THE TRANSITION I DIDN'T TRAIN FOR

SHARE YOUR STORY SERIES: LIFE AFTER SPORT & FINDING FREEDOM IN RETIREMENT

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MY NAME IS WILL BUSH & THIS IS MY STORY

DI Track & Field | TAC Ambassador 

Sometimes you don’t have control over your last game, your last race, the last rep, the last drill, or

the last shot of your collegiate career. It just sneaks up on you and then boom it’s over. For me, I had

full control and expectation. I knew when the all too literal finish line was coming, eight years of

running, just finished.

It was May of my senior year, a week after graduation. I had one last 800m on deck. The entire

season had been leading up to this moment, and honestly, it was a fitting encapsulation of my

collegiate career. In the middle of my final outdoor season, I injured my hamstring. Only a week

prior to my last 800m, I had DNF’d my first and only race so that I could save my leg for my last

hurrah. My parents had never seen a race of mine and were going to be there for the last one. How

could I not do everything in my power to make that starting line?

The nerves, the excitement, and the butterflies had, surprisingly, all but dissolved as race day

loomed. By this point, I was content in wrapping up my collegiate career. For a long time, I

deliberated my future in track and field, having had multiple injuries, and due to the COVID-19

pandemic, I had eligibility to burn, but it felt like there was virtually no point. I knew it was time to

hang up the spikes, but at the same time, I was ready to give it one last go.

I don’t remember much of that day. Not the warm-up, the cooldown, or even the race itself. All I can

remember was going into the second and final lap thinking “you have 400m left in your career,

300m, 200m, 100m…” and then, as quickly as it had started, it was over. I crossed the line and felt

like I had been hit in the head. A numbness came over me, and I thought to myself “that’s it, you did

it. Collegiate career, over. No more races, no more practice, no more being an athlete.”

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I was never satisfied with how I had performed in college, and I always tried to wash that bitter taste

out of my mouth as time went on. Being able to count the number of times I actually wore the

Portland uniform on both my hands stings a little. I think back to the countless races where I started

out fine and just couldn’t finish strong or all the off-season miles where I got into peak shape just to

get hurt right before stepping on the start line. In the end, it was all that time off that made me believe

the next step would be easy. Retirement, as former student-athletes like to joke, would be a breeze to

move into, since it felt like I already was halfway there.

That couldn’t have been further from the truth.

That summer, I started working a full-time internship and coaching youth track. I went from a busy

athlete schedule to a full 40–50-hour workweek schedule. It was like I had traded my college life for

an adult life. In the midst of this transition, I didn’t want to lose sight of my fitness and good habits,

so I told myself I’d continue to work out to stay healthy. That meant hitting a short run early in the morning before work, followed by a gym session after in the late evenings to hit my goals. The first

two weeks were brutal, but at the same time, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t felt before.

This is what I’ve always known. Put your head down and grind it out. This was my normal.

Then, one day it hit me. I was getting ready for a short 3-mile run, lacing up my shoes, when I

paused, stopped, and just stared into space. I had zero desire to go for this run. Not in an “I’m tired”

way, or a “this is going to suck” way, but I felt sad because I hated the thought of going for a run. I

stayed inside.

I went about my normal routine for the week, occasionally going to the gym but giving myself some

grace in the running department, thinking I was just getting burned out and doing too much at once.

Hoping that soon (or eventually) I’d get that itch to run again, and the cycle would repeat itself. The

thing was, the itch never came back, and that resentment for running persisted.

The rest of the summer was a new struggle in trying to figure out what to do with myself. At first, I

thought my body was what was giving out, but in reality, it was my mind. For so long I had attached

my daily routine, my thought process, my habits, all of it, with being an athlete. That was suddenly

gone. I felt lost, like I had no purpose. I had all this energy to channel into nothing. So many years of

running, with my life centered around putting one foot in front of the other, now screeched to a halt.

The burning desire to compete became a fire of hate. I fell into a cycle of taking a week or two off,

thinking I missed running again, trying it for a couple of days, just to fall out of love once more, and

then rinse and repeat. The summer was miserable. Despite a new internship, my love for coaching

was overshadowed by this grit and grind cycle with no end goal in sight. I didn’t know how to do

anything else.

