Fast Girl

by Suzy Favor Hamilton

  A few months after we arrived, I noticed that Peter seemed less engaged with my training and less interested in my opinion. Around the same time, I took a job as the assistant coach for the cross-country team at Pepperdine. The running coach there, Dick Kampmann, began taking over the workouts Peter sent me, making them his own. He was a more low-key coach, and his relaxed approach to running suited my new laid-back California lifestyle. As much as I knew Peter had done for me, I could feel the beginnings of burnout, and I wanted my life to contain more than just running. That summer of 1991, my success on the track was modest, but it seemed like I was getting more press and attention than ever. As we went into the Olympic trials in the spring of 1992, my image as the all-American golden girl brought all sorts of opportunities that went far beyond the track. I was approached about doing a line of fitness videos. And not only did I land on the cover of Olympian magazine and Runner’s World, but I found myself in the pages of Rolling Stone, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Elle. I liked all the attention and I was having fun, for once in my life as a runner. The years of anxiety and self-doubt had taken their toll, and I was eager to push those feelings aside and bask in the glow of this new attention. I still loved to run, but the thrill of modeling and being a celebrity became more and more attractive to me. And Reebok, seeing all of the positive attention I was garnering, liked what they were getting, even though I wasn’t dominating on the track. When I was asked—via my Reebok boss—to pose for Playboy, I was excited, but I immediately knew I couldn’t actually do it, not only because of how my family would react, but because in my mind, an all-American golden girl wouldn’t do something like that. By this point, I was very aware of my brand, and I also turned down a deal from Miller Brewing Company.

  Going into the 1992 Olympic trials, I was a favorite to make the team. Not only had I won a record nine NCAA championships as a college runner, but I was running for Reebok, and they’d launched a huge promotional campaign around me going into the trials. I’d also qualified for the final of the Olympic trials in 1988, but my insecurity and anxiety had made me so convinced I didn’t belong on the team that I’d pulled out before the race. This time, there was no question I was a professional runner, but another problem presented itself.

  I was nervous. This was what I had been working toward for most of my life. And to ratchet up the tension, among the competitors in my best event—the 1,500 meters—was my childhood idol Mary Decker Slaney. I couldn’t believe I would be sharing a track with the woman who had always inspired me. I didn’t know it, but I’d also be facing my future nemesis, Regina Jacobs, who I would regularly compete against throughout my professional career. It seemed like I was forever coming in second to her at U.S. Nationals, which messed with my mind to no end. No matter how hard I trained, she always had the ability to finish races strong in a way I often couldn’t. I cannot say I was surprised when she tested positive for steroid use in 2003, validating my long-held suspicions.

  As we lined up at the starting blocks the day of the Olympic trials finals, it was hard not to watch Slaney’s pre-race ritual out of the corner of my eyes, even though I knew I had to focus on my own performance and quiet the jitters that could cause me to tighten up and choke midstride. Thankfully, when the gun went off, I was all instinct, all body, and my mind went quiet. This was the zone that I felt most comfortable in. I had been so focused on Mary Decker Slaney that I almost didn’t notice when Regina Jacobs suddenly pulled ahead to win the race. She was followed by her former Stanford teammate PattiSue Plumer in second place. I was stunned, but then, there I was, crossing the finish line in third place, with Mary Decker Slaney actually finishing after me in fourth place. I had run faster than my hero. And, most important, I had made the Olympic team.

  It was traditional for runners who earned a place on the team to be given an American flag and sent on a victory lap. As I jogged down the track, waving my flag, it was as if my feet were bouncing a few feet off the ground, I was so buoyant with happiness. And then, there was Mark, wrapping me in his arms. That might have been the best moment of my professional running career to date. Everything I had wanted since I was twelve had finally come true. I was going to the Olympics in Barcelona.

