I’ve been feeling, frankly, pretty crummy lately. It’s nothing I’m not used to at this point, and usually I can stay pretty positive about it. But lately it’s been getting me down bad. I think it’s the fact that new symptoms keep popping up that make me feel like … not only am I not getting better, I might actually be getting worse.

Despite everything my body and mind have been going through, I can’t seem to mentally give myself a break. I’m upset that I need more rest than I expected; that my training has suffered for the last few weeks; that I’m sleeping a lot and not being productive enough. It’s like, I start feeling bad and instantly forget every lesson I’ve ever learned. (Remind me to finish writing my post, Your Body Doesn’t Give A Fuck About Your Calendar.)

Anyway… my (now fiancée!) Adin said to me: “remember to give yourself some grace, my love.” To which I jokingly (but not reallyyyy joking) said back: “no, babe. Grace is reserved for other people.”

But that actually got me thinking … I would never talk to a friend the way I talk to myself. So what if I pretended I was talking to a friend?

It feels a little corny, but I think I’m onto something here.

“Hey, Ellen. Man, I’m having a tough week. A tough month, really. I haven’t felt good in nearly 3 weeks: inflammation is high and my joints hurt, my period’s a mess, I have cold sores across my mouth, anxiety is sky-high. Then to top it all off, I think I had an ovarian cyst rupture in the middle of the night, which wasn’t just excruciating, it was also really scary. I’m starting to feel like I can’t trust my body… there’s so many new issues and things keep getting worse.

I think my body needs more rest even though I just took a week off of training. I’m frustrated that it needs more! I’m having a hard time deciding whether I should try to race this weekend – maybe I’ll surprise myself? The race is local so it’s easy for me to go to but I also put so much pressure on myself to perform well locally. What should I do?”

“Hi Ellen. Wow, that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself! I can definitely see why you feel stressed – you’re trying to juggle a lot of factors at once.

The way I see it, high performance is a bonus. It’s extra curricular. In school, you don’t get to do your after-school activity if you aren’t getting good grades in your regular classes. And in life, we don’t get to ask our bodies to do insane things if we aren’t meeting the minimum requirements. To me, it doesn’t sound like you’re meeting your baseline.

A therapist I used to work with once told me that our bodies can’t differentiate between stressors. A super stressful week of life, or a 10/10 week of training both read the same to our bodies. (Unfortunately though, the week of stress doesn’t trigger training adaptation.) So if you’re already completely smoked from a stressful week of life, that doesn’t leave a ton of energy left for high performance, does it? And what energy is left to focus on healing and recovering from everything you’re going through?

It makes sense to want to race locally. But ask yourself if there are other things you can do this weekend that will feel just as good on your heart, but not be so hard on your body? Making a decision not to race isn’t forever, it’s just a choice for right now. Don’t forget how much of a difference even a week can make when it comes to our bodies and things changing.”

……….

As corny as it might seem, that just poured out of me. I’ve been so hard on myself lately, but when I imagined saying it to someone else, it became really clear.

This journey has been harder and messier than I ever imagined. Earlier this year I posted a Substack that said However hard you think it’s going to be, you’ll look back and wish it were that easy. I thought I understood it then. I really understand it now. And I’m sure I’ll look back again and realize how much more I have to learn.

In the meantime, I am trying to treat myself with the kindness I give to my friends and family in abundance. If you’re struggling to be kind to yourself, I highly recommend having a talk with your ‘friend’, and seeing if that helps you see things a little clearer.

With love,

Your friend Ellen

pc: Grant Fanning

In the past 7 years since my Hashi’s DX, I’ve worn every health-tech-wearable money can by. From Whoop to Oura Ring, a Garmin Watch to Natural Cycles, and even going as far as wearing a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), I’ve tried them all. But if you saw me today, you’d see I am currently unadorned. It’s because I no longer believe wearables can help me on my autoimmune journey (but they were really important for a time… more on that later).

I understand why people want these devices. I was in their shoes not too long ago. We want to find a way to quantify our autoimmune sensations; to make this nebulous situation more cut-and-dry. But a wearable isn’t the magic bullet you’re looking for.

The problem is, people let these devices sit in the drivers seat, and ignore their symptoms and instincts as a result.

Now of course, there are the days you feel bad – exhausted, unmotivated, would rather nap on the couch than go exercise – but as soon as you get out the door, you feel better and finish the session feeling better than you started.

But the days I’m talking about have the tendency to be worsened by a wearable. The days when you get on the bike, your body’s gas tank is on E (for me, legs screaming like they’re devoid of oxygen, on the verge of tears by the end of the first interval) but your device said you are primed to perform. So instead of listening to the litany of symptoms begging for rest, you push through because today is “supposed” to be good (and then you can’t get out of bed for 3 days after.)

