sight of what I wanted. I initially started with good intentions of carrying out my training at home to the best of my ability but I quickly lost motivation and soon I was slipping down a slippery slope into a dark hole I built myself.
I've made it a well known fact that for a few years I was struggling with body image and eating issues, trying to be the lightest skinniest version of myself because I believed that would make me a faster runner. But during the lock down, I completely destroyed this idea. I started to live life completely the other way. Eating way too much, sometimes even to the point of feeling sick. I'm still not sure why. Maybe it was because there weren't any races to prepare for or I felt like I was making up for the past two years when I'd been restricting everyday. But it was like someone had flicked a switch in my brain and I just couldn't resist opening the cupboard or the fridge and putting something else into my mouth. These kind of habits combined with little or no exercise... is it surprising that I put on weight and then found myself crying in the woods a few weeks before flettatrail?
Now it's easy to look back with hindsight and regret your decisions that have brought you to where you are now. But 2020 is a strange year. We're living strange times. I guess we all had our ways of dealing with being stuck inside the same four walls for weeks on end. I'm ashamed to say that eating was my way of dealing with it. Looking back now, I wish I had spent that time investing in myself and my health, rather than destroying it and everything I was or am as an athlete. But those are the actions that I took and now I'm having to live with the consequences.
On my journey back to becoming an athlete I least now I'm able to find a way for it to be sustainable. I'm not stupidly stick skinny like last year, I've got my period back, and now I'm able to eat food without any guilt and feelings of shame because I understand that food is fuel and fueling my body is a fundamental part of being a healthy and sustainable athlete.
There's just one thing I've been struggling with. And that's self love. Maybe my actions during the lock down highlight this. I was (again) in self destruction mode. Yes okay, I wasn't in the place I was last year. But the coin had flipped. Instead of starving myself, I was eating way too much. I still wasn't looking after myself, mind or body.
And now, on the other side of lock down and quarantine and with flettatrail 2020 behind us, I'm learning day by day how to take care of myself. And yes, it starts with self love. You really cannot hate yourself into being healthy. A healthy body and a healthy mind, can't come from a place of hate but only from a place of love and compassion for who you are and all that you've been through to get you here to where you are today.
I hope that maybe somewhere along the way, I can find the class athlete I know I can be again. But to be honest, right now the thought of competing doesn't really inspire me that much. I feel like the life of an athlete especially this year is kind of unimportant. To travel around, to compete against the same athletes over a series of races. I don't know why but now it feels kind of superficial. I don't know where these thoughts are coming from but to pin on a number and run as fast as you can just because someone expects you to... I'm struggling with the reasoning behind that. I feel like... you've gotta feel it in your heart. I run, because I love to run... not because I'm an athlete and it's just what people expect me to do. I love to move my body through the mountains, through diverse landscapes. I love adventure and seeing new exciting places with my eyes wide open full of wonder and a massive smile on my face full of gratitude for how lucky I am to be experiencing the earths wonders in that way. That's when I feel like I'm me. That's when I feel like I'm doing what I was born to do. But then on the other hand, I want to make an impact on things, I want to change things for the better. I'm searching for the balance of trying to be an athlete, but also trying to do something good in the world through this.
Yeah okay, my dream of being a full time professional athlete is the reason why I decided to make the move and transfer my whole life to Malonno, Italy. Being an athlete, training to be the best, fittest, healthiest version of myself is something I believe I still want to do... despite the huge pile of mistakes I've made in the past. Now my fitness is returning slowly but surely, one day at a time and I'm still learning so much... It's just now I've realised it's not all I want to do - just train for racing. I'm craving a life of adventure. I want to make stories, tell stories, make an impact on the world around me. Lining up on the start line isn't the only way to do that. A race is just one race, it's one day. There are 364 other days in the year. I know I want to fill them with adventures and moments that count. That's when I feel the most alive.
