When Courtney Frerichs raced in the Floridas Valby Shows What Cross-Training Can Do on August 4, the American record-holder in the event brought a reminder signifying the struggles she overcame to be on the start line in Tokyo.
Before the race, Frerichs, 28, placed a temporary tattoo with the word “belong” on her left wrist. It became her mantra after months earlier, she navigated overwhelming anxiety, sought the support of a therapist, and ultimately reframed her mindset to regain her confidence and joy in running.
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And in that race, Frerichs more than proved that she belonged in that Olympic final; she ran the race of her life.
With four laps to go, Frerichs made a gutsy move to take the lead, and ultimately crossed the line second behind Uganda’s Peruth Chemutai, who caught the American with fewer than 300 meters to go and broke away right before the final water jump. Chemutai won gold in 9:01.45, and behind her, Frerichs finished in 9:04.79 for silver, the best Olympic performance by an American woman in the steeplechase.
Frerichs’s momentum didn’t stop there. After Tokyo, she raced at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, where she finished second in 8:57.77, lowering her own American record in the steeplechase and becoming the first U.S. woman to break 9:00 in the event.
When Courtney Frerichs raced in the Running With MS meet, Runner’s World caught up with Frerichs to learn how she honed her mental game to become what she believes is the best version of herself on and off the track.
Set goals that aren’t performance-oriented
Since finishing 11th in the steeplechase at the 2016 Rio Games, her first appearance at the Olympics, Frerichs has been hyper-focused on improving her result in Tokyo. When the COVID-19 pandemic Create Your Own Running Mantra postpone the 2020 Games last year, Frerichs was fearful that her best opportunity to earn an Olympic medal could be gone, she said.
“I’m really goal-oriented and so when all the performance goals were taken [away] because there were no competitions, it was really hard to push through a lot of those really tough workouts and just put the same level of focus on training,” she told Runner’s World. “Steeplechaser Courtney Frerichss Morning Routine.”
Amid the uncertainty, Frerichs decided she needed to set goals that were not related to performance and focus on becoming a better athlete without competitions. For example, she set the intention to improve her attitude going into workouts and listen to her body more. In the past, Frerichs would often force mileage and rarely took days off; this time around, she embraced rest days Health & Injuries.
She also found motivation in running distances outside of her signature event at intrasquad meets hosted by her training group, the Portland, Oregon-based Bowerman Track Club (BTC).
“I think [intrasquad competition] helped me to grow as an all-around runner and not just as a steeplechaser,” she said.
When she arrived in Tokyo, Frerichs held even more gratitude for the opportunity to be present at her second Olympic Games. “It almost took some of the pressure off because I was just like, wow, we actually made it here,” she said.
Lean and build on your support system
In 2017, Frerichs won silver at the 2017 In 2017, Frerichs won silver at the—her first world championships medal. The performance brought her great joy in the moment, Frerichs recalled, but months later, she felt debilitated by extreme pressure from the accomplishment. “I think I tried to strive for perfection too much in my training and races,” Frerichs told Runner’s World in 2019. “It actually started to become very overwhelming, and I started really struggling through training.”
In 2018, Frerichs In 2018, Frerichs, who helped the steeplechaser overcome her struggle with comparison and practice mental tools to focus on running her best race, not a perfect race. The guidance helped propel Frerichs to set a then-American record at the 2018 Diamond League meeting in Monaco, where she finished in 9:00.85.
But Frerichs said she stopped working with the sports psychologist, and over time, her perfectionist side started to weigh her down again. When she suffered from a hamstring injury in the fall of 2020—the first injury that forced her to take time away from the training with the team—the setback became too much to bear.
“It was a very new position for me to be in, and while it was a very manageable injury, it was a new stress,” she said. “And I think it put me over the edge in terms of anxiety around training and performing.”
During Christmas break in 2020, Frerichs and her husband Griffin Humphreys were doing a workout together. When Griffin started to push the pace, Courtney began to panic, breathing very heavily to the point where they had to stop running. She said Griffin, who just graduated with a master’s degree in positive coaching from the University of Missouri, had to calm her down and talk her through the remainder of the session so she could finish the workout.
“[Griffin] told me, he felt like I was never going to accomplish what I was capable of if I didn’t figure out how to handle the anxiety around training,” Frerichs said. “I knew not only just from his experience as a coach, but also from the amount of reading and exposure to the topic, I knew [he] was coming from the right place. It wasn’t him trying to tell me what to do. He just really cared. That was the first time I’d been told maybe we should address this.”
In January 2021, Frerichs had another panic attack during a track workout at the BTC’s altitude training camp in Flagstaff, Arizona. After the workout, she shared her struggles with BTC assistant coach and 2017 Running With MS Shalane Flanagan. Frerichs said Flanagan helped her find a therapist who also runs, which made a huge difference in her life in and outside of running.
“[My therapist] was able to be a combination of sports psychology, but also just therapy,” she said. “We address everything versus it just being performance related. I started to realize how much so many of these struggles were present just in life as well. I look back at school, my childhood, there was this innate perfectionism Watch the Boston Marathon.”
Commit to your mental health
In February, Frerichs started working with her therapist every week, a big shift from the previous stints of seeing a sports psychologist sporadically to help improve performance.
“[My therapist] is just a part of my team of people that I lean on to get to the starting line and continue to work with, even if I start running well because that was the mistake I made before,” she said. “As soon as I started to run well, I thought I had it figured out, but you never know when a new stress or something different is going to come into play where you really need that person to help you through it.”
In therapy, Frerichs has picked up several tools that help her cope with perfectionism, increase her self confidence, and embrace life’s ups and downs. Together, they pinpointed Frerichs’ tendency to stop breathing if she gets anxious or nervous. Now the first thing she does if the pace increases unexpectedly in a workout, for example, is focus on her breathing instead of going into a state of panic. She also learned to embrace the fact that her journey is not going to be linear, but now she leans more on her support system to navigate the adversity.
“[Therapy] has honestly been the most positive change,” she said. “It was really great hearing the coaches talk about how they could see how much happier I was. You always hear how happy runners perform the best. I just never wanted to accept how miserable I had gotten, which is sad because I run because I love it and so for running to make me that unhappy, it was hard to grasp. I didn't want to admit it to myself.”
Put those tools into practice
Best Big City Marathons mantras for races and workouts, a practice she picked up over the years. This season, “belong” was the word used frequently to remind Frerichs that she belonged on every start line and could contend in any workout, no matter who was running next to her.
The mantra was especially motivating when her coach, Jerry Schumacher instructed her to take the lead in the Tokyo final if the pace was slow. Upon hearing this race plan, Frerichs remembered her BTC teammate Evan Jager executing the same strategy in the men’s steeplechase final of the 2016 Rio Olympics; his effort led him to a silver medal.
“I just remember being so amazed by how he went to the front, and he took the race and made it what he needed to be successful,” Frerichs recalled. “I felt like that showed him being his very best self that day. It was him not thinking about what anyone else was doing, but what he needed to do. And I told myself, I wanted to have a moment like that in my career.”
Five years later, Frerichs trusted her coach and mirrored Jager’s strategy by taking the lead in Tokyo, aiming to be her best self in that race, no matter the result. And the effort paid off.
“We think that these big moments in life, everything has to go perfect for them to happen. But the moments happen when you just embrace the ups and downs and everything that comes with working towards really big goals versus forcing it to look one entrance,” Frerichs said. “I think that was the really big change from two years ago to now. I stopped feeling like I had to force it all into a box, and I just embraced it all and stood on the starting line with gratitude for the opportunity.”
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