  This was before cell phones, so as soon as we got back to our hotel room to get ready for the celebratory dinner hosted by my Reebok rep, I called home. My mom and dad had seen my race on TV and were overjoyed for me. That felt so good after all they had done to support my running and how much I had longed to make them proud. Since leaving Wisconsin, I’d missed many family dinners and holidays, which especially displeased my sisters, and made us grow further apart. At the time, I was so focused on my new life that I didn’t really register their reaction. And since we never talked about anything as a family, it was easy to pretend nothing was wrong. My running trumped everything else in my life, distorting my view of what was important. After my sisters became moms, I felt I couldn’t be around their kids as much as I would have liked for fear I might get sick and miss a race or training. I knew my siblings were excited for me, but none of them called me to say so, and I didn’t think much about this omission. I also knew signs had already gone up in the gas stations and supermarkets of my hometown, congratulating me on my win and cheering me on to the Olympics. Unfortunately, such vocal support from my home state quickly turned my euphoria into a feeling of pressure, as my short-lived victory high was replaced by the greatest anxiety of my racing life. Now that I had accomplished my dream of making the Olympic team, I had to run in the Olympics and risk disappointing everyone who had believed in me and supported me along the way.

  Sure that I wasn’t training or running at the level of the world’s best, I panicked. Peter agreed to meet me in Norbonne, France, where the U.S. Olympic track team was staging a prep site for the two weeks before the Olympics. I desperately tried to make up for lost time under his guidance. But before I knew it, I had to leave him behind and travel on to the Olympics in Spain alone.

  Not every athlete participates in the opening ceremonies because it means standing for hours, which is exhausting. But this was my first Olympics, and I wouldn’t have missed the opportunity for anything. It felt amazing to be out on the field with the most elite athletes in America, all of us dressed in matching uniforms and basking in the culmination of years, even decades, of work. We were all big sports fans, of course, and so athletes kept popping away from where they were supposed to be standing with their team in order to go get their picture taken with someone they particularly admired. A seven-foot-tall man approached me, and as he smiled down at me, I recognized him as former Duke star basketball player Christian Laettner. He was there to play on what had been dubbed the “Dream Team.”

  “Hey, Suzy, I remember watching you at your NCAA race our senior year in college,” he said. “Can I get a picture with you?”

  “With me?” I said, laughing that a Dream Teamer could want a photo with me.

  As we posed, he looked over to where his teammates stood, hulking above all of the regular-sized athletes. “Do you want to come meet the Dream Team?” he asked.

  “Oh my gosh,” I said. “Of course I do.”

  I felt a little nervous as we approached Charles Barkley, David Robinson, and Magic Johnson, but they were so incredibly nice, it quickly put me at ease.

  “Suzy, I just saw you in that Pert Plus ad you did,” Magic said.

  What, Magic Johnson knew who I was?

  He leaned down and kissed my cheek. Mark is not going to believe this, I thought, knowing what a huge Lakers fan he was and had turned me into.

  By the night before my preliminary, all the good feeling I had experienced at the opening ceremony had evaporated, and I was back in the dark, extremely negative head space that plagued me during competition. In a panic going into the Olympics, I had redoubled my training with my college coach, Peter Tegen, but there was only so much we could do in that time. I knew I was in no condition to beat the world’s best, and Peter was not with me, so
he wasn’t there to give me any final words of wisdom now. And I was without my security blanket, Mark. Per official rules, no spouses were allowed to stay at the Olympic Village, so he stayed with my boss from Reebok. Little did I know that the mood at the Olympic Village was more spring break than a focused training zone. The athletes who had already competed in their events were ready to party, and the building in which I was staying had the chaotic vibe of a college dorm, complete with loud music, drunken shouts, and laughter. I was shocked to learn that thousands of condoms are made available in the village each year, and the Olympians were apparently making good use of them. As the minutes ticked by, I lay in bed, listening to the chaos, growing more and more agitated about my race, and thinking about how the less sleep I got, the worse I would do. Images of my upcoming race flashed through my mind, only they were the inverse of the positive visualization exercises recommended by coaches. I saw myself failing again and again and again. Finally, it was time to get up. I don’t think I slept at all that night. I was very tired and dazed. I would have rather done anything than run an Olympic race that day, but I didn’t have a choice.