So much has changed in a year. I wake up and don't start the day with my parents across the breakfast table, instead I eat my eggs whilst reading or with the Italian radio for company. I wonder about what I need to do, whether I've paid the rent, what shopping I need to get, what I'm going to eat.
cycling in the valley, wandering up into the glorious mountains... good morning is replaced with ciao or buongiorno but the smiles are just as genuine
babysitting, reading, piano practice, drawing, cooking, writing, strength work, Italian, gardening, cooking, resting , dreaming among others
The evenings draw out... to just be and breathe or to keep yourself busy. When you spend the days with yourself and your own thoughts sometimes it's hard to tell where they begin and where they end. But it's in these moments you learn to trust yourself, to trust in the life you've chosen, to be yourself, to be happy, to trust the journey of who you are becoming, to grow your own wings. To trust in your shyness and the awkward ways in which you are you... Just don't build your walls too high
Some days I wish I could wake up and be 12 again and walk down the road with my brother to school and spend the day laughing and joking with friends in the classroom. An evening spent chasing my dad up forest tracks before returning home to my mum's vegetable lasagna.
.
we're all just making it up as we go along, I'm not afraid to say somedays I have no idea what's going on & I wonder whether I've made the right choices, but then I look up at the mountains & the community around me and I know I'm where I need to be. I'm living the adventure I dreamed & I'm so grateful
.
I enjoy babysitting so much and maybe it's because the kids are a constant reminder of how to live life simply, lightly, to just be happy for this moment. With so much going on in the world, children can teach us so much
On this day last year, I was jetting across half of the world, setting my feet on American soil for the very first time. A year on and wow how much has changed! A year on, where am I now? At home, like most of the rest of the world - dreaming about adventures gone by and moments ahead.
Thinking back to this day last year, I remember feeling full of nervous anticipation. I could even say I was feeling scared - scared to travel so far away from home and spend two weeks with people that I didn't know very well. People that were basically strangers (that would only become strong friends) - but whom I had only met fleetingly and spoken to briefly on a sandy beach in Llandudno and in a huge strange hotel in a middle of a wild forest in Bulgaria (gotta love World Mountain Champs after parties). On this day last year, I was feeling anxious to travel so far alone. I had never been on a long haul flight before. I remember boarding the bus that would take me to the airport in London and waving goodbye to my Mum almost in tears - I didn't know what was waiting for me in the two weeks ahead and the sadness I felt with leaving behind my family for Easter was real. But still - I went. I breathed deeply and asked myself why I had booked the flights in the first place. I wanted to visit Boulder to see what all the fuss was about. I wanted to go on an adventure. Little did I know that this little adventure would change things so drastically. Little did I know that being so far from home was only the beginning of returning home to myself. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain...
Oh boyyyy what an adventure it turned out to be. Andy Wacker was an AMAZING host and that word just doesn't do him justice. He was my tour guide for the next two weeks and we ran so many incredible trails together. I will be forever grateful to Andy for everything he did for me and the welcome and hospitality he showed me. (Andy if you're reading this, thanks so much!) Staying in Andy's house at Lazy Arces above Boulder along with his wife Karley, his house mates and their lovely energetic dog Fig (and I should probably add the next door neighbours dog, Charlene to that list) was an experience I know I will never ever forget. The two weeks flew by and I felt right at home living in a house of athletes with a passion just like me for running and life in the outdoors from the moment I walked through the door. I got to explore so many different trails, saw some beautiful jet lagged sunrises, walked many dog loops, played and lost many games of Bananagrams, fell over twice, cycled the long ascent from Boulder up to the house, narrowly missed some early morning bear encounters, met some local Boulder professional athletes who were hanging out drinking beer in the park, did a long run with some mega fast track girls, tried (and failed) to crack the art of getting your box to weigh less at Wholefoods, did the Celestial Tea Tour, had a Fig on my lap, got a free chocolate icecream, had my first burrito, did Tacho Tuesday, cried at 4000 metres, saw a moose, felt like I'd stepped through the back of the wardrobe and ended up in snowy Narnia. The list is endless. So many happy memories.
All of this and so many moments in between - I remember it all so well as if it all happened only yesterday. I'm so so so so glad I got on that plane. It's true Colorado, the place that makes you Bo(u)lder.
The reason why I'm writing this blog post is to think back to this time last year and to realise how far I've come. This time last year, I was having the time of my life in Boulder. Those two weeks spent there were a chance of a lifetime. But then - I think back and I remember how I was feeling within myself and a dark cloud comes over my head. It wasn't pretty. I was unbalanced. I was unhealthy. Most of all, I was just so goddamn hungry.
