“Practice makes perfect” is a dangerous narrative underlying the culture of endurance training. Many athletes believe that the more time they spend in the gym, the fitter and more competitive they’ll be.
It’s an idea that works until it doesn’t.
Skylar Allen, a 28-year-old from Minneapolis, Minnesota, began running in college, after years as a figure skater pushed her toward body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. “I struggled with restriction, which was eventually diagnosed as anorexia, for about eight years.”
Eventually, anorexia morphed into bulimia. But when she started running in 2014, Allen says she wasn’t ready to face those issues yet. Instead, running became another way for her to justify behaviors she knew might not be healthy. “When I was having a terrible day, I’d go to the gym the way an alcoholic goes to the bottle,” she says.
By 2020, in the midst of a graduate program in mathematics, Allen recognized the imbalance in her life and started seeking treatment.
Allen and I met on her path to recovery. As a coach at Treeline Endurance, which I founded in 2018, I help athletes tap into…
