My travel journey: AUS ➸ U.S.

“All that it takes to become addicted to sports is a distance between the athlete and the beholder – a distance large enough for the beholder to believe that his heroes inhabit a different world. For it is under this condition that athletes turn into objects of admiration and desire.”

I believe this quote holds a great deal of depth. It has continued to linger in my mind since I first starting analyzing ‘The Praise of Athletic Beauty’ By Ulrich Grumbrecht. This quote not only inspired me to think about the way I view sportsmen, but how my perspective as an athlete differs to spectators and critics of sport who merely view and do not participate.

Sport has taken such an eminent role in my life. I started running at a competitive level at the age of ten. When I was nine-years-old someone spotted me down at the local athletics track running with my brother who was six years older than me. I grew up on an 11 acre block of land with my 5-person family. Every day after school we road our motorbikes, went bush walking, made a bonfire or ran.

I’ve always had that runner’s stature - the long legs, lanky arms and a strong core. My parents encouraged me to start training with a local group of runners and within a year I won my first national title in the 800 meters. I was 10-years-old. Early on I didn’t realize the doors my running talent would open, until I started school and began to get continually recognized and praised.

At 15-years-old I competed for Australia in my first international race, The IAAF World Youth Championships held in Lille, France. I also competed again for Australia at the IAAF World Junior Championships when I was 17 in 2013.

I spent 19 years of my life located 7419 miles away from The United States, Australia. Until I decided to accept my full scholarship to Stanford University. At first I didn't want to go. I had a High School boyfriend I didn't want to leave and I knew I'd miss my family. But I took the plunge.

I still recall my first overwhelming experience at The Giants Game, my freshmen year of college. The first time I drove past AT&T Park, home of The Giants, the car park was chock-full despite it being many hours before the first pitch. Thousands of people were spotted sitting on the concrete jumble in between their ‘vee-hicles’, some camps more extravagant than others. With their dozens of fold-out chairs, tents, bags of ‘fries’ and ‘candy’ with entire lounges and family fun games. The game brought the family together, all wearing the same jerseys and ‘tailgating’ (not to be confused with driving up someone’s backside).

I believe Americans have sports games down to a fine art: they factor in travel time, food preparation, equipment, setting up, cleaning up, tossing the ball around between family and friends and then watching the actual game whether they proceed into the stadium or just watch it on TV from right outside of the game venue. That’s a whole weekend accounted for right there.

The whole activity is rather perplexing to me, I can undoubtedly think of nicer places to host a pregame BBQ than a car park shared with 50 million other people.

Americans visiting Australia after college will ask, ‘what sports did you play in college?” and most will recollect their University Games mixed soccer team where the boys would go off for a speedy vomit behind a tree followed by some Gatorade to ease the sting. University sports aren’t taken seriously in Australia, the ‘Uni Games’ is held once a year and is mostly a test of one’s drinking endurance, of who can best stomach a week-long hangover.

Student-athletes in the United States are treated like Gods. We have access to world-renowned training facilities, not to mention full academic scholarships. My eyes were gob-smacked at my first Stanford football game.

The amount of people watching and intoxicated. I found myself questioning whether the spectators really understood or cared about the game at all. Do they understand how many hours, days, weeks and years they have devoted to the sport?

I never thought I’d travel 7000 miles across the oceans, across the world to train, study and live in The United States. After all - I’d only ever been to the United States once in my life. I never thought I’d fall in the love with the great oceans of the west coast stretching all the way from San Francisco to LA – Big Sur being one of my favorite destinations so far.

I remember visiting one of my favorite San Francisco beaches during last year’s summer break. Baker beach. I can still imagine the water splashing on my feet, reminding me just a little bit of home in Sydney, Australia. But the sand is thicker, darker, harder, and denser. I walk along the shore, smelling the wind whistle loud. Something draws me in, the sense of adventure, of the unknown.

Since living at Stanford University, I’ve had my fair share of adventures. I’ve camped with friends at the great National Park of Yosemite, where snow falls right at the very top after an eight-mile hike and South Lake Tahoe. I’ve also hiked along the big blue oceans of Big Sur with my freshman room-mate. My siblings have come and experienced it too - wishing they too could explore California during breaks and attend a prestigious university like Stanford.

Unfortunately running wise - injury after injury has plagued me. Since the start of college I haven’t ran for more than three months injury-free. It’s kept me up profusely sweating at midnight writing scattered notes at an uncontrollable pace in my training journal, crying to myself, wondering what I’ve done wrong. It’s caused emotional rollercoasters that have left me bewildered by my inadequacy to stay healthy despite my commitment to every ‘small thing’ I do to keep injuries away. It’s left me questioning my talent that allowed me to represent my country internationally at the age of 16 and 18, prior to college.

