It is no big secret that distance runners are supposed to be very thin in order to perform at their maximum potential. Standing at the starting line, looking to my left then my right and realizing I was the biggest girl with my toe to the line was a hard pill for me to swallow in high school. Once the gun went off, I forgot about my size and stuck with the pack. I was competitive. I spent six years on my school’s cross country and track team wondering why I did not look the part. As my running career progressed, I became bigger and began to develop a fuller figure. I do not think that my development through my career was a bad thing, honestly it was just a part of growing up. But yet I was left wondering why the girls next to me were smaller when we were the same age?

I came to the realization that I was just not meant to have the ideal runner’s body, and I am becoming okay with that. As I look back on my competitive career as a high school athlete, I also realized that my body did not hold me back. I could run even if I did not look like a runner. I put in the same miles and followed the same training plans as the girls who were somehow smaller. I ate a pretty health and balanced diet, yet I was still bigger. My size was essentially out of my control and I have come to accept it.

Would I have been more successful if I was smaller? Maybe, who is really to say. Do I wonder what kind of future I may have had if I could have had that ideal body and ran a little faster? Of course I do. In the end, I am completely fine with the fact that my body and I have retired from running competitively. I had the opportunity to continue my career into college but I chose not to take it. Ultimately my body carried me to have the opportunity to continue my career, I could ask for nothing more.

At the end of the day I was the big distance runner and I struggled with accepting that for a long time. Do I envy the smaller runners? No, not any more. At one point, I would have given anything to blend into the pack that I was running in. Now I am thankful for the body that I was given. My legs may be a little bigger, but they carry me just as well. Is there a “ideal body” for distance running? Of course there is. There is a specialized body for just about every sport, but that doesn’t mean that someone who falls outside of the stereotype cannot be just as successful. Big or small, tall or short, your training and talent will take you where you need to go.