  I started my pre-race ritual, warming up and stretching. By the time I took the bus over to the warm-up track, my head was plagued with the familiar litany: Why can’t my leg be broken? Why am I here? I didn’t have Peter or Mark, who wasn’t allowed access to me, there to calm me down. Of course, I was so used to doing what I was supposed to do that it never would have occurred to me to tell Mark how nervous I was or tell him that I didn’t want to run. I just pretended everything was fine, like I’d been doing for years, even though I felt absolutely terrible. I was thrumming with anxiety, to the point where I could barely focus on what was happening around me as I took my position. And then, I started running. I was putting on a good face, but I didn’t feel like I belonged there among these elite runners. And then the worries flooded me. I tightened up with a lap and a half to go. I was living the nightmare that many runners have: my limbs became impossibly heavy, and it felt like I was dragging my arms and legs through quicksand. It was over, and I knew it. The other racers flew past. I finished last.

  I was devastated. But the humiliation wasn’t over. My parents had flown to Spain to watch me race, as had a benefactor from Wisconsin who had given me money to help pay for my training. My parents told me that he was expecting to have a meal with me, and I had to attend. The last thing I wanted to do was sit through a meal with a fake smile on my face while everyone tried to make me feel better, but I couldn’t speak up. I went to lunch, suffering through the hour until I could go hide. I couldn’t bear to go back to the Olympic Village, where I was sure everyone knew who I was and that I’d let down my team and my country by losing when I’d been expected to do more. That night, Mark and I went to sleep early on the floor of the hotel room rented by my Reebok liaison. We got up early in the morning while he was still asleep and went straight to the airport. My first Olympics were over.

  Following my disappointment in Barcelona, I became aware of a rising backlash against me in the running world. I heard whispers that I wasn’t good enough to attract all the money and attention I’d received going into the Olympics. Other female athletes criticized me for getting praised for my looks. I was making a lot of money, more than many of my peers who were running as fast or faster than I was, and they felt I was getting more attention than I deserved. All of this cut into my already shaky self-esteem. When I’d appeared on the cover of Runner’s World the previous year, they’d severely airbrushed my photo, decreasing my bust size so I appeared flat chested, the way female runners were supposed to look. I hated that my breasts still drew attention to me and made me look anything other than the absolute ideal runner. That summer, I secretly paid eight thousand dollars for breast reduction surgery, even though the doctors warned me I might have trouble breast-feeding if I ever became a mother. Once I was healed, I was happy that at least I looked the way runners were supposed to look. But the surgery alone wasn’t going to put me back in top form. As much as I’d enjoyed my time in the paradise that was Malibu and a brief escape from the normal intensity of my running life, I always thought my coaches and father expected more of me, and as long as I was disappointing them, I couldn’t be happy anymore. Although I was not enjoying the competitive aspect of running, I wanted to win for others in my life, and so couldn’t feel good unless I was winning again for them. I missed training with Peter the way we had when I was in college, and I longed to have a more involved coach again, but I wasn’t ready to move back to Wisconsin. I wasn’t performing as well as I should be, and that meant that I had to find a new coach who could help me to be the runner I knew I could be. Hopefully this would help me to find my love of running again. My thoughts immediately went to my longtime idol, Mary Decker Slaney, whose former coach, Dick Brown, was based in Eugene, Oregon. A good runner friend of mine trained with Dick and had suggested I give him a try. It would be a big change from Malibu. Mark still had a year of law school at Pepperdine left, but I didn’t feel like I could wait. I moved to Eugene alone and we spent a semester apart, and then he finished up his law degree at the University of Oregon so he could be with me, always sacrificing for me and my running career.

