[Editor’s Note: March is Women’s History Month! For the last seven days of March, we’re highlighting seven stories of women moving the needle forward in trail running and ultrarunning. Each article offers you a way to take action and elevate the women who make up our community.]
Hillary Allen aka Hillygoat is an author! On April 6, her book Out and Back: A Runner’s Story of Survival Against All Odds publishes. It’s available for pre-order until then.
By now, most of us know of Hillary’s tragedy: She was severely injured as a result of a huge fall during a race in the summer of 2017. This took her out of the competitive ranks of trail running, into years of physical rehabilitation, and eventually back to the front of the sport again. In this book, Hillary reckons with that near-death experience, the challenges of recovering, and her shifting identity through it all.
Even though Out and Back’s thematic inflection point is Hillary’s injury, this book reads as a story of life more than anything else. Life is beautiful and tragic and amazing and challenging all mixed together, and through Hillary’s specific story we are inspired to face the waves of our own lives straight on.
Hillary says she wrote the book to help others, “Human struggle is universal. Whatever you’re struggling with, you have the strength inside of you to face it. You’ve had it all along. It’s what I realized about myself as I recovered. And I want people to realize this for themselves too.”
To learn about what Hillary’s been up to more recently, here’s iRunFar’s catch-up article with her.
You can also support Hillary by hiring her as a coach at Carmichael Training Systems or via purchasing her 50k coaching plan on the Vert.Run platform.
