Gold Medal Moments
Three-time Olympic runner, Suzy Favor Hamilton may not have that coveted Olympic gold medal hanging on her wall, but she treasures the gold medal moments that make up her life. After battling depression for many years, Suzy discovered the formula that has changed her life and put her back on track again. While sharing her story of personal struggles, Suzy also shares that no one is perfect – not even an Olympic athlete.
At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney Australia, Suzy was expected to win the women's 1,500-meter race. She had recently posted the fastest time in the world that year for this distance. During the race for the gold medal Suzy started strong, but collapsed after being passed by several other competitors. For many years the reason for her fall was the subject of speculation. In an April 2009 issue of People Magazine, Suzy revealed for the first time nationally the reason for her fall – her battle with depression.
“Everything started for me nine years ago after the Olympics in 2000,” Suzy said. “The race of my life didn't go the way I had planned, and everything in my whole life had revolved around that race. When I didn't get the gold, I felt like I had to keep chasing that gold medal – that gold medal would make me completely happy and fulfill my life.”
This journey for the gold took her to the Olympic trials in 2004. Suzy did not make the team because of an injury, but she sees this change of course as a “blessing.” Her daughter, Kylie, now three-years old, was born the following year.
“Things really changed for me after I had Kylie,” Suzy explained. “I wasn't running anymore. It happened very abruptly. I had my daughter, and I stopped running because life was getting so busy and so complicated with a new child that I wasn't making the time to run. It felt like my mood was really changing and something wasn't right within me.
Suzy knew she needed help, but it was easy to ignore the signs. Her husband, Mark Hamilton, expressed his concern that Suzy just wasn't herself, but she always told him that the next day would be better. Finally, Suzy realized that these feelings were not going away. She was faced with setbacks and disappointments that she just could not deal with in her usual way.
“I just wasn't able to handle life anymore,” she said. “I went and got help. First I went to my doctor and when I walked in the door I just started balling -- I couldn't even talk to her. She said she would get me help. That magic word of “getting help” was just the ticket. For the first time I felt like someone was going to help me.”
Suzy started on medication and therapy for the depression and started dealing with the struggles in her life. She soon realized that running had been her tool to make her happy; it was her “drug.” Through therapy she found out that running had been her form of self-medication that she had used her whole life. Growing up in Stevens Point, Suzy started running at 10 years old. Her high school career consisted of 11 state titles, three USA Junior 1500 meter titles, and she was named one of the top 100 High School Athletes of the Century by Scholastic Sports Magazine.
“For me it was the combination of the medication and the therapy that just really changed my life,” she said. “It helped me to deal with my problems instead of running away from them or blaming others for my problems, which I had done my whole life. Whenever I had a problem or a race that didn't go right it was always someone else's fault, never mine. Just coming to grips and learning to admit that basically you are not perfect and you are human and make mistakes and that it's OK.”
For so many years Suzy said she had been in the spotlight as a runner, her college career at the University of Wisconsin – Madison was filled with numerous prestigious titles including nine NCAA and 14 All-American awards. This attention made her try to create a facade that she was perfect and she said deep down she knew that she wasn't.
“That was hard for me to deal with, it would be hard for anyone to deal with,” Suzy said. “With all of this therapy I was realizing that I am who I am and people would accept me for who I am. I started talking about my story and told it to a friend who was a newspaper writer. She asked about writing a story and it ran in the State Journal. That was the start, it wasn't planned. I was just so happy that it helped me, and I was thinking other people might be feeling the same way.”
Suzy hopes that by telling her story it will help others who might be struggling with depression to realize how treatable this condition is and she encourages them to seek help. She believes they do not need to live in that dark world of depression. Another benefit in relating her story has been the fact that she is giving other women permission to talk about their own challenges.
“Where ever I tell my story, everywhere I go, somebody tells me their struggles and they say thank you,” Suzy said. “There are people who are feeling the same way and in telling my story I am giving them permission that it's OK, you don't have to be perfect and create this perfect world.”
Suzy and her husband, Mark, are First Weber real estate agents based in the Madison area. Suzy also does motivational speaking around the country. She speaks about cherishing the gold medals that are in everyone's lives. Appreciating the people and opportunities that are already around them.
“I want people to realize that if they are searching for the one thing that they think will make them truly happy – for me it was the gold medal --” she said, “that gold medal was always there in front of me, I just had to accept it. When I had my baby girl that was a true gold medal – OK I get what life is all about now.”
Suzy recently started a women's running/walking club in Madison and has found this to be a very rewarding experience. The Suzy Favor Hamilton Running Club for Women is for those with very little running experience to avid runners. They meet weekly to run and walk together along with other events and participation in local charitable races.
“It's been incredibly rewarding to have such a strong group of women that are all wanting to make their lives the best possible life,” she said. “They are doing wonderful things for themselves to create the happiness in themselves, so then everyone else around them can share in that. It has been so powerful to me.”
While Suzy said she still has her own challenges to deal with every day, she feels like she is in a very good place in her life right now. The most important people in her world are her husband and daughter, and Suzy said one of her main priorities is to make their lives fabulous.
“Althletics was everything to me,” Suzy said. “I look at it now in a very different way. People ask if I miss running and competition. I honestly don't miss competition, I miss that I can't run every day because I don't have the time. But, when I run now, I'm smiling because I'm running to be fit and healthy and I'm running for me. I see myself as a stronger woman now than I was when I was the strong, powerful athlete – because I'm so much stronger now mentally.”
While Suzy has been speaking in public for many years, even back to her high school days, it has only been since her recent tranformation that she has really enbraced these opportunities. Suzy explained that in the past she had always spoke about her running career and told people what they wanted to hear. Now, she does not hold back and has realized that people want to hear that she is like them, that she is a normal human being.
“People don't want to hear how great you are,” she said. “They want to know that you are like them – you are normal. I think people can relate in some way to my story because everybody can relate to having some disappointment in their life. Nobody is perfect.”
Suzy Favor Hamilton will be the guest speaker at the Evening of InSpire on September 30 at Old Hickory County Club, Beaver Dam. View more information on the event or register to attend the event.