I know I've written about it before and if you're this far into this blog post then hopefully it's because you're interested in what I've got to say and you'll carry on reading. I'm not writing this to have a pity party or to gain sympathy. I'm writing this to highlight what can happen when your passion becomes unhealthy. I'm writing this to show the world that it's okay to talk about these things and that in fact we must talk about these things. Mental health is something that shouldn't be shunned. This is important. If you feel like you can relate to any of the things I'm talking about in this blog post or what I'm about to say. Or perhaps you feel like you can recognise that maybe someone around you is following this type of behavior. I urge you to reach out. Help yourself, help others. We are not alone. In these times, more than ever it's empowering to see and feel the human connections. I would be more than happy to help anyone who feels like they need to talk about these things. Please just message me if you want to. I want to help you. I want to help you realise that you are not alone and that together we can do so much. Something I wrote on this day last year in a blog post feels kind of relevant :
Okay so thinking back to this time last year - it's actually kind of difficult for me to look at the pictures of myself in Boulder. These pictures bring back many happy memories, but they are painful to look at too. Why? Because, I am literally a stick. I look like I could break any moment. In short, I look unhealthy. I look ill. And I did it to myself. I was stuck in a cycle of hunger. Just doing the best I could every moment to distract myself from the growling bear inside my stomach.
Thinking back, remembering it - I wonder actually how I did it. Now when I feel hungry - I eat. Something so simple but I'm proud of myself every time. I satisfy the growling bear and a year on I'm proud of how far I've come. I mean it's not easy. No way. It's a constant battle. It was, it is a constant uphill struggle. I don't know if I can say I had an eating disorder - I wasn't ever properly diagnosed. But I know I wasn't eating enough. I was restricting. I was over training. I was pushing my body wayyy too much. I didn't have any self love. All I had was push, push, push. Push yourself as hard as you can, because you will never be good enough Heidi. You will never be who you want to be.
I wanted to be a good athlete. I wanted to be the best runner I could be. I thought the only way to do that was to make myself the lightest, skinniest version of myself. I still to this day don't know where I got this idea from and why I fell down into this trap - maybe I never will. But it is sadly common in our sport. I've had many many conversations with many other people who have gone through or are going through the same thing or know someone who is and it breaks my heart. This is not okay. It's not okay to be doing this to yourself, to know you are doing it and to not be able to stop. It is not okay. Reach out, talk to someone, get help before it is too late. I was shrinking myself down and becoming a shadow of myself. I knew deep down it wasn't sustainable. But I wasn't ready to face up to myself. I wasn't ready to challenge myself. Going to Boulder and spending those two weeks with Andy and the athletes in the Rocky Mountains changed all that.
I knew as I watched the other athletes in Andy's house cooking big, healthy sized nutritious meals and running fast and strong whilst I nibbled away at an inadequately sized portion in the corner and going to bed still hungry that something didn't add up. I knew I was doing something wrong. I knew that something would have to change. I knew I was facing a make it or break it situation. What would have to change was me, my mindset. It was time to stop focusing on the shape of my body. It was time to start focusing on the shape of my mind.
It hasn't been easy, it hasn't been a walk in the park. But coming back from those amazing two whirlwind weeks in Boulder to the result of a bone density scan which said I was almost suffering with osteoporosis was the final piece in the jigsaw that I was piecing together in my mind in the Rocky Mountains. The final piece that sealed the bigger picture. If I wanted to continue to do the sport I loved, to continue to run free in the mountains and live more days like I did in Boulder then something needed to give. I needed to break the cycle. It was a long time coming but I saw what I needed to do and this past year has been a journey of recovery. Returning to myself. One day at a time. One mouthful at a time. Until now. I can finally say it - I feel free.
I honestly don't know how much I weigh right now. And honestly - I just really don't care. How amazing it feels to write and feel that. This time last year I would stand on the scales everyday obsessing over every 0.1kg of myself. Now I feel strong. I have strength in my body but most importantly in my mind. I've gained body fat, gained muscle. I've gained weight. I've gained self love. But most importantly I've gained my life back. And oh what a joy it is to be alive.
16th April 2020, Malonno, Italy. Here I am. A 22 year old athlete. But I am so much more than just that. I am the stories that shape me, the places I've been, the people I've met, the connections I've made. We all contain millions of multitudes within our skin. We are all the places we've ever been, all the places we will go. We are wherever we are right now, at home (most probably) we are what we are in our minds. Inside there are mountains. In these days at home, we are not climbing the mountains. Only those of our minds... I wish you great adventures.
Staying positive doesn't mean you have to be happy all the time. It means even on hard days, you know that there are better ones coming.
