Des Linden.Photo: RYAN MCBRIDE/AFP via Getty Images
InChoosing to Run, released Tuesday, Linden, 39, details how in the summer of 2017, she was diagnosed with a thyroid condition after struggling for months with intense exhaustion that made running nearly impossible.
Linden had difficulty accepting her diagnosis at first because it meant she would have to go on a synthetic thyroid hormone medication — something she had watched other athletes in the sports abuse to try and gain an advantage. As one of the most vocal people in running calling out doping, Linden at first questioned if she was a hypocrite for needing the medication.
Learning she would need it “was an educational experience for me,” Linden tells PEOPLE. “Frankly, I was on the other side of it for a long time where I was like, ‘Well, yeah, they’re probably on thyroid medicine,’ or whatever.”
Penguin Random House
Even sharing her condition now in her memoir weighs on Linden, but she says that she’s “comfortable with it.”
“I think it’s a part of the story, and I think it’s a really tricky space where there’s probably people who need medications, or have real conditions that are put in this uncomfortable spot where there’re also medications that are abused, and the outside world just goes, ‘Oh, they’re all wrong,’ " she says. “And so trying to distinguish between the necessary use and the difference between that and abuse is important for me to talk about.”
Linden started on the medication soon after her diagnosis, but it took months for her body to regulate back to where she felt like her former runner self again. In the days leading up to the 2018Boston Marathon, Linden worried that racing would set her body too far back as she continued to recover.
But the miserable conditions that day — heavy rain and temperatures in the 30s — were in her favor. It would force everyone to run slower, and Linden could capitalize on her deep knowledge of the Boston course to know when to push for the lead. On the bus out to the start line, Linden’s trusted chiropractor gave her the “green light” to go ahead and try.
Des Linden.Nils Ericson
“It came down to sitting on the bus with him and being like, ‘Okay, this weather could make it feasible, and you’re not going to beat your body up as bad as you would if you tried to go run 2:25,’ " she says.
And the day ended up going better than she imagined — Linden pushed through the nor’easter,past runners expected to win that day, to be crowned the 2018 Boston Marathon champion, the pinnacle of her career so far.
Des Linden.CJ GUNTHER/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
Now, five years later, Linden has figured out how to manage her thyroid condition — “it’s in a good spot now,” she says — and is readying for the 2023 Boston start line.
“The field’s just phenomenal, so it’ll be a historic race, for sure,” she says. “And when you have really great people that are supposed to beat you, it’s fun to be a disruptor and see how many you can take out and move up the charts when it gets hard, because they’re not as experienced with the course.”
RELATED VIDEO: Danica Patrick Says Running the Boston Marathon Is ‘Only Bucket List Item I Have’ — How She Prepared
And as she nears 40 years old, Linden is starting to look toward other big goals on her list.
“I feel really content with what I’ve accomplished and what I’ve done,” she says. “So I think [the goal] is having fun and enjoying it, and just seeing how high I can place in these races. When I do turn 40, that opens up a whole different book in terms of master’s records, so that might be something that I’m interested in for a bit. And then there’s a few bucket list things that are just different distances and terrains, like UTMB, or Comrades, or something like that. So that’s still out there for me. A little bit of dangling carrot.”
source: people.com
