By Grace Staberg
Grace Staberg is a student and endurance athlete in Summit County, Colorado. She runs ultras in the summer as part of the Summit Endurance Academy and this past summer ran the Power of Four 50k and the Grand Traverse Mountain Run. In the winter, she is a Dynafit Skimo athlete, competing on the US National Team both in the US and Europe. When not finishing high school, working on the ranch or racing, she can be found on long adventures in her backyard. She’s gearing up for her first hundred miler this coming year and of course, college, so she can at least be an *intelligent* adventure bum. She can be reached at [email protected].
I’m a young girl. In sport. And nearly four years after the diagnosis of my eating disorder, I am finally healed enough to discuss it. In the past few years, my coaches have been nearly the exact opposite of those involved in the horror stories from USA Gymnastics or The Oregon Project. However, before that, my experience in sports was fraught with the issues and pressures most young girls face. It seems that we’ve all come to a realization that it is time for the broken system to mend. But how?
The first step, a plainly obvious step, is to acknowledge that there is indeed an issue. It’s easy to be selective about how we remember our experiences. If you were to ask me about my experience as a middle school cross country runner, I would first have an overwhelmingly positive response. Yet, when I take a moment to reflect and really think about my beginnings as a runner, my blood begins to boil. I now love running and have a healthy relationship with endurance sports, competing as a sponsored runner in the summer and a ski mountaineer in the winter. However, for nearly three years, after finding running in middle school, I was ravaged by an eating disorder that began as a quest for control and was perpetuated by the idea that being light would make me fast, which would in turn complete my identity as a runner.
You see, to eighth grade Grace, it felt like everything was falling apart. It was a combination of many little things that sent me into an uncontrollable spin. Something happened at school that made me feel unsafe in the place which I had previously loved. I was surrounded by peers who were just as intelligent as me, and by teammates who were equally as talented. My sister, five years younger, was more gutsy than I was on the ski team (she’ll still drop things bigger than me if we’re being honest). I was growing and puberty is a female runner’s worst enemy. I could go on but the point was that, to me, it felt like my life was out of my control. I had lost my self-confidence and with that, my identity. Cross country though, made me unique. It gave me a place and a purpose. The internet had told me that to be fast you had to be skinny, and my coach didn’t seem to disagree. So with that, I fell apart. It no longer mattered to me if I couldn’t win a race outright, because I could place in the top five without eating. In my sick, desperate mind, that made me strong.
For a while, I did get faster. A lot faster. I was doing really well both on my team and in the region. I made it to states. But I was withering away and all the while, no one said anything. I refuse to accept that my coaches didn’t notice. Soon, the previous success I’d been having wore off because losing weight only works to a point. A teammate’s dad told my parents that it looked like I was running through sand while racing, and I certainly was no longer performing well. Each race felt like a climb up Mt. Everest because my body had nothing left to give. I passed out on a start line. Then, the day before my race at states, my mom picked me up from practice and drove me to the hospital. The doctors said that had I raced the next day, they were fairly certain I would have passed out and the health of my heart would have been in mortal peril. A few weeks prior, I had undergone surgery and it had taken me hours to come out of recovery because my heart rate was hovering around 30.
I knew I could control my weight, so when everything else was out of my control I grasped to this one strand I had left. I thought that if I was lighter I would be faster; if I had willpower I would be stronger; if I could have more control than the other girls I could win. I was so, so incredibly wrong and I desperately wished that I would’ve had a coach like I do now to instill this upon me. I am incredibly grateful that my parents eventually realized that I was not, in fact, “OK” as I had been saying for months, but rather, that I was killing myself. Yet it breaks my heart that my coaches didn’t realize what was going on, for it was clear (believe me, it was clear) that I was withering away and that my times were suffering drastically.
I have to laugh whenever people tell me a workout looks hard or say that they “don’t know how I do it,” because running up a mountain in -40 degree winds has nothing on the years that would ensue. For the next three years, my parents, bless their hearts, fought tooth and nail to keep their daughter alive. I took a hiatus from running, skiing and being a teenager, because each moment of every day was dedicated simply to staying alive. The pain your mind can inflict upon you is unrivaled by any physical pain you may experience. Nearly three years after I was first diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, I had gained the necessary 25 pounds back, I developed a healthy relationship with exercise and I managed to let go of most of the grief and hopelessness I had been harboring for years.
