IronValkyrie Ingrid Marcum, 8015 W 111th St, Palos Hills, IL (2026)

09/23/2019

Finding my “better”
Life as an athlete is measurable. It’s objective. Easy to see where you’ve made progress and easy to see where you want to go to move forward.
Athletes also always chase their “better”. No matter the achievement, there is always more.
Life can be a bit more challenging. No judges or timers or weight on the bar to tell you how you’re doing or to see the progress you’ve made.
I have found that after retirement from high level athletics, this can sometimes lead to feeling a bit unsettled. How do you know what’s “good enough” or what’s “better”? Obviously it’s individual, and constantly evolving.
I’m always working to find my “better” in life. I’m always asking myself how can I be more, do more, help more?
Realizing that no matter what, I’ll always be a work in progress. There’s always a “better”. And I’ll always be striving to find it. And more importantly, it doesn’t mean I’m not “enough” right now.
WE ARE ALL ENOUGH—RIGHT NOW!
And I’m working on understanding that if I’ve made a wrong turn, it can simply be a learning experience. And it’s part of the journey. Part of my story.
The joy in this is that experience and time have taught me to truly enjoy the process and the journey. ALL OF IT- including my double achilles repair this year.
I’m certainly not perfect and I sometimes let it get me frustrated and unsettled, but I also know I’m in good company. And try to remind myself why I feel the way I do.
I think most people who are driven for more in any capacity experience similar feelings. And it’s part of what leads to incredible experiences and takes you amazing places.
Not always an easy road, but I wouldn’t change it! Staying true to myself.

09/23/2019

The transition for a serious athlete to life after athletics is truly challenging. There’s a lot of struggle and necessary healing that happens. It’s tough to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced a transition like this. But for those who have, they KNOW.
High level sport and the necessary commitments that go along with it fill so many “needs” for people like me who are driven for more. For over 3 decades, sport filled my need for things like personal challenge, focus, travel, achievement, physical training, hard work and so much more.
When it’s gone—even if you got to choose when to walk away, even if you have a career and other support systems in place, it’s easy to feel lost. I felt so far away from “Ingrid the athlete” that I felt completely disconnected from the person in these pictures.
In fact, I would see photos or videos of training or competition and I often had to remind myself that I actually did those things. That really was me.
The transition after I retired included a few years of what I call my “hibernation period”. During this time, I essentially didn’t train much at all - for well over 4 years. I had a few spurts, but nothing truly consistent.
But as I’ve worked on navigating this new arena, I have moved closer again to who I was, and really who I’ve always been—and I’m finally *starting* to understand how that applies now, outside of the athletic arena.
And now, I work on feeling as focused and determined and clear headed. On learning from the mistakes and the failures and celebrate my small victories. This certainly served me well in my recovery from my double achilles repair!
I work on enjoying the process and trying to understand how it fits into the big picture. On always challenging myself for more and truly believing it’s possible. On driving forward no matter what. On pushing the boundaries and to see what I’m truly capable of accomplishing.
This was life as an athlete. Working on making this just “life”. Oh, and maybe to someday see those abs again 😁

09/12/2019

Never forget.
Bobsled season, 2011-2012
I was honored to race that season in a sled that honored the FDNY firefighters that died on 9/11/01.
We carried their names with us, written on our sled, in every World Cup race that year around the world.
At the World Championships in Lake Placid that year, we spent some time with some of their families, who had been invited to the race.
We helped them find their loved one’s name on the sled and then they watched us race that sled, carrying those names with us, against the best in the world.
I was given an FDNY pin that I’ve kept with my World Championship pin, in remembrance of both days.

09/09/2019

Where would you go and why??

07/26/2019

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it” ~Charles Swindoll
Life takes some interesting and unexpected turns.
You can either let that destroy you or strengthen you. The choice IS truly yours.
I’ve heard this quote many many times over the years, and although I thought I understood it, it wasn’t until recently that I really, truly got it.
Even a year ago, I would not have had the same calm response to my injury as I did this February. I had many, many injuries as an athlete, and although I always tried to “be positive” and “be strong” — underneath it all, I was always crushed.
Each time, it was another season gone. And with that went my opportunity to “show everyone what I was made of” as an athlete.
I thought controlling my reaction meant *showing* the world I was ok with my injury and being determined and doing what it took to get back again.
But the truth is I *didn’t* understand. Not until now.
The fact is that it goes much, much deeper than what we show on the surface. Many of us can put on that brave front and convince everyone else that we’re doing just fine despite what’s going on.
Maybe we even convince ourselves for a time.
It’s how I lived most of my life.
But when you truly OWN your response, everything changes.
It’s when the “brave face” you show to the world is actually authentic, and you don’t have to talk yourself into being positive — you just are.
And the unexpected life detours are just purely experiences in life.
And the incredible positives related to the “negative” event are glaringly obvious.
It’s KNOWING, in your entire being, that you’ll continue to make forward progress, even if you’ve been knocked down.
I can’t even believe it’s been SIX months since my surgery. What a journey it’s been!
I took my first “jogging” steps yesterday. They were intentionally careful and slow and I made sure not to overdo it.
Because I have nothing to prove.
And I will continue moving forward.

