So Heidi here we are in 2018. You've been on crutches for a while suffering with your first stress fracture and you're going to be feeling elated at the thought of being able to run again. You didn't treat yourself right in those dark winter months though did you? You began to think because you weren't running you didn't deserve to eat an extra serving of your mum's yummy dinners, or sometimes just drinking a coffee for lunch would be enough to fuel your body throughout the day. You were mistaken... you didn't realise how much your body needed food to repair itself. Oh 19 and 20 year old Heidi how I wish I could go back and change this downward spiral and stop what was coming next... As a younger runner, you'd be aware of your body and compare yourself to the other girls on the start line but you'd take pride in your strong legs and your strong body – in how your strength carried you to a bronze medal in the European Junior Mountain Running Championships and how it allowed you to run fast up and down mountains.... until you somehow got your first stress fracture, something you'd heard about but thought nothing of. Something you believed happened to other people and not to you.
And so 20 year old Heidi - you'll feel betrayed by your body and so you'll start to want to control it. This level of control will slip in slowly, so much that you barely notice it. When you run your first 10km along the forest tracks you'll feel alive and so happy... but then you'll come home and look at the GoPro pictures afterwards and see nothing but your legs and how big you think they look... but no Heidi, you need to stop these thoughts - you should look at those pictures and see the big smile on your face and feel grateful you have a strong body that is able to run again. You do not need to change your body, you are a strong and happy runner as you are!
But instead you're going to fall into the trap of thinking that after your stress fracture in order to get fast and fit again and to make up for lost time you have to shrink yourself down and loose weight.
It will seem to happen gradually and then all at once. You'll feel yourself getting faster and lighter with each day and you'll feel a sense of satisfaction with the amount of control you seem to have around food. You'll show up to the GB trial for the European Mountain Running Championships and surprise yourself by qualifying for your first senior vest... you'll put your new found form down to your changed body composition and this'll only fuel the fire to make you restrict even further... you'll be making big mistakes – getting up at 6am to run 25km before coming home to a breakfast of just two slices of toast. Barely eating lunch, basically living your life on an empty stomach and feeling grumpy and tired all the time. This'll all come to a head... you may be able to run fast and finish second in the FlettaTrail race running over 10 minutes faster than the year before but the repercussions will be huge... You'll feel a nagging pain in your hip again - another stress fracture. You'll realise you did it to yourself... all because you wanted to be a good athlete, you wanted to run fast and win races and you fell into the trap of believing that skinny equals faster. You'll find yourself hopping around on crutches again unable to do the thing you love and wondering whether it's all worth it – the hunger pains, the sleepless nights, the pain of even just sitting down as your bones feel hard and sore against the chair with no flesh to protect them. You'll feel all this, you'll know how it isn't good for you, how it isn't helping you in your recovery from your stress fracture. But you are stuck in a viscous hunger cycle, unable to eat that slice of cake or put that extra spoonful of pasta on your plate... all because you are scared. You'll care so much about the shape of your body that you can't feel there is anyway out. Throughout your second stress fracture recovery you'll swim for at least an hour everyday and you'll feel some sort of success – you won't have had your period for a long time now but instead of feeling panic and recognising how unhealthy you are - you'll feel in control because as long as you can keep your body weight down – you'll feel worthy... even if deep down you know just how toxic it is.
20 year old Heidi, you'll be in a dark place and you'll know it... you just can't seem to see a way out. You'll keep pushing and pushing because you'll be scared of facing up to the reality of what you've done. You're scared of what'll happen if you stop.
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