When I was wearing my Whoop, it was always telling me I was primed to perform. That’s because it only sees a small snapshot of the big picture. After all, it’s just a small band on your wrist, measuring your HRV and then applying it to their various algorithms. According to the data that my Whoop was privy to, I might’ve looked ready to perform. The trouble is these devices can’t tell you when your TPO is in the thousands…

It’s simple enough when you at it logically. So why is it so difficult in practice?

I think part of the problem is that for people like me (ALL CAPS, go-go-go, hyper-competitive, anxious, etc.etc.etc…) it’s almost impossible to justify the amount of slowing down that healing autoimmunity requires. When this all started for me, I was completely in denial. So a little band telling me I was primed to perform was all the evidence I needed to keep trying. ‘Maybe this watch knows better than I do!’

As athletes, we have enough to contend with in regards to listening to our bodies: the shame when your flare-ups cause you to miss a race; when you have to skip a workout because even 12 hours of sleep didn’t make you feel rested; social media (need I say more?). Having a $300 watch tell me I’m Primed To Perform while my thyroid is eating itself is yet another variable that made listening to my body feel really f*cking hard.

When wearables are helpful.

I do think there’s one really important application for any health tech wearable: teaching those of us who are so disconnected from our bodies which way is up again.

Not as a green-light, ignore all sensations and full-steam-ahead sort of thing… But as a way to begin making sense of what you’re feeling. Slowly.

Example: When I was really Going Through It™ in 2021, I had the chance to test out a continuous glucose monitor (CGM). It made me feel absolutely insane (I was stressed about eating fruit and seeing that infernal number go up even a few points). But it helped me in one key way: I had been dieting for so long, I didn’t recognize my hunger cues at all anymore. I was convinced I had something terribly, terribly wrong with me because I was completely exhausted every afternoon… so badly I could hardly get off the couch.

Well, the CGM informed me that my blood sugar was around 55-60 mg/dL… so no wonder I was feeling like crap. This data helped me re-train my brain to recognize hunger cues and begin to fuel at least a little more normally. What a concept.

These devices can inspire confidence in discussing your fatigue with your coach or provider, too. Saying, “The omniscient device told me I need a rest day” was easier for me to admit than, “I am a shell of who I once was and can’t go on much longer.” (Although it’s important to say that out loud, too. Eventually.)

It’s an interesting paradox: the same device that helped me relearn hunger cues and identify that my Mysterious Illness was actually Hungry Disease, is the same one that made me afraid of eating fruit. Fun.

Ok Ellen, that’s all well and good… But what do you suggest I do?

I think you should do what you want to do. If you’re reading this and thinking hell yes this is the permission I needed to stop letting this little band ruin my life then there you have it. Poof, be gone.

If you’re reading this and thinking you can take my whoop band from my cold dead hands then you should keep wearing it, but pay close attention to whether it ever feels more like a burden than a gift.

And if you fall somewhere in the middle, here’s my suggestion: wear a band if you have one; buy one if it feels like something you can’t stop thinking about*; and if you’re desperate to try something just to feel like you’re doing anything….get a device, ignore the proprietary algorithms (strain score, sleep score, performance condition, etc.) and just focus on the hard data: resting heart rate, HRV, basal body temp for menstruators, and begin to take note: do any of these data points correlate with the symptoms I’m dealing with?

… and in the meantime, start doing some bodyscans on Headspace. 🫶

^{Note: In the middle of writing this piece, Garmin came out with a Whoop-like band that piqued my curiosity. No subscription and it’s fully integrated to the Garmin ecosystem. I’ve been curious about it from the HRV perspective. I haven’t tried one yet, but in the interest of transparency, I have considered buying one because I feel I’m at the point where my autoimmunity is managed pretty well but knowing my HRV daily would be an added benefit.}

^{*Sometimes I think it’s good to just buy the thing (if you have the means) because it will either work well or it won’t, but you can at least close the loop and stop obsessing over it. I.e, me with an Almond Cow. I wanted one for YEARS. Finally bought one. Didn’t like it at all. Sold it on Marketplace. Haven’t thought about it since.}

Thankfully, begging and stealing wasn’t necessary, because somehow the bank decided to finance us. But we were still taking on the biggest financial burden of our lives. So I decided to trade in my freedom as a freelancer and for my first-ever “traditional” full-time role at a marketing agency.

We closed on our mouse-infested palace the same month I began my new job. I was learning a lot, both on the job and during the renovations. I felt great about the fact that my paycheck arrived every other week; no stress about invoices being paid late.