  The change was exciting, and I threw myself into a new regimen and life. My new coach had strong opinions about many aspects of my life, even those that I felt weren’t directly related to my running. He grew irritated with my post-race ritual of calling my dad to tell him how I’d done, as my dad expected. He thought my dad was overly involved in my life, and he encouraged me to finally create the distance I’d long been craving. When my dad criticized me once for losing a race, Coach Brown was extremely upset.

  I continued to be a natural pleaser who found comfort in being told what to do—by my father, my coaches, and my husband. But Coach Brown took this further. One day, after he’d led me through my usual series of sprints and my weight routine, he sat down with me. He was a micromanager, and I assumed we were going to talk about technique or new training goals.

  “Suzy, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about,” he said.

  “What’s that?” I asked, eager to do whatever he asked.

  “It’s about your performance,” he said. “If you really want to race well, you’re going to have to stop having sex before races.”

  I looked down quickly, blushing. Even though Mark and I continued to have a loving and adventurous sex life, this conversation with my coach was way beyond my comfort level.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  “I mean you need all of your energy to race. When you have sex, you deplete your testosterone levels, which you need to perform. I don’t want any of that testosterone to go to waste. So no sex the day before a race. Or the day of. I’m your coach. I know what’s best for you.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding, too embarrassed to look up.

  I felt myself curl up inside, awkward and uneasy in my own body, like I had been when the male coach had been caught videotaping my breasts, or when Coach Peter told me about the letter recommending I wear two sports bras. I’d been so uncomfortable about the unwanted attention that I’d had a breast reduction. But nothing was enough. My body wasn’t mine. It belonged to my sport. My coach. Magazine editors. My peers.

  Mark picked me up from practice as usual that day, and as soon as I was in the car with him, I told him what Coach Brown had said.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Mark said.

  I sighed and looked out the window. I missed Malibu and the beach and our friends. I was working so hard, only to be devastated by anxiety and the constant assessment of every part of my life and body. I wanted to be invisible.

  Once again, my best friend Mary came to my rescue. Mary had given up running in college when she realized she didn’t have the passion to do everything that went into competing at the professional level. She was now a successful lobbyist. Even still, she came to my meets when she co
uld. That summer she flew to Europe to watch me run and enjoy some time abroad with us. It only took her a few days to get a handle on something that had been nagging at me for months. She didn’t speak to me directly because she knew how personal a runner’s relationship with her coach is, but while she and Mark were sitting on the beach in Monte Carlo, she told him that she couldn’t understand why I was working with Coach Brown. She thought he was terrible for me because of the way he smothered me. As soon as Mark told me what Mary had said, I knew she was right. But changing coaches was a big deal. We’d made a major move to Eugene, and another big move seemed daunting. Plus, my results had improved from what they’d been in Malibu. Even though I wasn’t happy, I kept my head down and kept my sights on the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

  I was overjoyed to qualify for the team again, although Dick had me compete in two events—the 800 and the 1,500, a decision I questioned, and I only made the team for the 800. Although the 1,500 was my specialty, I had run out of gas going into the final after running six rounds in less than a week, and finished last. To be honest, I didn’t have particularly high expectations for the Atlanta games, but I tried to focus on the fact that I had made my second Olympic team. And then that June, the unthinkable happened: my longtime idol and Coach Brown’s former athlete, Mary Decker Slaney, was suspended by the International Amateur Athletic Federation on suspicion of using performance-enhancing drugs. Even though her suspension was later lifted, the scandal cast a shadow over her reputation as a runner. I couldn’t believe she might have taken drugs. I knew they were everywhere in the sport, and I’d long struggled to keep a positive attitude about being beaten by runners who were giving performances that seemed like they must be drug enhanced.

  I didn’t win in Atlanta. I wasn’t surprised, but I was still disappointed. Once again the whisper campaign started. I wasn’t living up to all the hype. Reebok was thinking about bringing an end to their sponsorship of runners, which would mean cutting me, and Nike didn’t seem overly interested. The public only cared about track during the Olympics, and I had never won a medal. I wondered if I was being naïve about drugs. I’d always vowed to run clean, but maybe that was a mistake.