Brianna Rhodea is a junior sprinter and hurdler for the Grand Valley State Lakers women's track and field from Tecumseh, Michigan. A GLIAC All-Academic honoree with personal bests in the 60m, 100m, and hurdles, Brianna brings both athletic dedication and academic excellence to the track—and now shares more about her journey in this Anchor blog post.

From the beginning of my collegiate track career I have fought with injury. Coming off my senior season in high school I was told I needed surgery on my ankle or it would always hurt. I put it off and believed I could fix it with physical therapy and rehab. After fall training my freshman year I realized this was not sustainable and two weeks after competing at conference I had the procedure. I spent two and a half months non weight bearing and many more relearning to walk, rehabbing and trying to come back. I spent four months running again until I had two stress fractures in my tibia. I ended up being out for two years by the end of it all. I struggled the entire time, I felt like I would never come back the same. I shifted my focus away from my own performance and started finding ways I could pour into my teammates instead of focusing on how behind I was. Coming back to hurdling was even harder than being out. I was so behind all of my teammates and I had many mental barriers to get past. Even though my body was technically healthy I had lots of mental hurdles to get over (pun intended). 

The mental aspect of injury is starting to be talked about more but one thing nobody teaches athletes is that multiple injuries to one area or joint are not isolated within that area. The injury is always attached to the brain and nervous system, that being said you must address this in order to fully heal. This can look different for every athlete, it may entail reprocessing the events that caused the injury, or it may be desensitizing the “what ifs” surrounding return to play protocol. If the mental aspect of an injury is not addressed, it is not fully healed, even if the MRI shows you otherwise. In today’s world we are confronting comparisons on every corner. Every person's recovery looks different and everybody handles injuries differently, but one thing we have in common is that we can all support our teammates and this ultimately can lift up the mental healing necessary for a complete recovery. 

That being said, having other outlets outside of sport is what helped me while I was recovering. Track has always been my biggest outlet but when that was taken away from me I had to go to other things. This was where I found my passion for research and learning. Ultimately if your sport is the only thing that brings value to your life then you are bound to be let down at some point. Sometimes a mandatory break from your sport can be a lesson that redirects you into other gifts you may have, but it is less than ideal to have to be injured and sitting out to discover those things. This is why it is so important to discover yourself outside of your sport, so when it is taken away from you, you have other things that bring you joy and define your life.