She Didn’t Become Unstoppable By Avoiding the Hard

“She didn’t become unstoppable by avoiding the hard things. She became unstoppable by walking straight through them.”

I saw this quote and sat with it longer than I expected to. Because it’s not a poster quote to me. It’s Orin Ultra 100 at mile 80 when every part of me wanted to sit down in the sand and quit. It’s April 7, 2018, walking onto a powerlifting platform for the very first time with no idea what I was really doing. It’s a Tuesday afternoon on the floor with Xander when nothing I try is working and he just needs me to stay.

The Marathon That Taught Me the Truth

My first full marathon, I hit my half at 2:29 and felt incredible — then mile 20 happened. My legs were done arguing with me and my brain started making a very convincing case for quitting right there on the sandy course. I didn’t. I walked when I had to, I put one foot in front of the other when running wasn’t an option, and I finished. Nobody remembers your negative split. They remember whether you crossed the line.

That race taught me something I’ve carried into every 50k, every 100-mile attempt like Orion Ultra and Brazos Bend, and every meet since: the hard part in the middle is not a sign to stop. It’s just the part you have to walk through to get to the other side.

April 7, 2018

Before that day, I was a mom who’d been lifting seriously for about ten months and that was crossfit. I’d never competed in powerlifting. I didn’t know what to expect walking into my first meet, and I could have avoided it — stayed in the gym where it was safe, where nobody was watching, where I couldn’t fail in front of a room full of strangers. I stepped onto that platform anyway. Since then it’s been meet after meet — Bayou Border Bash, IPL Worlds, WABDL Worlds, IPA Worlds, the Lifting Spirits Invitational and so many in between — building toward representing Anderson Powerlifting as an elite athlete. None of that happens if I stay in the safe lane. Every single meet still has a moment before my first attempt where I have to choose to walk toward the bar instead of away from it.

The Hard Thing With No Finish Line

Here’s the one that doesn’t come with a medal or a PR: raising Xander. He’s non-verbal, and some days that means the hardest hours of my week happen in my own living room, not on a race course. There’s no negative split to be proud of, no clock to beat. Some days are just hard, and the only way through is through.

The Tyler Run for Autism will always be one of my favorite races, and not because I was chasing a time. I ran it slow pushing Xander in a stroller and next to other special needs families who understood exactly what “hard” meant in a way a lot of people don’t. Not every race has to be about the PR. Some of them are about showing up, together, for the long haul — which is really what raising him is, every day.

I’ve also had to walk through things I didn’t choose to carry: being a survivor of sexual abuse and rape isn’t a chapter I can skip past. For a long time avoiding it felt like the safer option. It wasn’t. Healing, like everything else in my life, only happened when I stopped running from it and walked straight into it instead.

What Unstoppable Actually Looks Like

It doesn’t look fearless. I’ve been scared on start lines, scared under a bar loaded heavier than I’ve ever attempted, scared thinking about what Xander’s future looks like. Unstoppable was never about not being scared. It’s about showing up to the hard thing anyway — the meet, the mile, the hard conversation, the hard afternoon at home — and walking straight through the middle of it instead of around it.

That’s the whole secret. Keep showing up.

— April