07/26/2019

“Time moves slowly but passes quickly” ~Alice Walker
I can hardly believe that yesterday marked SIX MONTHS since my double achilles surgery!
SIX MONTHS!
It’s been quite the journey! I’m so grateful to be able to own my response to this journey and to actually see it as a positive experience. (Yes, really!)
The video is just a glimpse at my progress over that time. I’m not even close to back to normal yet, but I’m excited about my progress!
For example, my achilles, ankles and feet all still swell — and I’m told that might happen for a long time still. But I’m always careful not to do too much when possible. I get sore after long airport travel days and I’m still stiff in the mornings. I also don’t have my full range of motion back.
But with my 6 month milestone, today I was able to take my first jogging steps!!
I knew I’d get here, and also knew that looking back, it wouldn’t feel like it’s been that long. Six months really has passed so quickly!
I took it VERY slowly and cautiously and did a grand total of four of these short spurts.
Millie was more than excited to be able to join me 💕🐾

07/19/2019

Thanks to the Good Athlete Project ()for providing me an opportunity at the Beyond Strength clinic to share my story of struggle and strength, as well as my thoughts and experiences about life after sport!
Major transition is a challenging time for anyone, and athletes experience such a loss once they move on from sport.
It’s my passion and my purpose to initiate more conversation about the topic especially between athletes and coaches so that athletes can thrive after their sport career has ended.
Let’s start talking!
@ Amos Alonzo Stagg High School

07/16/2019

“Balance is about paying attention to the things that matter most at the time they matter most”
~Kolette Hall
Finding my own balance always takes a concentrated effort.
And it also requires being present and self-aware.
For so much of my athletic career, I got better by just working harder. Training more. More was always better. And for a long time, it served me well.
Or so I thought.
Toward the end of my competitive career, my body really started to break down because I just had kept pushing straight through for too long with too little recovery.
I dealt with chronic pain and poor sleep and was tired a lot.
I knew I needed something like meditation, but the thought of sitting still for any length of time and not “getting anything done” seemed impossible. (Obviously that also reinforced how much I needed it!)
Not only did I have a hard time “being still”, I also just wouldn’t make the time. I was too busy!!
But I did make the effort to try to find what that looked like for me.
After trying (and failing at) some other things, I finally discovered…paddleboard yoga! And it was AH-MAZING!
At that time in my life, my mind would wander with regular yoga and I’d “race” myself on a paddleboard (SUP).
But I found that during SUP yoga, I had NO choice but to be 100% completely centered, in the moment, right there on my board. I also couldn’t go *harder*.
I just had to be present and actually RELAX to stay on my board. Not something I did very often before that! And yet EXACTLY what I needed.
I could show up to class super angry and frustrated (and I definitely did many times 😬😖) and yet by the end of class, I’d feel lighter than air. All the negative feelings would completely disappear and I could BREATHE again.
And I began to find my balance.
This “moving meditation” as I call it, has now become a staple for me. Finally got back on my board this week for the first time since my achilles surgery! 🎉🎉
There’s just something magical about moving and balancing on my board while out on the water and surrounded by nature.
More, please!

07/14/2019

“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
Finding my heart both literally and figuratively through my sweat!
After I retired from elite-level competition, I experienced a significant disconnect between my identity as an athlete and my identity without sport.
I needed time. Decompression. Healing. And a TON of self-reflection.
I needed to initially separate myself from my “former self”. I thought I needed to discover who I was without sport. To redefine my sense of self.
So I hibernated. I withdrew into myself. Lived my life without really LIVING my life.
I spent many years NOT being very active for the first time in my life. It wasn’t intentional—in fact I started to get back in the gym many times, but I never found my stride for very long.
I just couldn’t find the joy in it the same way, despite the fact that training had NEVER previously been a struggle my entire life.
Partly because the me who loves to move, to sweat, to challenge myself physically, was tied to “Ingrid the athlete”. Someone to whom I was no longer connected.
But now, what I’ve finally learned is that *discovering* myself actually just meant returning to ME.
The me I’ve always been, with the upgraded freedom of knowing that all of the parts of me are now tied into one strong and solid foundation. A foundation I built and reinforced just in the last few years.
And no part of me ever needs to establish value. I only care to be better than I was yesterday. To grow and learn and challenge myself.
I’m no longer disconnected from my past—from the part of me that was an athlete. It’s not a different version of me. It was simply one expression of who I am.
And I’m finally finding the joy in movement that I always previously felt. I’m LOVING every opportunity to grow and move forward and expand. I’m reconnecting to the things that have always felt like a natural extension of myself. A self that no longer has the limitations it once did.

@ Raleigh, North Carolina

07/11/2019

I’m SO excited to speak a week from today at this Beyond Strength clinic in Palos Hills (Chicago suburbs) put on by .
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-strength-palos-hills-tickets-62125557214
I’ll be discussing life after sport — what athletes often experience physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. Identity can wrapped up in an athletic career and then lost when an athletes moves on from the competitive arena.
It’s likely one of the toughest life experiences every athlete has to navigate, and yet very few talk about it before, during or after!
Working to bring this conversation to life!

07/23/2018

Excited for next weekend - I’m speaking at the summit in Chicago! Awesome speaker line-up - don’t miss it!
Still time to register!

IronValkyrie Ingrid Marcum

09/23/2019

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07/26/2019

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