After 10 years of running competitively, I’m still grinding away. I run laps around the athletics track every single day without fail, feeling the sweat of my determination and will to succeed excite me, but at times also haunt me. 50-60 miles a week. 30,000 steps a day. 40 hours a week. It’s a full time job. I’ve fractured my sacrum (in my back), navicular & cuboid (in my foot), torn my plantar fascia twice (arch in my foot) and continually dealt with chronic ITB syndrome (in my glute/ knee). But yep, I’m still here. And I love it.

“You’ve got to be crazy,” most of my non-running friends tell me on a regular basis.

I tore my plantar fascia in my freshman year, eliminating me from competing most of my outdoor track and sophomore cross-country season. It was the annual Payton Jordan Invitational Track meet at Stanford. I came steaming down the home straight on the first lap of the 800 meters. The bell sounded and shortly after the 400 meter mark, I felt a rip right underneath the arch of my foot, not realizing how much pain I was enduring, (my body was numb, full of lactic), I swung my arms hard – “throwing cups of water over my head”, as my dad would describe it, to get to the finish line. The pain was alive as I hobbled to the side gate to gain balance, trying hard to not fall over. I looked around for a coach, someone to take some of the pain away, any expression of empathy. Everything seemed so unfamiliar.

My whole body locked up, my thoughts wandered to all notions of negativity. My coach’s disapproval rang louder in me than ever. Unfortunately I still remember that chilling feeling so well, crystal clear – to this very day two years later. I was taken off the track by a volunteer, who placed me in a small golf cart they had for struggling athletes. I got in, crying. But not the normal type of tears you see from a tired, drained, exhausted athlete. The tears that came gulping out my eyes were wholesome, heavy, thick tears. It wasn’t even the slow race I’d just run that was causing my sadness, nor the fact that I’d just torn a key ligament on the bottom of my foot and wouldn’t be able to run for the next four months – it was letting my coach down. I was too old to have a coach telling me, “everything is going to be alright” or “you gave it your all and that is all that mattered” or my dad telling me, “Annie, you’re always a champion in my eyes,” but the tears still came and I yearned the comfort I always took for granted in High School.

Track & Field has to be one of the most individually grueling sports possible. But Christopher McDougall’s quote from ‘Born to run’ radiates the moments that make all the pain and heartache worth it, “There's something so universal about that sensation, the way running unites our two most primal impulses: fear and pleasure. We run when we're scared, we run when we're ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time.” Running is my pleasure, some understand, some don’t.

Some whimper at the thought of running ten miles or more a day, waking up at 7am for a ‘shakeout’ run each morning or jumping into a bath of freezing cold ice on the regular. But day after day, I wake up at 7am to do my run when I’m injury free, for me. Knowing I’m 100% dedicated and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. It’s a lifestyle.

Representing Stanford has also become a lifestyle. I may be 7000 miles away from home but the distance travelled from Australia seems so minuscule now. Australia is close, just a plane trip away. Running for Stanford has become part of my identity. I sometimes feel like I'm American now, especially when I come home and my parents complain about my accent. And sometimes I think I'm losing part of my Australian identity after 3 years of travel here in the United States. It’s a new life and the one I chose and will continue to choose for a while.

I used to ponder on the notion that traveling to the United States took something away from my identity. My life felt like it was speeding by, too fast. I felt like I had lost control of my destiny – of becoming a professional track athlete. Injury after injury was blurring my hopes and dreams of what America was supposed to open doors to. I thought I would continue to be plagued by injury and mental deterioration.

Surprisingly, I only realized this year that nothing or nobody could ever take away my love to run, my talent or my will to keep persisting after injury. Injuries no longer conquer my mindset and not running well isn't the end of the world. Running doesn't define me as much anymore - I love the journey, I love the process, I love my life.

