Title: Hilary Allen

Text:

so we'll take a tour

to regain my sane as like before right?

yeah resilient. so one thing that will

always come back. exactly!

but it comes back seems to have foe

but anti-fragile is like... it's like my scars

my spirit I think is like

it was you know broken

but now it's back and it's not the same

but in fact I think it's stronger

because it's let those instances like rebuild

and like reinforce by create something new

can you give us your name and

just how you describe yourself

oh I guess the name part: Hilary Allen

how I describe myself I think... I usually describe

myself as a pretty big science nerd

science is just so cool cuz it's just make

you curious about to see this entire world

okay so besides you know running a lot um

but I also teach chemistry and physiology

and anatomy at a small college

and I just happened to discover running

it was just this moment where I remember

just clicked and I just felt like at peace

and just like it was really me

oh you got it ohh you have him

actually that's like the real reason I run

so I can like think for the bugs in different

countries or places yeah it's amazing

back in August - August what? 2017 I was at

the final race of my kind of World Tour

like ultra running Sky Running Series

and I was in Tromsø Norway which is

super far north in Norway, it's in the Arctic Circle

basically there was some rock fall

some rocks gave way underneath my foot

and I fell in total 150 feet

you know fell 20 feet bounced fell 20 feet again bounced

I definitely remember like accepting

that I was gonna die it was a really weird

narrative in my head when I was falling

it was almost like I was watching it happen

when I finally realized that I wasn't dead

and that I was in the hospital like two days later

and my mother actually came

yeah so I mean it was really intense I mean like

I'd never broken a bone in my life before this moment

I had broken 14 or 12 of them you know

two of which were at my back

like it was pretty they were pretty serious injuries

but I remember the doctors telling me that

I would never run again and that was really

intense to hear like two weeks after my accident

in many ways I feel like I'm kind of

starting my recovery over again

even though it's been nine months

I just wanted like curl up and die but like I didn't

I chose actively to not do that

but that can get really exhausting

I felt like I lost this part of me that was like strong

and like it was something I could like be proud of

and then to not have it anymore I had to kind of know that

I possessed these other attributes that

would allow me to kind of get back

to that point but in an even more fulfilling way

strength is not what I thought it was

my point is it's not so one-dimensional

it's not so simple and I think I fell

victim to that too - it's like defining

myself in one aspect... it's too narrow

I remember the first time I got on the trails again that kinda I was like doing

jogging and like running I was just like oh my gosh

like this is amazing like I think

this is why I love to do this like it doesn't matter

if I'm gonna return to racing or competing

I'm afraid that I'll be defined by what happened

I think many people didn't expect

me to come this far I mean

heck the doctors definitely didn't

right that's literally being vulnerable and

choosing to kind of alright I feel this way

but I'm still gonna keep going and I think that's strong

Hello. aah check me out!

OK. That's good