53 | Skyrunner Hillary Allen: Courage and Curiosity
Release Date: 07/01/2021
78 | Carrie Answers a Question: A Collective Confidence Boost
The Injured Athletes Club
“I’m continuing to struggle months after my stress fracture is ‘healed’ with new pain areas and fearing it is a recurrence of the original injury. How do I mentally get over that hurdle?” —Liisa “I’m currently in transition from return to function towards return to play and every little flare gives me the jitters, if you happen to have any input on navigating. 🙏” —Sarah “I think fear of reinjury is big too. Like, I don’t even know if I want to try getting back to running and surfing—or if that’s just fear—so help on thinking through those tough...
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77 | Quarterback Vad Lee: Purpose Over Position
The Injured Athletes Club
“That experience helped me to realize to cherish every relationship, to cherish your responsibilities, to cherish your opportunity when you have it, because it's not guaranteed tomorrow. You can be the hardest-working player, you can do things right, you can be a great person and all of those things—that does not guarantee that you will finish the way that you wrote your story or the way that you want it, desire it to finish.” fell in love with football at a young age. He thought he knew how his life would pan out—winning the national championship, getting drafted into...
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76 | Carrie Answers a Question: Gavin’s Glitch
The Injured Athletes Club
“While I am not a professional athlete, I am a chef who has gone from 1 hour intense daily workouts and working 10 to 14 hours a day to doing nothing. Exactly one month ago today I fully tore my pectoral major off my humerus while bench pressing. I am itching to finally have my surgery completed this upcoming Monday. I'm hoping you can provide me with some insight and guidance. Everyday I find myself in a battle with my monster and athlete. I know what I have to do to control my monster, but it is really exhausting having continuous arguments between the two. It feels like...
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75 | Another Mother Runner’s Dimity McDowell: Adventures Ahead
The Injured Athletes Club
“The greater lesson of this is that I've helped open the door—a lot of people have opened the door—to talk about what running on the other side looks like, or not running, what the other side of that looks like. You can still have a creative, active, badass life without pounding on your body, if that doesn't work for you anymore.” has been a runner for years. She’s also the author of many books about running; a sports and fitness writer who’s written for running publications; and the co-founder of the positive, thriving community But the last time she ran a step was...
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74 | Carrie Answers a Question: Calen’s Chronic Injury
The Injured Athletes Club
“I had arthroscopic surgery for FAI/labral tear six years ago, and it's been a long, slow road of recovery. I think my rehab program didn't focus enough on building back strength and mobility before I progressed back to running, so I've dealt with a lot of lower body injuries from overcompensation and bad movement patterns since then. I've been focusing more on mobility and strength in the last year and feeling better, but this week my hip has suddenly felt worse than it has in years. I've been trying to focus on what I can do for it right now and listening to my body, but it's been a really...
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73 | Carrie and Cindy Turn Your Fs into As
The Injured Athletes Club
“When you think about it, how often is your mind completely absorbed in the task in front of you? How often do you catch your mind wandering off task? Our brains, you know, they like to wander off. Mindfulness helps us bring it back, rein it in, back into this moment.” When you’re injured, it’s easy to get hooked by negative emotions—perceived failures in your past, frustrations about the present, and fears of an uncertain future. You can’t rid ourselves of these feelings entirely; they’re a part of being human. But if they’re constantly hijacking your...
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72 | Carrie Answers a Question: Erin’s Exasperation
The Injured Athletes Club
“What do you say to people after you get injured and their comment is ‘maybe your body is telling you something?’ This phrase irritates the heck out of me. Of course I’m always looking for something to be learned from an injury but how do they know what MY body is telling ME? I’m reading REBOUND right now (so good) and there are so many athletes with repeated injuries who push through to come back stronger, which is exactly what I want to do. But I wonder how many people told those athletes “maybe your body is trying to tell you something?’ What do you say to that annoying...
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71 | Wheelchair Racer Susannah Scaroni: A Newfound Gratitude
The Injured Athletes Club
“I remember not knowing whether I was going to be able to race that day. I felt so emotional, I was crying. I had tears on my face and I was just thinking about just how weird the circumstances were, and just feeling how it was taken from Daniela, but it wasn't from me.” Susannah Scaroni had one career high in summer of 2021—she won her first two Paralympic medals, a gold and a silver, at the Tokyo Games. This past May 29, she had another, when she set the world record in the 5,000 meters for the T54 category. In between came one of her greatest challenges. In September,...
