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runners were all stretching. I stood beside him, watching uncertainly.
    â€œOkay, Suzy, go warm up,” he said, nodding toward the runners.
    I froze. These were the great Olympians I’d always idolized. Who was I to warm up with them?
    â€œI can’t go in there,” I said, ducking my head in shame.
    â€œOf course you can, Suzy,” he said. “You’re the Junior National Champion.”
    I shook off his words and stepped away from the grass near the track. My coach didn’t understand. No one could. I knew that I was in constant danger of failing at any moment. I knew that I was never good enough. But my coach was confused and frustrated, though he finally let me warm up where I felt like I really belonged: in the parking lot.
    Even so, when I saw the runners I most admired fly around that track, being cheered on by the whole world, I knew I had to be an Olympian. I decided I was willing to do anything it took to make this happen. School, relationships, family, anything that didn’t directly support that goal would have to be put aside.
    For an overwhelming majority of my cross-country races during my junior and senior years, I beat all my competitors by a substantial distance. Given that, I should have been flush with confidence. Instead, meets became a source of dread. My mind began to go to very dark places before each and every race. As the hours before a meet ticked away, my stomach became a fist of nerves, and I had one thought: If I could just break my leg , I wouldn’t have to run this race.
    I wasn’t alone in these feelings. In 1986, during my senior year in high school, one of the top college runners in the country, twenty-one-year-old junior Kathy Ormsby, was running the 10,000-meter race in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s outdoor track-and-field championships when she found herself in fourth place. She suddenly veered off the track and jumped from a bridge in a suicide attempt that left her paralyzed. This was obviously big news in the running world, shocking many. I was too young and, frankly, too consumed to see the connection between Kathy and myself. I just kept my head down and trained harder, convinced I would never let myself fall to fourth place in any race.
    I took it upon myself to do extra miles in the morning before school, but that quickly proved too difficult, as it meant waking up at 6 A.M . to run, doing a full school day, and then training with my team afterward. So I began running at lunch during the week, usually after eating only anapple, while my friends in the cafeteria flirted with boys and planned the next party or night of drinking and hanging out. Kris didn’t feel compelled to put in extra training, and so we didn’t spend as much time together as we once had. My dad began asking if he could run with me, but the idea of having him get involved with my training so directly felt like more added pressure, so I didn’t let him. Instead I sought his praise in other ways, continuing to take on extra chores around the house, such as the laundry and ironing, and mastering skills I knew my dad admired. I already loved art, so it was easy for me to throw myself into art projects at school, in hopes he’d appreciate my work. He built stilts for us kids to use, and I was the one who used them the most. I was also the one who mastered the unicycle he brought home, sometimes riding it to school. My family didn’t have to be on my runs with me to see how hard I was pushing myself. Eventually my mother stopped me in our kitchen, with concern in her eyes.
    â€œJust take a day off,” she said.
    Not an option, I thought as I shrugged and went out for a ten-mile run. As I ran, my worries ricocheted through my head: I’m not fast enough. I’m not thin enough. My body has to be stronger and tighter. I can’t let anyone beat me because I’ll let my family down. I’ll let my coach down. I’ll let my