Two Words

She set a world record at seventeen and didn’t want the label

Regan Smith broke a world record in high school. Going into Olympic Trials, here’s what she said about it: “I don’t want to walk into the meet with that label of world record-holder on me because then I’m going to get too caught up in that and I’m going to let that affect me and add pressure.”¹

And then: “I’m just me.”²

Not I’m not fast. Not the record doesn’t matter. She’s the fastest person in the world at the thing, and she still needed to walk onto the blocks as a person instead of as a number.

The two-words test

A college cross-country runner wrote this about high school: “Quiet, runner: In middle and high school, I was often summed up in these two words.”³

So here’s the test, and it takes ten seconds. If someone summed you up in two words the way she got summed up — would both of them be about your sport?

If yes, that’s not a problem. It’s just the thing to notice. Caring this much isn’t a flaw, it’s the reason you’re good, and anyone telling you to care less is giving you bad advice. The only question is whether there’s anything else in there with it.

The part nobody says out loud

Anna Cockrell was a captain at USC and won an Olympic silver medal. This is how she described what it actually felt like:

“It was like each day was a performance. You’d go to practice trying to be the ultimate team captain, trying to lead, trying to be positive, trying to motivate.”⁴

If you’ve ever been tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix — from being the runner, not from running — that’s what she’s naming.

Here’s where she got to: “If track doesn’t work out for me, there’s more to life than this. This isn’t the sum of who I am.”⁵

Swimming had been such a huge part of my life for as long as I could remember, but it was not my entire life. — Missy Franklin, five-time Olympic gold medalist

Read that one twice. Huge part. Not no big deal. Franklin isn’t saying swimming didn’t matter — she’s saying it wasn’t the only thing.⁶ That’s the whole move, and it’s addition, not subtraction.

Three things that are coming for everybody

A race that goes badly. Not a slightly-off day — the one where you don’t recognize yourself.

Getting hurt. Most runners and swimmers lose real time at some point. It’s normal, it’s not your fault, and you’re not the only one.

A last race. This is the one nobody tells you. Every season ends, and eventually one of them is the last — and it might not be the one you planned. It might be a race you didn’t know was the last one, or a postseason team you didn’t make. Everyone acts like this is a surprise. It isn’t. It happens to every athlete who has ever lived.

You can’t stop any of the three. You can be someone with more than one room before they show up.

About the results being permanent

Almost half of high-school athletes say they’re afraid of being judged by other people — and girls say it more.⁷

Which makes sense, because every race you’ve ever run is on the internet with your name on it, forever. You never agreed to that. It’s just how the sport works now.

Here’s a thing adult runners do: some of them delete their slow runs so nobody sees them.⁸ Think about what that actually is. That’s running so you don’t look bad — a completely different sport from the one you signed up for, and tiring in a way racing isn’t.

The page is real. It’s public. It’s permanent. It still isn’t you.

What to actually do

If you’re already hurt

Shannon Kennedy was a phenom too. Then: “I’d run for eight years injury free and suddenly I had a tibial stress fracture. Over the next four years, I had seven more stress fractures, until finally, I listened to my body.”⁹

Eight. She switched to rowing, and she was still an athlete, and she was still herself.

The hardest part of getting hurt usually isn’t the leg. It’s that everyone’s at practice and you’re not, and you start wondering what you even are right now. That feeling is normal and it isn’t permanent. Stay in the room — go to practice, take a job at the meet, sit on the bus. The people are the part you can keep.

If it gets bigger than a bad month — sleep goes, you’re dreading everything, you’re saying “I’m fine” a lot — tell somebody. A parent, the trainer, a teacher, your coach. Same as a shin that won’t stop hurting: you tell a person who can do something about it.

If you’re ever in a place where you don’t want to be around: call or text 988, or text HOME to 741741. Free, private, any hour.

You’re going to be a runner or a swimmer for a while. Be a couple of other things too. Not instead — as well.

Like Regan Smith said, walking into the biggest meet of her life: I’m just me.