Yet, it took me a while to truly process this phase of my life. I finally feel as if I’ve reflected upon it enough, and that I’m in a good enough space to share it. It is incredibly hard for me to write this; to admit that I struggled with such an extreme eating disorder. The stigma around mental health issues and eating disorders is suffocating and for the longest time, I was terrified about how people would view me or if they would respect me after I shared my story. But this no longer matters because my heart has been broken after hearing Mary Cain, Amelia Boone and others speak out about their mental health struggles. I share my story not for pity or sympathy, but with the hope that by speaking out about this issue we may be able to prevent it from happening to other young girls.
I guarantee you that not a single one of my coaches intended to encourage me to develop an eating disorder, yet the encouragement is already there in literature, in peers/teammates and on social media. So, that being said, coaches need to be diligent about watching for athletes that may be struggling and young girls need to be discouraged from falling into this trap. My current coach likes David Roche’s saying, “Eat enough: always, eat too much: sometimes, eat too little: never.” By telling this to his athletes, he is encouraging good nutritional habits. I’d like to think that I wouldn’t have succumbed to the disorder if a coach had educated me on the dangers of not eating enough; for I never knew I could lose my period, develop osteoporosis, have organ failure, get orthostatic or ruin myself with low energy availability.
Today, I am vowing to contribute to the betterment of the running culture so that more young athletes know of these dangers and are encouraged to take a different path. It is time that we speak out about our past, against the dangerous undertones present in the cultures of many sports and for the betterment of girls in sports. No race result or finish time is worth killing yourself over.
12 comments
Grace – this took a lot of courage to write and I very much admire your strength to persevere. You are an inspiration to those with all mental health issues and an inspiration to me. I wish you all the best in your journey.
You are one amazing girl and I will be sharing this story far and wide through social media and by word of mouth. I can relate to all of that as I have close family members who have had eating disorders and ongoing mental health problems. I want to be able to help people heal themselves by using all the tool they have freely at their disposal if they were aware of them. I have trained to Reiki 2 and intend to do my masters in the new year so I can train others these healing powers and spread the word. Natural remedies and healthy eating lead to happy, peace loving people who want to heal the world.
Grace! I am so moved, and amazed and inspired by you – by your bravery, by your persistence, by your intention to be a role model for your peers and younger athletes coming along.
You are a beautiful writer, even with the painful words you have to write – your story is painful to read, but also inspiring because of where you are standing now – in a reflective, healthy, grateful place.
Love you so much. Thank you for taking care of yourself, and your dreams.
Your family is wonderful, and I sure do love you!
xoxo
Thank you for sharing this. I admire your strength and appreciate your hard-earned wisdom.
Grace
You are incredible! I am inspired by every step of your journey and will use your words to guide me as I parent Alexandra through her young years. Thank you for sharing your story! We are so very proud of the woman you are! We are cheering you on during every race in Europe and in life!
Beautifully said. We all have our issues. Acknowledging our difficulties is definitely hard – but must come first. So grateful you are in a space where sharing with others is comfortable. You are my remarkable granddaughter. 💙
So proud of you Grace! Keep up the great work in Europe! ❤️Deb Deverell
Bravo for you and good luck. I hope somewhere you investigate the “Keto” way of eating, or maybe even carnivore. Hope to hear of your success in the future.
Really? You are recommending highly restrictive diets on someone in recovery from a near-fatal eating disorder? I hope you take a good look at yourself.
Yes, investigate, and then immediately dismiss. Any kind of restrictive diet, both in terms of calories and variety of food (unless you have certain food allergies) is BAD for endurance athletes.
That’s not to say eat anything, especially not junkfood.
My dietary advice to myself was “eat as often as possible as much as possible.” Got me to D-1 All-American in XC and a 12th place finish at Boston.
Your heartbreak
has opened up your heart
And will be a lantern
burning bright
Showing you the way
And this sacred sharing is
a service to all who suffer with this very painful issue,
A Bow to you
And Godspeed
Be ever so kind to yourself and your longings and dreams .
May the force be with you in your endeavors Gracie
Your whole family holds you in our hearts!!
Grace, you are a beautiful, awesome, amazing, caring young woman! Educating others on eating disorders & associated body image issues is so important. Being happy & healthy should be the focus — for everyone. Thank you so much for putting yourself out there & sharing your story!
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