One of my favorite running books growing up ‘Born to run’ by Christopher McDougall says, “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.” This quote sits and resonates so well in my mind. Running has this essence of nature and purity that I can’t find in anything else, as strange as that sounds. It’s almost as if animalistic traits come alive in me when I run – I just want to feel the air rush by me fast, feel my feet pounding the pavement hard (like I said before, but I want to repeat it), I want to feel limitless, like a driving force through the air. Here's an example I wrote down about a tempo run I did when I was extremely fit in my sophomore year:

* * *

It’s mile four of a five mile progression run and we’re picking up the pace now. Still the same aimless footsteps I see in front of me. The sweat flicks off Julia’s hair onto my face, her sports bra sopping. Stride by stride, Claudia and I begin to puff louder now, working out with the 5 kilometer specialists is always a challenge, but nothing will stop us if our mind doesn’t. We know we’ll make it through. The pebbles beneath our feet seem to loosen, feeling heavier, and harder. Our shoulders tighten up, and my stride becomes lopey, like an antelope. Free from distraction, free from confusion, free from uncertainty. Just strength. Arms pump forward stronger than ever, legs follow through fast without a thought. Together we push our physical boundaries, legs slowly getting heavier – but tougher. It’s a heavy feeling we enjoy, a heavy saying keep going. The mile ahead of us doesn’t matter; nor the mile just past – all that matters is the very present moment. When the distance becomes a blur and the skyline views around us no longer matter. I then realize I’m pushing mental boundaries. I think back to my brother’s wise words of advice when things got hard in high school, “the person who hangs in the longest ends at the top of the field.” (He has always believed in my running ability. He trained me when I was 10 years old, made a Facebook fan page for me and would get angry at me in my freshman year when he thought I was losing focus on my God-given talent.)

We’re just running, I think. It’s simple.

* * *

Not until recently did I genuinely sit down and think about the simple notion of speed and time, how easily it can get away from us. For most of college I felt very much caught up in the present, focusing on how I could become a better runner right that second, always focused on the next 24 hours ahead of me – what I could control. Time has flown by - three years at Stanford has felt like six months of High School.

It’s easy to take little notice of people too – people who have so fundamentally shaped the present version of ourselves. I've considered a comparison of humans to mounds of ants, the ones you see in rainforests silently moving their minuscule legs so fast you barely get time to gain focus of one. We’re similarly swept up in one big rush. A rush to succeed, to excel, to learn − to live. Rushing to school, to work, to practice, to the next thing. ‘Things” we have going on in our lives thanks to those that have helped us, shaped us, given us opportunities to use our talents, to create something meaningful of ourselves – with no recognition. Life can feel like nothing more than a selfish pursuit.

We forget. And move on. Thoughts escape us. Hopes escape us. People escape us. People that meant the most to us get the littlest gratitude or thanks – like our parents. Maybe that’s the way they knew it would be. Maybe they’re waiting for the day we realize it. Maybe it’s the way the world works. Things escape us through the cracks of opportunity, travel and relationships. For me, by crack I mean 7000 miles of distance between my lives here at Stanford University and my life in Australia. This paper is actually the first time I’ve taken the time to sit down and reflect back on memories of my life in Australia, because I’ve been so great at forgetting all of it to soak up as much of the ‘new’ me – the Stanford university student version of myself.

My favorite running track will always be the old, leafy grass track at Barton Park, Parramatta in Australia. No matter how stinky the bathrooms got, I loved running in there after a long, steady fifteen minute warm up to freshen up and get hyped for a high intensity workout. The cracks on the bathroom doors ensured a dramatic entry when I busted in to pee half way through a workout. The taps hardly worked, but just enough water would come out to enable me to cup my hands and splash a cup of water on my forehead before the workout begun. I started running at Barton Park with my very first track coach at the age of twelve. Blonde, humble, young, shy, oblivious, lanky, un-coordinated and un-experienced. But one thing I knew for sure was that I had an endless stream of energy. I couldn't sit still for longer than an hour during class in High School. Running was my thing. It came to me so naturally.

My coach’s name was Phil Moore. 45 years old. Sometimes my math tutor. Sometimes a friend. Sometimes a questioner of my faith. But most of all he was my mentor. He took off failure off the radar. All I needed to focus on was the present moment and how I could channel every ounce of persistence, faith and self-belief. Once my mind was focused on these three aspects, they always brought success. The most important factor that stuck with me was his ability to be humble always. Humble with a necessity to be personally, internally, entirely confidant. Every run had a strict purpose. I loved that. He would always remind me over and over again in the smallest, slyest ways how incredibly talented I was. He could see it in my long, lanky legs growing up, my ability to sprint faster than anyone on the squad. I won’t forget those rare moments after a workout when he’d look at his watch, nod, smile and say, “Anna you’re ready,” in that very moment I knew I was going to be spectacular. He could read me. Read my will to win. And barely praised, so when he did, it meant something special.

