SportTechie’s Athletes Voice series features the views and opinions of the athletes who use and are powered by technology. SportTechie chatted with ultrarunner Hillary Allen about her sport, how she worked her way back after falling off a cliff, and her new podcast, Athletes Unfiltered.
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In August 2017, Hillary Allen fell off a cliff halfway through the Hamperokken Skyrace ultramarathon in the mountains of Norway. She dropped 150 feet, hitting the rocks on her way down, and blacked out. Allen broke a dozen bones and tore a ligament in her right foot. Though neither leg was broken, a doctor told her the injuries were bad enough she might never run again.
Allen, aka “Hillygoat,” was determined to fight her way back. During her long recovery and rehabilitation, she began using the social exercise platform Strava, and became more active on social media in general. She found encouragement from a supportive online community, some of whom have become real-life pen pals. Last June, less than a year since her accident, Allen raced the Broken Arrow Vertical Kilometer in Squaw Valley, Calif. She finished a close second in her return to competition, completing the steep 3.1-mile course in 46 minutes and 28 seconds.
Besides being sponsored by The North Face as an ultrarunner, Allen is a science instructor at Front Range Community College near Boulder. She is also fascinated by insects.
Earlier this year, Strava launched a podcast hosted by Allen called Athletes Unfiltered. The episodes feature people from across the athletic spectrum who have faced and overcome their own challenges, from injury to addiction and assault. After recording for the first series finished, and as Allen was getting ready for races ahead in 2019, she slipped on a training run, breaking her right ankle. Now she is restarting the long journey back to health again.
Searching for Answers
“I’ve been a scientist longer than I’ve been a runner. I have a masters in neuroscience and structural biology. I’m a really big chemistry nerd. That’s the lens that I see the world through. I’ve always been a curious person since I was a kid.”
“I think that one of the universal thoughts about the human condition is ‘Why?’ Why are we here, and what am I made of? What do I want to do? Why am I drawn to this thing versus that thing? I’m constantly asking the question why. And I think for me one of the reasons I love science is because I’m asking questions about how the world is structured, how it works. A reason I love running is I get to not only explore the physical limitations of my body—it’s a living breathing science experiment—but also the emotional side and the spiritual side of human existence.”
“Running is actually very simple. I was drawn to the simplicity of it. After I played collegiate tennis I went to graduate school. Graduate school was super stressful, I didn’t have a lot of time. I was playing in these semi pro leagues for tennis, playing in these open tournaments, and it just required a lot of travel time. With tennis you have to reserve a court, you have to have another person to play, matches take two to three hours. Yeah, you can run for two to three hours, but the drive time, all that coordination just got old, and I found myself getting burned out. With the stress of graduate school, I just wanted something that was more simple. And so I started running in grad school with this group of women that I found online. And they were these 55-year-old ladies—Olympic trial marathoners in the ‘80s but still killing it—and I was this 25-year-old running with them at five in the morning.”
Falling off a Cliff
“I remember that feeling of the doctor telling me that I might never run again. She said I might never run again, and she was pretty convinced that I would never compete again.”
“I remember thinking ‘No, I refuse to accept that.’ I’m a very stubborn person and I do not like being told what to do so I think that played into it. I just told myself ‘I have no other choice. My only choice right now is to keep going.’ And I had to consciously make a choice every single day to keep going.”
“I had to take it to this hour, this day. Like what can I do during this day to prepare myself, to take care of myself? What do I have control over in this moment sometimes to help me get out of bed? Or somedays it seemed impossible to get into PT. I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t even hold something more than a coke can. I couldn’t cook for myself, I couldn’t grocery shop, I couldn’t barely even eat. I had to make this little contraption of a fork to get food into my mouth. I couldn’t brush my teeth, I couldn’t change clothes.”
“I had to problem solve, sometimes in each moment, to figure out a way to just keep going. And then it got maybe easier and I’d take it day at a time, then at maybe two days at a time. But still, what kept me going in the beginning stages was just doing what was in my control … to figure out how I could best take care of myself and show up. Because just showing up was the hardest thing. It was literally just taking it one step at a time and figuring out what I could control and what I could do and having the belief that all of those little tiny things that I would do would add up to a day, would add up to progress, would add up to something that in the end would start to build my recovery and would start to build more of a path.”
Social Support
“If I were to choose anything, I would actually not bring my phone on runs. I’m actually new to Strava, too. I only joined Strava when I got this injury as a way to help see progress in my recovery and all this kind of stuff. I am a very pensive, independent, introverted person and so for me running was the time that the world could just go away. I didn’t have to talk to anyone, I could just de-stress or plan out my day or think about these problems that I was trying to attack in my research. It was just a time for me.”
“And now I think social media plays a huge part, especially after my accident. I was getting messages and encouragement from people—from strangers—I didn’t know. And they were genuinely sending me messages like ‘Oh I’m struggling with this injury and you’ve helped me find the strength to deal with this and this. Now I’m running again. Hang in there, I’ve had the same injury.’ It felt more connected and I could communicate with people on a different end of the world and we had this one thing in common.”
Re-Injury
“Now, who knew 18 months after my injury when I was literally thinking ‘Holy crap I’m injury free. Wow, I can actually race this season, coming back from this.’ And then I literally slipped on some ice on the road back to my house after finishing a trail run. I slip on the ice and I break my fibula. Freak thing and I’m here again. Like ‘Oh my gosh, I’m injured.’ I have to go in for surgery tomorrow. I’m so, so sad. Just wrapping my mind around like ‘Wow, I’m going to have to learn to walk again.’ I never thought I would be here again.”
“[But] I’ve built a different community now, and people are going to be able to virtually be there for me again. And it’s kinda a cool experience to be able to fall back on that safety net and get this … support. You never know what can bring you in contact with people—complete strangers—and you can have these connections.”
“Everyone wants to quit. I’ve definitely expressed that several times. Like I want to, I want to give up. So many times in my recovery I wanted to give up and I thought it was too hard and I couldn’t do it. But even when I felt that way it would pass and then I’d be dreaming of ‘OK, we’re problem solving. What can I do next? What can I do?’ So even though there were fleeting moments of feeling like I wanted to give up, I never let myself give up.”
Athletes Unfiltered
“I love podcasts actually, or listening to the radio—podcasts are just radio. I grew up listening to NPR as a kid. This American Life, all that stuff, NPR was blaring 24/7 in my house. I have a list of podcasts and I really enjoy them myself and it’s pretty cool to be on the other side.”
“Sometimes when I’m having struggles with motivation I’ll put on a podcast to get me out the door, just like I’m talking to someone and then I’ll just turn it off like an hour in if it’s a long run, because I like listening to the sounds of nature … I don’t want to miss the bugs, so I have to pay attention.”
“[With Athletes Unfiltered] I can talk to someone who’s having a hip reconstruction or they’re in the depths of some sort of recovery process, or someone who has overcome cancer, or going through a divorce and they’re moving, or they’re lonely or they’re homesick. All that stuff it brings up the same emotions of sadness, depression: ‘Why am I here? What am I doing? Am I doing enough?’”
“Everyone has something that they’re overcoming and they’re trying to wrestle with. Through that it builds the strongest community. And I think that is what this podcast is trying to highlight. Struggle takes on different forms, but, overcoming something, you have to use basically the same tools to overcome it.”
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