Liis Windischmann

Transcript

when other kids went to camp and they came home with painted rocks I went to track school and my idea of the perfect day was running up and down stadium stairs in the blistering heat exhausted knowing that was only the warmup as far back as I can remember I was an athlete sports was just always part of my DNA I like to tell people I came into this world holding a basketball in one hand and a baseball in the other it's just who I was in 2011 I was super excited to be preparing for my first 5k run although I had always been athletic I

never liked jogging at all but I got to a point where I learned to love it I discovered that runner's high that I had always heard about but could never get at and I fell into it and I loved it I looked forward to going to the gym every day and for me it was so exciting to shave a few minutes off my time to change the way my arms and my legs moved to breathe differently and to get into that runners headspace every moment of that preparation was delicious and then one day five minutes into my routine run I lost all energy and I

flew off the end of the treadmill slammed right into a wall I knew something was seriously wrong what should have been a five minute walk home turned into an almost two hour ordeal and I found myself collapsed on a curb on a quiet side street in a torrential downpour and not one person walked by not one car walked by I tried to get the energy to reach into my backpack to get my phone to call 911 but I couldn't do it and by the time I finally made it home I found myself crawling on my hands and knees across my kitchen floor and I didn't

realize in that very moment that my whole life had just fallen off the end of the treadmill and the athlete that I had always known myself to be had fallen off at the same time over the next two years I was diagnosed with not one but two autoimmune diseases Hashimoto's and the very rare and very serious gluten ataxia in which gluten literally causes an attack on the part of your brain responsible for motor skills forget that 5k run was way over here my body didn't remember how to walk or move properly and forget those regular visits to the gym I couldn't get my running shoes

on a lot of days or even do up the laces push-ups forget it I had no strength or feeling in my arms and when I did I was in excruciating pain everything I knew about myself as an athlete moved further and further away and it was replaced by doctor's visits physiotherapy and shopping for a mobility scooter every single day over the last seven years my inner athlete has been crying and trying to get back out every single day but I asked you are you still an athlete if your mind and your soul believes it with every fiber of your being but your body for years

can't do any of the actions that wouldn't make you one I went back to what I learned when I first did high jump years ago in high school and all the visualization I did in sports I closed my eyes and I remembered how I'd go through the approach step-by-step in every step in my mind and I made that all about jogging in my mind I was going up and down stadium stairs effortlessly I was killing my 5k my cells needed to believe they could be athletic again my body needed to believe it could move that way again I realized that it was like building a

house it doesn't just magically appear here you have to create it in your mind first put it to paper and then brick by brick build that house I realized that if gluten was literally my kryptonite my imagination was my superpower one of the biggest things I learned on this journey is we need to celebrate climbing our own mountain I needed to celebrate climbing my own mountain not somebody else's we all have our own journey to celebrate in the midst of all of this I wanted my 5k back it was it was this race that dangled here that I couldn't reach for years and one day

I decided I'm reclaiming it I called up a gym and I said I have a big race coming up I'm reclaiming my 5k and I want to know if you'll sponsor me what so this is what I propose can you let me use your facilities and your treadmills and I plan to walk one kilometer every single day for five days and at the end of it I will have won my race yeah we're in good I contacted clothing companies I'm doing this really big race and I wonder if you'd be my race outfit sponsors two companies came on board and gave me clothes and I

went to the gym I pinned a number on myself and every day for five days I walked and I reclaimed my 5k whatever it is just start wherever you are at just start this year I started a fitness ball class without the ball and this year I'm crushing my 5k on an electric bike my name is Lisa Wendy Sherman and I am an athlete

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.