* * *

Melbourne World Challenge. It was supposed to be a good race. I was ready. Physically. I was 16, turning 17. 1500 meters. I ran undetermined. Lopey, tired − stupid. I crossed the line, no core activated, my lower back curved, my neck pulled backwards. Nothing went as planned, and I knew it. Phil knew it. I walked off the track angry with myself. I’d failed – for Phil and for me. I looked over at him with an expression that yearned for his dismissal, yearned for him to yell at me with anger and tell me I was stupid. He looked back, but I couldn’t tell exactly what expression he showed. I walked behind the bleachers and up the stadium stairs toward my parents, holding back tears. My dad high fived me and would do so no matter what the result, “Annie you are always my champion.” I hated it. I wanted something constructive. I wasn’t a champion, I was a failure, I thought. Phil sat, hands folded, there beside my parents. Silent. Neither happy nor sad, just there. I almost tore off my spikes, socks, and the elastic holding my perfectly slicked back hair in place. After a few minutes he said, “Anna we’ve got some work to do.” That’s all. That’s all I wanted – it told me I was worthy and better then that, better then the number on the results board. Later that day he also told me, “maybe you could do being a little lighter too”, basically telling me to lose a few pounds in the nicest way possible, eh it was fine. I didn’t care. I liked his honesty and he was always right. There was nothing I could do to let him down. Only myself.

* * *

My travel here to the United States hasn’t been perfect for me, but it’s the lessons I’ve learnt along the way that will define my future. We as humans have the power and choice to use disappointments and struggles as a reason to be sad, get down and give up. But something that I’ve always valued is the importance to never give up when things get hard. And my three years in college thus far have been the biggest tester of that. Sometimes it feels easier to give up on something that takes up so much of our time and energy and feels like it’s never getting us anywhere. But it’s during these times when I always remember that nothing is easy, and no body grows when they are comfortable.

Running at Stanford has formed 2 of the greatest years in terms of racing experience I’ve ever had. I experienced my very first indoor track season in my freshman year. I still remember walking up to a huge building at Washington University in Seattle, which I imagined to be a concert hall or dormitory. I was faced with trying to comprehend how weird it was to see people running around the blue, completely circular track with a roof of steal over their heads. No wind, no clouds, but a whole lot of spectator noise. Everything was louder. Everything was closer. Spectators and coaches screaming from the inside of the track less than a meter from the competitors intrigued me. I was lucky enough to be part of Stanford’s Distance Medley Relay, where we set the 7th fastest ever Stanford Distance Medley Relay time at the Husky Invitational.

My mind has been opened to a whole new and different caliber of mental toughness, as I raced almost every fortnight for cross-country, indoors and some of the outdoor season in my freshman year. I wasn’t only racing for myself, but also for my Stanford team – for a team of women who I trained with every day. We all knew, especially during cross-country and indoors, that we weren’t totally fresh for races. We had to run tough, even if our legs were still heavy from the long fartlek a few days earlier or our weight session a week ago. I fainted in two of my freshman year cross country races. Racing not being totally fresh was definitely something new for me. I always took one to two days off before a race in Australia. I still remember during my first cross-country season at Stanford being told by our head coach to run the 6-kilometer course at a solid pace 15 hours before we were scheduled to race it. My mind was blown, why did I have to do this? I also remember waking up at 5.30am the morning of the same race to do a ‘shake out’ – just 15 minutes easy jogging to ‘get the legs moving’. It all seemed bazar at the time to me.

I just ran through the motions of my freshman year, loving the experience of racing but never really giving myself credit for surviving the exceptional amount of change I was facing – New friends, the loss of relationships at home, new responsibilities, coaches, teammates, training regimes, racing venues and tactics.

Coach Miltenberg, my coach at Stanford, repeated to me a lot in my freshman year after disappointing races, “its all about the process”. And its true. I’m learning more about myself each day here at Stanford – the facilities, coaches and experts readily available to me are fundamental to my recovery and progress. I’m growing mentally and physically under the umbrella of injuries I’ve experienced in the past three years here at Stanford and to me that’s positive progress.

I am also incredibly lucky to develop academically during this time with a great deal of depth academically at Stanford. I am a declared Communication (journalism) major and International Relations minor. I’ve always had a great passion for writing. I believe journalism lies at the heart of human experience. Working with people, about people, to people. It inspires creativity; understanding of peoples lives and inspires empathy. I’ve learnt the language of Russian, which has enabled me to speak with my mum, and her relatives at home, a totally fun and exciting challenge. International Relations has also enabled me to become more informed of relevant issues in today’s society, learn a lot about international conflict and resolve and make sense of complex situations on a global scale.

Life has slowed down. And I’m finally making sense of the purpose of my travel from Australia to the United States. With all the differences and scarcity of similarities, I love it. And I hope to continue to discover more about myself and the world – one day at a time.