Running through barriers: Sam’s story

On 22 July 2021, deep into the Covid-19 pandemic, Sam was struggling to push through another relentless day of isolation. Promptly, the idea struck her to go for a run. At first, it was running 13 miles; then it was 23 miles; then 28 miles came, along the Double Dipsea, one of the hardest trails in America. But this wasn’t enough. She could go further. She wanted to go further.

People told her she couldn’t do it, that she was simply crazy. “But I did it,” she tells me. With this, she made ultramarathons her ambition and, when she became old enough, she entered a 62-miler – her furthest distance thus far. 

Being an all-around amiable athlete is about being willing to try anything and prove that the human body is more capable than what we give it credit for. 

Moving into her eighth year as a rower and second year as a D1 athlete, Sam has broken her rib four times. At the moment, she is working towards giving her body what it needs after finding out what it was demanding. After recovering from a broken rib in the fall semester of her freshman year, she got back into Princeton’s Varsity 8 to take the Championship title at the 2024 Ivy League Conference. Just two weeks later, she went on to take fourth place at the NCAA Championships.

“That was the highest level race I had raced so far, but it was also the most physically painful race because I broke my rib off the start line,” she said. 

The adrenaline from the biggest race of her rowing career provided some masking for the pain. However, it wasn’t consolation enough for the fact “the bone had broken in half and almost punctured [my] lung”, just centimetres away from a career-ending injury. Following this race, her ambitions of winning a spot on the U23 national team were a write-off, and recovery became her biggest priority. 

But this wasn’t the first setback Sam had experienced. In the summer of 2022, she overcame a mental obstacle that would change her perspective on the sport entirely. 

Sam rowed for Marin Rowing Association in Northern California, a high-achieving club renowned for producing world-class athletes. In her senior year of high school, she rowed for Marin’s Varsity 8, who were the favourites all season, having claimed gold medals in 10 consecutive A finals. Going into the Junior National Championships, the race they had been working towards all year, they were the ones to beat.

“We were ranked number one. We had a lot of pressure on ourselves,” Sam reflects. 

At Nationals, they had set themselves up to win by comfortably making the A finals. After the gun went off, they moved synchronously together and, with 500 meters to go, had pushed themselves into first position. The gold medal was in sight, in reach, but in the last 400 meters of the race Sam caught an overhead crab, hitting her back on the rigger with full force and causing the boat to lose all of its momentum which moved them into 6th place – last. 

“It is every rower’s worst nightmare, and it happened to me,” said Sam.

For Sam, it felt like the whole weight of the world was on her shoulders, fully taking the blame for an incident that happens over and over, every single day in the rowing world. Following this race, she had less than twenty-four hours to pull herself together in preparation for the US U19 selection camp, which would send her to Varese for the Junior World Rowing Championships. Despite pushing through adversity and making the National Team, Sam could not put her past mistakes behind her, and many external factors acted as a catalyst for this.

In a review of her race, filmed and broadcast live, her rowing idol, an Olympian who had been providing commentary on the races, said: “Wow, that’s unfortunate, that never happens.”

“That never happens,” Sam reiterated. “For my own idol to say that, it was crushing.”

This moment in Sam’s rowing career was pivotal, because it taught her that if she could overcome what felt like the biggest failure of her life, she could tackle anything. 

Moving forward, it has been eight to nine months since Sam’s NCAA final, and she has just returned to rowing. It took time and a lot of self-reflection to find what it was her body needed. But, when it came to it, the answer was simple. 

She said: “It taught me to be patient with myself, learning more about basic mobility and where my body falls short. I was much weaker in my upper body compared to my legs but I’ve gotten to a place where my upper body is stronger now.”

It also proved to Sam the importance of setting small goals and breaking the end goal down into tiny little pieces because everything adds up and traverses us towards the final product. 

This patience and commitment wouldn’t have been possible without experiencing the mental struggles Sam had already been put through. From her first coaches who taught her the importance of being “comfortable with being uncomfortable”, a skill that would define her approach to the sport, to her aptitude for improvement, and most importantly her desire to win the mental battles which have tried to define her, Sam has grown as a person and an athlete.

As a member of Princeton’s women’s crew, she has the support of her coaches and teammates to move on to the next stage of her life.

“I want to remain injury-free and win as many races as I can because if you want something bad enough, you will make it happen,” Sam said with passion. 

“Oh and I also want to run 100 miles,” she adds. 

From the first step Sam took on her run on 22 July 2021, she never stopped running. 

Even when there were boulders, hurdles and obstacles in the way, she ran through them, proving that there will always be setbacks. But how we knock them down will be the thing that defines us, not the setbacks themselves. 

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