Hannah Fields wants to silence the lie that’s often whispered by an eating disorder: that you are alone.
That’s why Fields, who has been receiving treatment for her eating disorder over the past three months, decided to share her story on social media. The Brooks Beast middle-distance star and seven-time NAIA champion hopes that her message will encourage anyone who may be experiencing a similar struggle to reach out for help, too.
Fields’s story isn’t over yet—and that’s precisely why she’s choosing to share it now.
“I decided I want to share my experiences more in the midst of the storm and not just wait until I felt like it was a ‘success’ story… My hope though is that there is someone that will see this and is struggling with something similar. I want them to know they are not alone and it is okay to get help and there is hope for freedom and healing,” she wrote in an Instagram post on June 26.
On Tuesday, Fields received the news that this week will be her last at Opal: Food+Body Wisdom, her treatment center in Seattle. That same day, she spoke with Runner’s World about challenges of balancing a professional running career while receiving treatment, the long road to mental and physical recovery, and the message of hope that she wants to share with those that need it most.
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After choosing to go to treatment, I felt this stirring to want to do that, but I didn’t feel quite ready or know how to talk about it. Getting further along in recovery and confident in where I’m at in my stage of it, I’ve also heard multiple stories that inspired me. I talked to multiple people at Brooks who told me they had siblings or friends who have battled with these things, and who didn’t know how to deal with it and get help for it. After so many conversations like that, it seemed obvious. I just want to share this.
I had known, too, that I didn’t want it to be this story of being on the other side of things. I wanted it to be somewhere in a timeline of being not out of the woods really. I don’t know if you ever really are, it’s definitely a lifelong thing.
But I feel that sometimes when I hear those inspiring stories of being on the other side of something, as inspiring as they are, I feel like the hard stuff is a little bit missed, which is the stuff I want to know about. How do you get through it? What does it feel like? What is that process of being in the middle of all of it? I knew that I wanted to open up about that. I got to the point to where I was waiting to not be afraid to share, and I just don’t think that’s realistic. No matter what, I’m going to be afraid, but I need to step into that anyway.
RW: What kind of responses have you received from the running community after posting?
HF: It was pretty overwhelming seeing how supportive people were. I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect this amount of support. People really respected the difficulty in being vulnerable, and acknowledged that it did take some courage to do that.
I wasn’t posting to get this affirmation. I wanted to do it hoping that it would help someone who didn’t know what the next step to take is and know that it’s okay to need help. That’s been the coolest part, getting personal messages of people saying,
“I’m battling something really similar and I don’t really know what to do next, but it means a lot to know that someone whom I thought had this super cool professional runner life has their s---, too,”you know?
A couple of coaches have also reached out about several athletes who have come to them after my post. The coaches seem thankful to be reminded that this is a thing that happens in the running community, not to just shrug it off, to be more aware, and be willing to talk about it.
I’m so grateful to have a platform to share this because I didn’t realize myself how common it is. It’s such an isolating thing. It tells you this lie that you are alone in it. So be able to speak out against that is really exciting. I can’t wait to see where it will lead.
RW: How did the disorder develop for you?
HF: It really started in college, the summer after my freshman year. I think part of it was reading literature and scientific articles about the studies behind weight and performance. It was this fixation of, “How do I improve as a runner?”
It didn’t start out as a way to get an eating disorder. There was a performance element to it. But I had a really strong support system and community in college, and my coach has seen everything, so I was quickly held accountable. He saw the signs really quickly and the behaviors that go along with it—not just the weight loss, but the obsession with food and exercise. But it was kind of subdued, the root of the disorder wasn’t really addressed.
My first year of running professionally wasn’t good. It was a disaster. I had injuries, sickness, everything that could go wrong went wrong. I was texting and walking at altitude camp and I tripped and broke my elbow [laughs], just crazy things were happening. So I had a relatively big breakthrough for me the next year where I won races and earned personal bests. I was loving it. So the fall and winter of last year, I was trying to figure out how I could hold onto it because I didn’t want a repeat of that first year.
I think for me, when I’m looking at all of the factors that go into running success, for some reason I turn and fixate on what I feel is the most controllable factor. For me, that was my diet and my weight.
So the end of last year started out very similar to my freshman year of college. I became more controlling over those factors, and one thing led to another where it just became an all-consuming thing. That’s all I could think about. I was over-exercising, under-eating, I was getting sick, my body was feeling broken. I was in this cycle of obsession with my performance, obsession with my weight and how it’s affecting my performance. Ironically, my performances were suffering from it.
By the time we were supposed to leave for our second altitude stint, I just had this breaking moment. Two days before we were supposed to leave, I realized that I could not go away for another four to six weeks in this kind of hidden life that I had without any support. That’s when I called Coach Danny [Mackey] and told him everything that was going on. I had heard about the treatment center here in Seattle. It’s called Opal: Food+Body Wisdom. I reached out, and they offered to give me 50-hours a week care for treatment. That was the last week of March, so it’s been three months.