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Fall semester came around, and I moved to a new place and school in Columbia, Missouri. I entered

a master’s program and new role in the athletic department at the University of Missouri. Being in

uncharted waters created a distraction that helped kick my running habit for a little bit. Working in

student-athlete development was comforting because I could help athletes realize their skills outside

their sport. Learning about so many diverse backgrounds was fulfilling. It made me feel like I was

helping a different, younger version of myself navigate the question of what might be next. The

irony, though, was that while I dedicated myself to helping others, I was actually the one in need of

help.

Experience was nothing short of what I’d describe my first 4 months at Mizzou. Trials and

tribulations helped me reflect, grow, fall, learn, and more. Whether it was a mix of personal issues,

identity issues, or just the luck of the draw, I found myself in a depressive state. Showing up to work

with a happy-go attitude and smiles, I cracked jokes and made sure the teams I worked with were

getting the attention they deserved. Then when the day was over, I’d go home and slowly fall back

apart. Arriving and immediately laying down in bed, to either just lay there doing nothing or doom

scroll for hours. Some days the only thing that would get me out was to make food, on the days I decided

to eat. If it wasn’t for my roommates occasionally yelling at me to come watch a game or hangout,

I’m not sure I ever would leave my room (shout out to them).

It was at this point that I decided I needed to find another outlet. Occasionally I would run with

friends, go lift at the gym, but I still felt like something was missing, a void needed to be filled. I was

reluctant at first, but one day I suddenly got the itch I hadn’t felt in forever. Unprompted, no outside

factors, lying in bed I said “F—it, I wanna go for a run”.

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All my fellow runners out there, or just those who occasionally hit some cardio, know exactly how

humbling that first run can be after some time off. Humbling was the nicest way to describe the two

mile jaunt I decided to take. It was horrible. My breathing was inconsistent, my legs immediately felt

heavy, and the humidity and bugs of Missouri were the cherry on top of an absolute disaster of a run.

Yet, when I got back to my apartment, I felt nothing but joy again. It was the classic “runners high”.

Despite every aspect of that run having been horrible (by my former-athlete standards), I couldn’t

help but think “this could be it, I think I like running again.”

The running bug stayed, unfortunately though it also came with other bugs. Scattered into my runs

were bouts of cold and flu symptoms. While I enjoyed getting back into the swing of dodging ice

patches and wearing a million layers for winter training, the running felt pointless. Lifting, my goal

was to get stronger, mobility was to get more flexible and have injury prevention. My running

though? I had no goal in sight. There was no purpose, and that didn’t sit right, leading to a lack of

motivation. That was when my coworker Sydney came into work one day and asked, “do you want to

run a marathon?”

Reminder, I ran the 800m in college. A two lap, half mile race felt like a far cry from a full 26.2

miles. I immediately said “heck no I don’t wanna run a marathon, are you insane?” The next couple

of days a debate went on between friends trying to convince me to do it, which at the time was

unsuccessful. Yet, after a couple more weeks of icy runs, blessed by a break of beach runs in San

Diego, I decided to sign up for the St. Louis Marathon. I paid the fee, reached out to a friend for a

training plan, and next thing I knew I was suddenly prepped with 16 weeks of mapped out running,

once again falling back into a full-fledged training routine.

As fate would have it, I naturally fell back into my old athlete ways of being injured too. I couldn't

even walk without a limp let alone hit my training goals. At least I had about 10 weeks of training

that I could maybe rush back into.

Fast forward a bit, the marathon plan was in doubt. However, consulting with my coach (friend), and

being stubborn enough about the $100 I spent on registration not to reconsider, we decided on a 5-

week super build for the marathon. The plan consisted of a max long run of 18 miles in week three, with a

mix of some light workouts week four, and relaxing going into the marathon week five. By no means

should someone who has a ridiculous list of injury history, specifically STRESS injuries, do a

marathon build in five weeks. Yet, here I was, feeling excited about training, realizing that if it doesn’t

work, so what? Who’s going to judge me?

