This is the story of Alexa Hoppenfeld...

Story Of,

This is the story of one Alexa Hoppenfeld. Hoppenfeld is 15-year-old, youth elite female racing for Multi-Sport Explosion. Hoppenfeld is currently ranked in the top 25 with only two races under her belt this year. Despite her ranking, Alexa’s season has been filled with numerous road blocks causing her to miss much of her season. This is her story.

“It started when we went to my doctor and they diagnosed me with anorexia,” Hoppenfeld said, “They told me I needed to start going to nutritionist and therapists, so I started doing that, and then it started getting worse.”

Despite the help Hoppenfeld was receiving, her conditions continued to worsen day by day.

“They started me on the medication to see if it would help,” Hoppenfeld said. “They thought it would help with body image and I was just getting really sad because of all of it. So that's how I got into medicine. But I got into medicine like a month or two after I was diagnosed.”

Before she was even diagnosed though, Hoppenfeld knew something wasn’t going right for her.

“I diagnosed myself with something called orthorexia,” Hoppenfeld said. “Which is an obsession with healthy eating. But I never would have thought that I was restricting the way I was. And then they diagnosed me with anorexia nervosa.”

It took a couple months before Hoppenfeld was able to get help, and it was only because those around her noticed.

“Back in December I started just thinking to myself, like, something's not right,” Hoppenfeld said. “But I didn't really tell anyone. And then my mom started to notice and she was like, ‘okay, we need to go see someone’. I kind of thought that it was happening. I just didn't really want to believe it.”

The root of her issues stemmed farther back from when she self-diagnosed herself, and it wasn’t anything bad.

“When I first started dieting, it was in November,” Hoppenfeld said. “and I was still fueling my body. And then just gradually, I started to become more obsessed and I started to become more scared of eating. And it just started to consume me more. And we went to a nutritionist, and she's like, ‘okay, you need to eat like this much a day’. And it was just so terrifying for me. And I was just thinking myself, like, ‘No, I need to keep doing what I'm doing’. I never would admit to myself that I was unhealthy.”

In losing her physical health, Hoppenfeld lost her way in the sport, and lost herself a little.

“I completely lost what I wanted to do in triathlons,” Hoppenfeld said. “I was only thinking about the calorie burn. I would go into them [practices] on zero fuel. Wake up early and not eat before a workout. And I would feel awful during it, but I had to keep going.”

It turned out that Hoppenfeld ended up needing more help than what she could get in her everyday life.

“So, it was called Veritas and it was a hospital,” Hoppenfeld said. “You go and you're with a bunch of other kids that are your age, but you go and you have to eat what they put in front of you or else you supplement.

Surrounded by people her age with the same problems, it took a mere five weeks for her to recover.

“You move up in like levels, you get to start choosing your own snacks as long as they fit your exchanges,” Hoppenfeld said. “You're given like a dietitian, a therapist, psych and a medical provider and you have this whole team that just makes your meal plan and makes your exchanges so that you ultimately gain weight. You do yoga and you learn about your body and about what to do when you're in crisis. And there are so many rules I can't even begin to explain, but it was actually really helpful.”

Hoppenfeld has been on a terrible journey and she came out of it happier than she’s ever been, helping those around her going through the same thing.

“I just want everyone to know how I felt having to take weeks and weeks off from training and like start from the bottom again,” Hoppenfeld said. “It's awful and food is fuel and endurance athletes need fuel. And I just really don't want anyone else to end up that way. I'm doing so much better now that I've gotten help, and I'm happier than I've ever been. I don't want anyone else to have to go through it because it's truly awful.”

The top athletes of the sport seem like impenetrable walls, but everyone has their weak spots. For some of these athletes, it is standing up for themselves and saying I need help. We train day and night to perform our best and don’t ask things from others because we believe that will make us slower. We don’t ask for help even though we need it. In turn, we end up torturing ourselves to the point that help is non-negotiable unless we want to lose ourselves. And every athlete loses themselves a little.

Yours truly,