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70 | Carrie Answers a Question: Jamie’s Jumpstart
The Injured Athletes Club
“I find it difficult to keep up with daily PT after all these years of rehab and feel like I let myself and my PT down in recent months. This is not the state I want to stop and I want to keep getting better, but the vision of that seems hard to see some days. For the injured athletes that are on long-term recovery tracks, how do you stay motivated and engaged with PT and training when the recovery process is much slower than you want to, or are trying to return to sport but your body is still not fully ready?” This week, co-host and mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a...
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69 | Carrie and Cindy Talk the Talk
The Injured Athletes Club
“It's so important to pay attention to how you are talking to yourself, because your words influence everything. So you really need to understand your self-talk and start to dive into it a little bit and know, OK, is the way I'm talking to myself right now—is that helping me or is that actually hurting me?” Imagine you’re walking past two sets of coaches and athletes on the tennis court, track, or soccer pitch. One coach is yelling at an athlete for her poor performance, telling her it’s all her fault and she’ll never improve. The other is offering encouraging words, letting...
info_outline“Every day doesn't have to be perfect. But you still have to put in the work, and you still need to show up, and you still need to put that brick in. Because in my little brick house in Fort Collins, which I grew up in, all the bricks were there, even if they were cracked, and scratched. They were all there in their imperfection and they made this beautiful structure. That's honestly what kept me going on those days where I felt like I didn't want to show up to do my PT. I felt like that was the one thing that I could do, no matter how boring it was, to lay that brick for the day.
Hillary Allen’s amazing story is actually the very first one we highlight in our book Rebound. In 2017, she fell off a ridge during Norway’s Tromsø Skyrace, tumbling 150 feet to what could have been her death. Her injuries included two broken ribs and wrists, a fracture in her back, and a ruptured ligament in her foot.
She’s always written eloquently about her injury, and her compelling new book Out and Back tells the tale of her accident and recovery. On this week’s show, we delve into some of the emotional components of that incredible journey, including the importance of asking for support and how she showed up for herself on days when she didn’t know if she had it in her.
And—in a topic that’s not discussed as much, but is critical for injured athletes—she also opens up about her past with disordered eating, how fueling may have saved her life, and her advice for coping with fears about weight and nutrition during recovery.
A huge thank you to our sponsor for this episode: Fluid Running. Fluid Running makes it possible to maintain your peak physical fitness even when you're injured through the power of deep water running. Listen for a special discount code in the episode!
In this episode, we discuss:
- Her respect for the power of nature, and injuries are viewed in extreme running (5:56)
- How coming to terms with the fact that she might never compete again ultimately made her a stronger runner (14:05)
- Her “brick by brick” analogy of recovery (18:43)
- Why asking for support was so hard, and how she learned to do it anyway (23:00)
- The hardest time period of her recovery, and how she got through it (28:00)
- The power of curiosity, and why she believes it was one of the secrets to her survival (30:41)
- How grief and trauma are like waves, and how she’s learned she can withstand them (34:23)
- Her experiences with disordered eating before—and after—her injury, and why she’s so passionate about sharing them (36:39)
- Why she—like Amelia Boone—doesn’t like referring to her recovery as a “comeback” (48:11)
You can subscribe to The Injured Athletes Club on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and if you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or a review in Apple podcasts. That helps other injured athletes find the show.
Resources/links:
- Hillary’s website and Instagram
- Her fabulous book, Out and Back: A Runner’s Story of Survival Against All Odds
To access more resources for injured athletes:
- Join The Injured Athletes Club mailing list, for news and updates
- Join The Injured Athletes Club Facebook group, for support and camaraderie
- Like The Injured Athletes Club Podcast Facebook page, for the latest episodes
- Email us at [email protected] with questions, guest suggestions, or other feedback
DISCLAIMER: This content is for educational & informational use only and & does not constitute medical advice. Do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your health-care professional because of something you may have heard in an episode of this podcast. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with a qualified medical professional for proper evaluation & treatment. Guests who speak on this podcast express their own opinions, experiences, and conclusions, and The Injured Athletes Club podcast hosts nor any company providing financial support endorses or opposes any particular treatment option discussed in the episodes of this podcast and are not responsible for any actions or inactions of listeners based on the information presented. The use of any information provided is solely at your own risk.