That suddenly became the turning point in my mentality. While the lost passion for running had

helped with my “retirement” phase, I now felt a sense of relief, having a care-free attitude when it

came to exercise and training. I still put my best foot forward when it came to the runs and the lifts,

but I didn’t feel like it needed to be that 110% effort anymore. If I finished a run and it wasn’t as fast

as I expected it to be, so what? Everything was falling into place, the runs were getting done, my

body was fine, the 18-miler went better than expected, and next thing I knew I was sitting in a hotel

in St. Louis the night before the marathon.

Before races I’d struggle, being overcome by feelings of immense anxiety, especially my senior year

where I battled with panic attacks frequently before races, paralyzed with fear. The fear of stepping

back on the track, fear of letting people down, and the fear of not living up to my own lofty

expectations, consumed by my thoughts.

But then, there it was. The reality of a life after competitive sport. The morning of the marathon was

nothing like my past experiences. I woke up, not having had the best night of sleep, but feeling at

peace. It felt like just another morning getting up for a run. I made my normal pre-race breakfast,

grabbed my bag of gels and fruit snacks, put together the racing kit, then headed to the start line. I

wondered if the sea of people ready to run the race would kickstart the daunting anxiety that I’d been

prone to feeling. But it never settled in. It was the calmest and most relaxed I’d ever felt before a

race.

What might’ve set my mind at ease was only wanting to complete the marathon. Sure, my friend and

I had our predictions on time, but ultimately if things went south and I completely blew up, all I had

to do was cross that finish line and we would consider that a win. There was zero expectation, not from a coach, not from a team, not from anyone. This race was just about me myself and I. How freeing that

felt.

I proceeded to then blow my own expectations out of the water, crossing the finish line 30th overall

with a time of 2:53:53, over six minutes under my previous goal and well above any placement

expectations I had. I wish I could tell you what the internal dialogue was for the full 26.2 miles, but

vividly the only thing I could remember was around mile 18 when I started to feel a little tired. Then

the voice of my old teammates popped in my head and called out “hey Will, don’t be a b****.” That

kept me going. Rounding the corner for the last quarter mile of the race, the feeling was something I

could almost describe as cinematic. Despite being exhausted, and my IT band probably being more

comparable to St. Louis BBQ, I couldn’t help but smile. For the first time in years, I crossed a finish

line happy, ecstatic about what I had just accomplished. Not about the time, the place, or the

performance, but because I DID IT. Not wearing a specific jersey, not racing anyone, but I did it for

ME.

Fast forward six months later, and I’ve run less than I have at any point the past ten years. I still lift, I

still move around, and sometimes I throw in the occasional two-to-three-mile jog to get my legs

moving. The biggest difference though is that there’s no plan, no pressure, no expectation.

For so many of us, walking away from sport isn’t the clean break that people think it will be. We step

off the track, the court, the pitch, the field, and imagine that things will be the same. We try to

recreate the same structure, same intensity, same grit and grind that has defined our athletic careers,

afraid that if we let go or loosen our grip, slowly, the athlete in us disappears, along with who we are.

The reality of that matter is, being an athlete is only part of who you are, it does not encompass your

whole identity.

People like to joke that former athletes become NARP.s (Non-Athletic Regular Person), when you graduate, but I think that joke misses the point. The athlete in us doesn’t go away, it just stops running

the show. There’s a part of you that still wants to get up early sometimes, to go the extra 10%,

appreciate the routine, even if all of it looks totally different now.

I have the opportunity to now build habits and a routine that fits my life. Not a meet schedule, not a

coach’s plan, not a standard set by a stopwatch, just my own routine. The transition hasn’t been easy,

I still miss the version of myself that knows what was expected of him, but it does get easier. The

urge shifts from feeling like a requirement, to a feeling of “want." Pressure fades, and joy starts to

return in pieces, bit by bit.

I didn’t have control over how my collegiate career ended, but I had control over starting again. I had

control over lacing up my shoes for a miserable run. I had control over saying yes to a marathon I

swore I’d never do. In the end, I had control over redefining the person that I want to become.

Maybe that’s the whole point. The finish line of college athletics wasn’t the last place I had control, it

was the first place I truly found it.