…And I knew almost immediately my performance goals were going to suffer.

2025 was the second year of my “comeback” (returning to racing after 3+ years off, recovering from autoimmune disease) and I suddenly had twice as much on my plate as I had time for. Training was rushed; snuck in-between meetings, doing 75% of the prescription and calling it “good enough.” I’d often finish a brutally hard training day and promptly head up to our house and work until I thought I’d collapse… and then do it again the next day.

The whole year went by in a flash. I spent it dizzyingly busy, stressed, and (correctly) convinced I wasn’t doing anything well. I had bitten off more than I could chew, and everything was suffering in the process.

My cyclocross season was nothing to write home about. While my friends and supporters congratulated me on multiple UCI top-10s, I was disappointed. I knew I had sacrificed a year I didn’t really have to lose, prioritizing other endeavors.

I want to be super clear: I will never regret the time I spent working on my home. Additionally, I learned so much in this marketing role that I don’t regret that, either.

But I knew 2026 needed to be different or else I would have a lot of regrets. I had taken a full-time job to eliminate the stress of being a freelancer: invoices being paid late, inconsistent work, contract renewals, etc. And in the process, I had turned my anxiety up to eleven.

So I began working towards the goal of leaving my job, and building a lifestyle that would allow me to go all-in on bike racing once again. I knew it would be a slow process: I needed to rebuild my freelance clientele, take some projects off the back-burner, and save up a ton of money so I could have a huge safety net and no stress at all. 🥰

But does life ever go according to plan?

I’ll spare you the zany details, but a few things happened concurrently that had me moving up my timeline.

My new plan was to jump first and grow wings on the way down. With only a few months of expenses saved up, I put in my notice. Unfortunately, I have no long-lost Nigerian Princes in my family, so I was skating a razor thin margin. But somehow, the decision felt right, in spite of the pressure.

It’s been almost 3 months since I left and it’s been a largely positive experience. The greatest learning opportunity for me here has been remembering a decision can be the right one, in spite of its drawbacks.

I am much happier and far less stressed. My training has improved exponentially. My freelance clients are doing great. My anxiety has gone down to a steady simmer, rather than a roiling boil. And I even have a Substack with multiple published pieces now! Omg!

And it’s been really difficult living on such a tight budget. And I worry what others will think of me and my decision. And I’m afraid I don’t have what it takes to race at the top anymore.

Allowing both things to be true and trusting my ability to make a decision and make it right may be some of the greatest and hardest work I get to do during this process.

I saw what half-assed-ness got me and I didn’t like it. As a woman, an American, someone with ADHD, from a working-class family, I felt I could and should do it all. But as someone with a dream I’m chasing and an autoimmune disease that meters my output, I made the radical decision to prioritize quality over quantity.

I’m excited to see how it goes :)

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However hard you think it’s going to be; you’ll look back and wish it were that easy.

I didn’t always understand that adage. Her sage wisdom is perhaps an IYKYK situation.

But something about my race at Paris to Ancaster last month in Hamilton, Ontario really made those words click in my mind.

P2A was my first race back in 2024 and it’s served as an unofficial measuring stick of my progress over the last 27 months. I won P2A in 2016, and placed well here last year, so I thought I could improve on that again.

But despite my high expectations; excellent training leading into the event; and excitement about the effort, my result came up very short of my goals.

I’ll say first that I’m super proud of my effort: my 3:45 race had a TSS of 342, and I did my second best 90 minute power of.all.time.

Yet I got dropped from the lead group significantly earlier than I wanted or expected, and my final result was disappointing.

After I finished the race (and had my highly-anticipated chocolate milk) I remembered the words of my therapist: However hard you think it’s going to be; you’ll look back and wish it were that easy.

Now it’s safe to say: I understand.

When I decided to return to racing, I knew it would be hard. In fact, it was the primary driver for me: I wanted to challenge myself to do something harder than I’ve ever done before. And yet, I couldn’t have predicted how slow this journey would be. If you had told me in January of 2024 that I would still be getting dropped, badly, at P2A in 2026…. That I was still losing local races….. That I hadn’t gotten on a UCI podium in CX yet…. I likely would’ve said ‘No Thanks’ 🙂

At the same time, I’m so invested in the process and grateful for the fact that it hasn’t been as easy as I thought it would be. All my best lessons have come in light of the disappointment and humility in these difficult moments.

So, what’s next? Now it’s time for me to learn another lesson: staying the course and trusting the process.

In spite of my disappointment, there’s nothing I could’ve done (short of building a time machine and not retiring to begin with…) that would have changed my result. I know that I’m doing all the right things. All I can do is remain patient and continue laying the foundation day after day.

