Did cross country give me an eating disorder?

        This past week, cross country has been one of the only things on my mind. On Friday, we had our league championship. I was feeling a lot of pressure, not only to do well but to somehow cherish every second of my last painful race in golden gate park.

        On Thursday, Mary Cain (a former member of the Nike Oregon Project and an elite middle distance runner) released a statement about her experiences with Alberto Salazar and the Oregon Project. I have watched her video at least ten times. Although I recommend everyone watch it for themselves to hear her story, here is some of what happened: Cain was emotionally and physically abused by her coaches and was coerced into maintaining a specific (and very unhealthy) body weight to “enhance” her performance. Without access to a proper sports psychologist or nutritionist, and without any other female athletes or coaches looking out for her, Cain became severely ill, both mentally and physically. When she began to harm herself, she was finally able to take the brave step to quit the team and go back home to her parents. It is safe to say that the abusive environment she was put in robbed her of her peak years of running and, temporarily and more devastatingly, of her happiness and self-worth. Her story is an example of the abuse endorsed by companies (like Nike) in order to make a profit, and of the harrowing nature of distance running and elite athletics in general.

        Although what happened to Cain is an extreme example of what can happen to distance runners in the world of competing, her story brought up a lot of feelings about my personal experience with cross country. I really felt like I could relate to the idea of running being such positive yet such a destructive force in my life. Although my four years of cross country have been filled with ups and downs, it is hard not to ask myself the same questions over and over again now that my career is coming to an end. Did cross country give me an eating disorder? And if it did, was it really worth it?

        To me, this seems like a loaded question. If I look at it from an extreme point, I feel like it is the same thing as asking: did running ruin my life? Getting an ED took away my privilege— and my right I think— to eat without thinking. Now, every meal I eat is a calculation, even if the final product is positive. When I motivate to go to practice every afternoon, a small part of that motivation is tied to working off my breakfast and lunch before dinner (although I hate to admit it). Even the night before my race on Friday, I weighed myself and wondered if it would be the right move to have an ice cream sandwich or not, or if I should have a big or small breakfast the next day. Eating, and food, has become such a focal point in my life that sometimes, when things are really bad, everything else blurs into obscurity.

        If I look at it from a more objective perspective, then I think yes, running did give me an eating disorder. Although I was already inclined to have habits such as restricting, or staring at my body for too long in the mirror, running provided the platform for my ED to take off. Running became my excuse for restricting, my excuse for abusing myself, and simultaneously my reward for doing all those things. When my times got fast at the end of freshman year, nothing else mattered. Friends didn’t matter. Family didn’t even matter as much. Just the number on the scale and the time on the clock that I thought it was correlated to. Maybe if I had decided to play another sport, or stay out of athletics entirely, none of this would’ve happened.

        It is a hard pill for me to swallow, the idea that running could have such a negative impact on my life. It then brings me to the question of if any of it was worth it. It makes me wonder if I should miss it or not, or feel sad that it is coming to an end. I have been battling with this all weekend, but have ultimately come to the conclusion that it was worth it. Watching Cain’s video again and again helped me. Despite what happened to her, she clearly still loves to run, and says she intends to keep doing so for as long as she can. She was brave enough to come forward with her story in the hopes to make distance running a safer place. I think that was the most important thing: the fact that she told her story almost as a warning to the running community, and as an opportunity for us to work to make things better and healthier for everyone. I truly believe running is a special sport in terms of the community it forms: running creates a place where people can look out for one another and celebrate each other’s hard work. Running creates a community where people like Cain feel inclined to help better and support it, even if it means sacrificing some of their own privacy and being vulnerable. I will miss cross country, and I believe my experience was so worth it, because of this community, which I have known was there for four years, but which Cain’s video really helped me see.

        Running gave me the community that empowered me to write this blog. Running gave me the community empowered me to start my club. Running gave me the community I could look to when my eating disorder really took off, and when I was unsure whether or not I could ever truly recover. It gave me the friends that supported me the most when I was feeling afraid, and alone, and dissatisfied with myself. I see that community on the starting line, when my team screams our cheer together. I see it when people come up to me and say something to me about my blog after a race. I see it when I can look to other female coaches and runners as role models, and see that they value me and my experience and my struggle. I see it when I am laughing around the dinner table with my teammates, not even thinking about the food on my plate. I see it when I think about how my four years of running has brought me some of the most important people in my life. Without running, and to be honest, without the experience of my eating disorder, I do not think I would have been able to really find this community in the way that I have. I am grateful for four years of learning about myself, and about getting to really see and value my strength and hard work. Running has put me through some of the greatest and most painful battles of my life, but has also shown me what it feels like to come out on top, the people I love by my side.