2 | Ultrarunner/Obstacle Course Racer Amelia Boone: Carving a New Path Post-Injury
Release Date: 02/19/2019
The Injured Athletes Club
“ When you're injured and beginning to rejoin group rides/workouts, how do you let other riders know you're not at 100%? I'm thinking specifically of gravel and mountain biking. I have trouble clipping out quickly, and am currently overly cautious. I want to ride in the very back, but sometimes there are other people ALSO trying to ride in the back. I know people don't want/need to hear my ‘woe is me' injury story, but I also don't want to be a hazard!” —Whitney In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other...
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“ When you give yourself permission to explore your identity, you will start to realize that being an athlete is an important part of who you are, but it is not all that you are. When you develop other areas of your identity, it can sometimes open up your performance in ways that were never available to you before.” As we discuss frequently in The Injured Athletes Club, injury brings a rollercoaster of emotions. But often, one of the most destabilizing feelings is the question of identity: Who am I without my sport? In this host-ful episode, Coach Carrie explains how common...
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“Besides feed the athlete/feed the monster, are there other ways to reframe and build confidence with that day-to-day overwhelm in month 3 and beyond?” Allison In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. This week, listener Allison wants advice on self-talk and other confidence-builders as she moves into the long-term stretch of her rehab—and Coach Carrie delivers advice that will help any athlete riding the emotional rollercoaster of a lengthy recovery....
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“ I woke up in the hospital and told everybody that this isn't gonna define me. I'm going to be playing lacrosse again. But there was always that what-if in the back of my head; I didn't really know if it would be possible. Having amputees sit across from me and hearing everything that they've been through … they were telling me that I'd be able to live an active lifestyle. I would be able to do whatever I wanted to with my life. And if I really wanted to, that I would be able to play lacrosse again.” Noelle Lambert was a collegiate lacrosse player at UMass Lowell when she...
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“ Just after recovering from being hit by a truck over the summer and breaking a bunch of bones, I got to start running again only to slam my ankle into a table and now I can’t even walk. It’s possibly just a bone bruise but the pain is radiating through my entire leg and I’m so angry this happened to me just after I got better. Everything is just fifty thousand times worse. I don’t get along with those closest to me, I have so much more conflict with family and friends because nobody understands what I’m going through and nobody is even that nice. Does anyone else feel...
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“ The biggest change that I've had to make in myself is, you don't always have to be progressing. I feel like there's this huge push to be able to run faster, run farther, lift heavier, just do more all the time. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way to reap all the benefits of health and fitness that come along with cardio and with strength training.” Physical therapist and strength coach has always been a healthy, active person. But after she got sick with COVID in the fall of 2020, everything changed; her resting heart rate soared, she lost fitness and muscle mass,...
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“How can I cope with treadmill anxiety? Coming off of a mild ankle fracture, my first few weeks I was back up to speed. Lately, as soon as I go anywhere over a jog, I feel panicky, like I'm going to fall and have to slow down. I feel relatively sure it is all mental—but I’m wondering if you have any tips.” —Jennifer In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. This week, Coach Carrie addresses Jennifer’s question about coping with treadmill...
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"Actionable goals build. It's a mountain—recovery is a mountain. Think about the stops on that mountain that you need to make to get to the top.” Millie Paladino had a successful, relatively injury-free collegiate career in running at West Virginia University and then Providence College, where she ran distances from 800 meters to 3,000 meters and was an all-American in the mile. She turned pro and joined Team New Balance, and in 2021, made the final in the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials in the 5,000 meters. But in the lead-up, a slowly developing injury began...
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“ I tore my ACL last April; it’s been very challenging. Do you have any ideas on how to make the recovery process fun? Also, why do I feel so lost and confused without my sport—what should I do with this feeling? —Ava In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. This week, in response to Ava, she reiterates one of the key messages of The Injured Athletes Club: That you are still an athlete, and recovery is now your sport. And the first part of that recovery...
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“ I don't really want to be who I was before I was injured. In a lot of ways, I'm thankful to a place that just completely broke me, just brought me to some really low points. That's when I was able to grasp my faith or what it was, which is my personal worth. It has absolutely nothing to do with a soccer field or anything of the sort. Just learning that my worth and my fulfillment comes solely through my faith has been something that will go so much farther through life than soccer ever could.” Civana Kuhlmann started playing soccer at a young age and quickly excelled,...
info_outlineAmelia Boone is an ultrarunner, four-time world champion obstacle course racer, and full-time attorney. She was dominating the OCR scene and training for the Western States Endurance Run—a 100-mile race she describes as “the superbowl of ultramarathons—when she developed a stress fracture in her femur.
That was challenging enough, but not long after recovering from that injury, Amelia had a second setback—a sacral stress fracture. In the end, she was sidelined from running for nearly a year, and didn’t race for 18 months.
Amelia joined us today to discuss:
-How she’s come to view her injuries as useful experiences and how they changed her relationship with running
-The stages of grief she went through when she learned about her initial fracture, including denial, anger, and finally, acceptance
-The loss of identity that occurred when she couldn’t run, and how she coped
-Why writing has been so important to her throughout the recovery process
-How she overcame some internal resistance and began actively volunteering and participating in the community while injured: “staying involved in the sport and seeing other people's’ joy and learning to hold that as my own”
-Her resistance to the phrase “comeback,” and why she thinks it’s important not to try to recreate the past
-What it felt like to have a second serious diagnosis so soon after her return to running
-The shame and “self-flagellation” that go along with overuse injuries, and how vulnerability has powered her through those difficult emotions
-Why being upset about injury is really just a sign of how dedicated an athlete you are and how much you love your sport
-The top pieces of advice she gives injured athletes, including giving yourself time to grieve, knowing when cross-training is detrimental instead of helpful, and being your own advocate with doctors and other health care providers
Resources/links we mention:
-Amelia’s blog
=Her social media pages: Instagram and Twitter
Thanks for listening, and please reach out anytime at [email protected] with questions, guest suggestions, or other feedback.
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