Right here for a reason.

Eye on the prize, head down, focus, breathe it. For as long as I can remember that’s what it’s been. Running and training were the center of my universe. And as much as that produced incredible results it also came with a lot of heartache. It was both physically and emotionally exhausting. Until it couldn’t be that anymore.

In the Spring of 2018 I was hit with a curve ball that changed this sport for me. A torn labrum in my hip caused me to skip out on the majority of my junior track season. My everything, the one thing that had once defined me and brought me happiness was all gone. My world fell apart and I went with it. I felt like I was chewed up and spit out. Every afternoon was spent on the sidelines watching my team do what I so badly wanted to do. It was followed by a workout in the dingy pool at the gym bringing me to tears and to soon hate running. I questioned my purpose on this Earth, but I learned how to accept where I was and enjoy everything else that life had to offer. I spent a series of Saturday afternoons cheering my teammates on while they poured their hearts out onto the track, and I am so glad I stuck around. It was those people who gave me the light when I saw nothing. It was them who helped me make the comeback. It was them who gave me the courage to compete at the state meet after a season of no running.

That season changed my heart. That season changed me.
And it was all done by the grace of God.

Going into the following summer my relationship with running was broken. I could finally run without pain again. What I had fought for all Spring was right there in front of me, but it was almost as if I didn’t want it anymore. I started going through the motions. I wanted to want to run, but my heart wasn’t in it like it used to be. My goals still stood, and if it wasn’t for that I don’t think I would have made it through my senior cross country season.

I wanted to run in college, I wanted to break 18 minutes in the 5k, and I wanted to be top 3 in the state. I wanted to achieve my goals more than I wanted to love the sport again.

So once again I did it all wrong.

I became THAT teammate. I forgot about the people who helped pull me out of a really dark time. I forgot about the magic that the TEAM brings to cross country. Our team didn’t have the magic that it did the season before, and I take a lot of the fault for that. I won lots of races and I hit some pretty good times, but it brought me little to no happiness. There was a hole in my heart that I couldn’t fill. We didn’t qualify as a team for state, and I ended up with a pretty embarrassing state performance myself.

When the season was all said and done, I took two weeks off from running and started swimming just like I did every winter before. Swimming has always been my second love, and it usually gave me the perfect and well deserved break after the long cross country season, but this year was different. It’s true that our failures make us hungrier than ever. I reflected on my mistakes, and luckily for me, I had a whole other season to end on a higher note. For the first time in what seemed like forever I genuinely wanted to feel the burn in my lungs while I listened to my feet smash against the gravel. I couldn’t get myself to trade my Saturday long runs for long swim meets. I couldn’t push myself in the pool like I used to because my heart was somewhere else. So I did something that I had always joked about, but never saw myself actually doing. Knowing that I may have let down a coach and a team that I had so much respect for broke my heart, but I ended up quitting the swim team. My runs were no longer about hitting a pace. It was about clearing my body with the crisp winter air while taking it all in.

And I no longer was about being all in with just the running aspect of my life. God had been calling my name for quite some time. I finally let my guard down and let Him take control. It took some time, but a mended relationship healed a broken heart. I began to finally see that running is something I do, but it doesn’t give me my worth, and I found a new love for the sport.

And then it happened again.

About 3 weeks before the first official day of track practice I felt my hip again. “Did I make a mistake by not taking the winter off and swimming? Is it going to be last spring all over again? Is all of the hard work going to go to waste?” Except this time I was caught before I could even begin to fall. My faith was being tested. I kept my head up and didn’t let my heart stray from what was important. Yes, I had to watch my team do the first workout of my senior track season without me, but I never missed a meet, and I never did it half heartedly either.

I went into my senior track season with an entirely different approach.

I lifted my finger off of the stopwatch, I tightened myself within the team, and I gave it to God. I ran with more heart than I had ever felt before. Running fast and competing put me in my element again. I fell back in love with the sport that broke my heart. The times produced themselves, and I was genuinely the happiest that I had been in a while.

The week after state track I had the opportunity to go to Kenya and help put on a track and field camp for 5 of the schools there. Spreading the word of God through something that I am so deeply passionate about was life changing. Those kids didn’t only have genuine happiness, but they had joy. They were so present in the moment, and 100% all in with whatever they were doing. I realized how much more there is to this life and to this world than just running. More than anything, I realized how much God has truly blessed me, and that I had no reason to not come home and be all in with whatever I’m doing.

We live in a society where we have to physically remind ourselves to just be still. It’s harder to take it all in when everyone seems to be going through the motions, but with running we miss the beauty when we start falling into that pattern.

So I started summer training, and it was the best it had ever been. Right off the bat my long run pace was the fastest it had ever been. I was all in. I was training hard and I felt great, and then all of a sudden I didn’t. All it took was one run for the knee to start causing problems.

I thought it was just one of those small aches and pains. I’d swim one day and be back the next. That one day turned into two, two turned into a week, and a week turned into over a month.

Once again, I’m out, and I’m injured.

So this is where I was.

“I fight and I fight and I fight. I do 45 minutes of physical therapy everyday so that MAYBE I can run healthy. And now there’s something new. Am I ever going to have a full 6 months where I can just run healthy? Is there even a point anymore? I’m about done fighting. Maybe this isn’t for me after all.”

So I stopped caring. I ate whatever I wanted, never drank enough water, I stopped pushing myself in the pool and in the gym, I stopped sleeping enough, and I didn’t foam roll or ice. I stopped fighting to keep myself at the level I had worked so hard to be at.

I tried to ignore the fact that more than anything I missed the girl who did care.

In the back of my head my new college teammates are putting in the hard summer miles, they are getting fit, and day by day I could feel myself deteriorating. I tried to put on a brave face until it caught up with me. I was no longer the girl who spent her summer days training and enjoying the process. I was no longer the girl who would do anything for this sport. That girl was so far gone and more than anything that's what eventually broke me.

People change all the time. I changed. Except I hated the way this change looked. I hated the way it felt. I lost the fire, and I couldn’t find it. And it’s because once again, I tried to do it all on my own.

I tried to fill the hole in my heart with just about everything besides the one thing that matters. Nothing brought my heart enduring joy because it wasn’t God who was bringing me joy anymore. Eventually the temporary fillers broke me, and I had nothing else to lean on. And although I ignored Him, He was right there when I needed Him.

So this is where I am now.

Injuries are part of the process. Sometimes we don’t see why God gives us these hardships, but I do know that He uses them for His glory. It is all part of the beauty of this sport. Injuries can be taken and they can break us, but they can be flipped and used as building blocks to make us that much stronger in our faith and in our love for the sport. It can be exhausting feeling like we are always fighting, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Focusing on the now and being all in, in the present. Enjoying the process and accepting that this is all part of the journey makes running that much sweeter.

I’m not 100% healed and it’s not always easy to feel whole when my body won’t allow me to work at the sport that I love, but it’s more than possible. So I’m not done fighting. Maybe my journey looks different than the person standing next to me, but everyone has their own battles. God gives everyone the fire in their heart and soul to fight whatever has been brought upon them.

We all are changing every single day. Sometimes it’s hard to see, but it’s inevitable, and it’s all done through His plan. So, let’s be still. Let’s be all in at where we are at right now because we are exactly where we are meant to be.

- Morgan Hykes (@HykesMorgan)