As my grammy always says: time, patience and perseverance.

It’s just that patience has never been my forte. 🥲

Thanks for reading ❤️

p.s. here’s my weird-ass race report that I made for my bf that actually summarizes my day pretty aptly, if you’re curious!

Welcome to my Substack. Again!

A few things have changed in the 3 years since I last posted on Substack.

• I ended my sabbatical and returned to elite bike racing

• I started a fulltime job at a marketing agency

• We bought a house that needed “a bit” of work

• I quit my fulltime job to pursue other endeavors

… to name a few

I also got a grip on my chronic illness – the prerequisite to returning to bike racing– and realized that sharing this part of my journey is critical. For myself, but also for the athletes and humans that have their own struggles to manage. And that’s my goal with this Substack going forward: to share more about my return to racing; how I’m navigating Hashimotos; and what training, fueling, and real life looks like for an athlete with chronic illness.

So once again, I am back on substack. But for real this time. And you can count on that, because I have enlisted the help of my dear friend Molly Hurford. This isn’t the first Big Bite Project Molly has helped me achieve. From managing my racing career from 2016-2018, to helping me run my junior women’s Cyclocross Quests, Molly has been here for many crazy adventures. She will be helping me stay on track 😉

Every overly-ambitious ADHD’r needs a friend like Molly + Strong Girl Publishing!

Thank you for reading! If you’d like, leave a question in the comments and let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to cover in future posts.

My next post is just around the corner!

(i deleted the original comment before posting. thx!)

I was trying to be vulnerable and honest about the imposter syndrome I feel when writing or creating content. I’ve always felt this way, even when discussing things I am experienced in. But this person wrote a comment that said, “You're right to feel out of place here. What do you bring to the table that isn't already being offered by someone with more credibility and real life experiences?”

Oof.

I would have loved to come back on here with a well-written clap-back, that details all the reasons why I am qualified and deserves this space. But in truth, this comment spoke to my deepest insecurities. I’ve always felt elevated beyond my ability to function, like a turtle on a fence post. My Evil Brain tells me I don’t deserve to have such an incredible, passionate, and kind audience. So, to have someone ask me something that was so clearly written to hurt… it really stunted me for a while!

So, what do I bring to the table?
Well, I’m actually the only person qualified to write about this subject matter. Why? Because I talk about my personal experiences— my feelings, struggles, and triumphs. I don’t like giving people advice or telling them what to do. I’ve never claimed to be an expert. But I know myself better than anyone, and if sharing my own experiences can help others, then I am going to keep on sharing :)

Xo.

I suppose there’s another part of me as well, that struggles with the idea of being a “content creator” when I genuinely want people to spend less time-consuming content. I recognize that creating a Substack doesn’t really divest from that. But the stuff that performs on IG is … mostly garbage? It needs to be so quick, so brief, and so lacking nuance to perform that I can’t really stomach that idea any more than I have to. Additionally, if you want your stuff to perform, it has to have a good picture. No good picture? Well, then say goodbye to anyone reading your message.

I like the idea that someone could read a positive message without logging onto IG, and wading through the negative messages to get there. All of that to say, I am trying this on. I am curious about the idea of a Substack. I’m taking it into the dressing room. I might take it home. Or I might put it back on the rack.

I don’t consider myself to be a great writer, but I hope I can look past that belief and hopefully get better at writing as I do it more often.

I have this flawed belief that anyone who is good at something is born good at it. I’m the only person who has to practice things to get better at them, and therefore, I’m a failure.

I feel this immense sense of imposter syndrome starting this page. Why? Uhh I think because my IG grew in popularity because of my bike racing career. Now I am retired, and branching off into the ((what the hell do you call this)) sector, and the little devil on my shoulder keeps saying, “Who gave you the right to talk about this stuff like you know what you’re doing?” And I guess my rational response to that is: I don’t. I don’t know what I’m doing. And for reasons that are beyond me, whenever I share that I Don’t Know What I’m Doing… that seems to resonate with people.

Here’s a list of my feelings that make me want to start a Substack (in the hopes of sharing more.)

— A lot of people feel really alone in this world; I have a lot of emotions; I process my emotions by detangling them through writing and speaking; I love the idea that something I have experienced could make someone’s life better; I love connecting with people about shared experiences.

That’s a lot of words to say:

I am taking this new platform into the dressing room. I am not saying goodbye to my Instagram or my Podcast. In fact, I hope they all complement each other nicely. I write like I talk, but hopefully a little less loudly.

If you’re still reading … this first post is for you ;)

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