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HF: Oh, my gosh yeah. I feel really lucky. He just said,“You know what, I honestly see this as if you were to have an Achilles injury. It’s going to take a lot of time to recover from that, it’s going to take time to come back, you aren’t going to be able to just work out every day with the same intensity.”It was kind of cool that he had that approach because I had never really thought of it in that way, and it was helpful when I got back into training to know that I’m recovering from an injury in a way.
RW: What kind of treatment are you receiving?
HF: I started in a 50-hour a week program for eight weeks, and that transitioned to 20 hours a week for the final four weeks. You’re there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They have dietitians onsite to help give you a meal plan and things like that to make sure that your needs are being met nutritionally.
But a lot of the work is digging into the deeper stuff, because the disorder is just a manifestation of something else that’s going on. For some people, it’s a body image thing, for others it’s a way to numb emotions and underlying fears and insecurities. And they have different groups and curriculums to address those things, but it’s really a lot of sharing your story.
Part of what I’ve discovered in this process is how much has been rooted in my confusion about where I’m putting my identity, and coupling that with these emotions of fear—fear of not living up to these expectations I have and not being able to control something. Then I’m using food as a way of control for myself to help cope with these underlying emotions of fear and anxiety of what if I don’t measure up to what I want to do.
But I think beneath all of that, though, is being able to help see myself outside of a runner, and seeing that I have worth outside of my PRs and what I accomplish on the track and anything in life. Those are not what make me worthy and valuable. Those have been the biggest challenges, just figuring out who I am outside of my performances.
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HF: The biggest challenges I face are when I start to come back to harder workouts and races. It’s how I deal with disappointment. I’m not in the shape that I was at my peak. How do I cope with that? How do I respond to that? What am I pointing to?
In the past, I would just look to my diet for how to fix things instead of allowing myself to talk openly with people about being disappointed, and that’s okay. I guess just checking in with myself and allowing myself to feel things and to be curious about those and not to place a judgment on them. Just allowing myself to be honest about what’s going on internally because that’s the biggest thing.
A fear of failure is the most triggering thing for me, so just allowing myself to go through the inevitable ups and downs of things without choosing to cope through my diet and exercise, just allowing myself to be a human being. We’re all going to have these fears and that’s okay.
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HF: It’s been really hard, especially at first. I’d get up at 6:30 am and get home at 6:30 pm everyday. I would kind of decompress for a little bit and then get out the door by seven. It was dark when I finished most of my runs and workouts. Luckily, Danny was really flexible in that I wasn’t able to train at the same level, so everything was cut way back.
I was really lucky too that Opal was so supportive, because a lot of times at treatment places you are placed on minimal clearance for any form of exercise. They knew that running was not just exercise. It’s my job.
They understood that I couldn’t cut it off completely, but everything was cut way down in terms of volume and time, but it was really exhausting. Your brain recovers the same way your body does. When you’re digging into something that’s really emotional, you’re worn out.
I gradually started to join the team for workouts, but a lot of it was on my own so it was hard to stay motivated sometimes. They were also training in Park City and then racing. It was difficult to see others in the place that I wanted to be, but through the treatment process, it’s been really interesting to see how my relationship with running and food has changed. There’s just so much more peace in my approach to it because I’m not going out there trying to prove something to myself or others.
I’m doing it with more gratitude and more enjoyment for the opportunity and just on a practical level. Every day is not me trying to crush it. I’m respecting the easy days being easier so it does give me more energy for the workout days. Because I haven’t been training at this higher level for several months, my races haven’t been what they would be had I just been doing consistent training.
That’s hard to hold while still wanting to press into recovery. I didn’t go into the treatment center so I could be a better runner. I did it for my life and for my family and for my friends because I saw that it affected more than just me. That’s where I’m at, being able to still have these goals and figuring out how to do that while still having to work really hard in pursuing recovery.
RW: What’s been the biggest motivation for you through this difficult time?
HF: My family and friends, and seeing my relationships with them were compromised. I was so blinded by the fact that the disorder was cutting me off from having a full relationship with people. My running was definitely compromised. That is what I love to do, and I was approaching it in a way that was not joyful. It was all about the outcome.
So being able to see the hope in that being different, and number two would be my faith. I really believe that I was given a gift in this. I was made to have a life of hope and joy, and I was cutting myself off from that. I was cutting myself off from really living a full life by believing I would get that from having control over things.
RW: What do you hope to accomplish by sharing your journey in recovery?
HF: To show that it’s not a linear path. There’s going to be hard days and easy days. There’s going to be triumphs and setbacks, but I want people to know that that’s okay. It’s okay that things aren’t always a step forward.
Just to break down this wall that this is something that should be hidden. I want people to feel that there is hope, because it can feel really hopeless, but you don’t have to be a slave to it. There’s hope for joy and freedom.
RW: What advice would you give to fellow runners who are facing the same challenges of disordered eating?
HF: To step out and talk to someone about it, and to seek out professional help. It’s a hard thing to face. It can be really messy. I know I couldn’t have done it without people who are trained and know how to respond to all of the things that come with having an eating disorder. But definitely just to know that they are loved and they deserve to be healthy and to have joy.
If you or someone you care about is struggling with an eating disorder, contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) helpline at (800) 931-2237.
Content has been edited for length and clarity.
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
