2022 was a good year to have a good year in the track & field world. And on the flip side of that, it was a not-so-great year to have a not-so-great year. There’s little more difficult than setbacks and missing the tall marks we’ve set out for ourselves. But, they force us to go back to the basics. Why, actually, do we love this sport so much? And why, actually, were we doing this to begin with? Where and how can we adapt?
Asking those questions might be the most important part of striving to be great at anything. It’s not all that bad to be there if that’s where you are. Plus, it’s where you’ll find Oiselle runner Rebecca Mehra.
When we caught up, Mehra was away from her home in Seattle and outside of her hotel room in a sunny courtyard. It was a Friday and tomorrow would be her cousin’s wedding. These mere couple of minutes to chat in a somewhat-quiet place outside were really all she could’ve carved out of the day. But the bustle of family fun is exactly what Mehra wants right now.
If you follow Mehra on Instagram, you know she’s been gracious enough to share not only her impressive accomplishments, but also some of her lows. This year of hers was harder than past ones. I asked her, if it was okay, to get her thoughts on this year.
“Yeah, yeah. Happy to talk about it. I think the reality of the sport is there are times that are going to be up and times that are gonna be down. And unfortunately for me this year has been quite the down. It felt like thing after thing went wrong. It’s really easy to post on social media about, like, ‘Here’s me crossing the finish line of the Monaco diamond league and running a massive PR.’ It’s a lot harder to post, ‘Hey, things are not going the way I wanted to,’ which I’ve been doing my best to do and to be authentic about it because it’s true,” she told me.
After an unlucky string of injuries and a tough case of COVID, Mehra decided to step back from her season and give herself a much-needed break to reset. ”I’m trying to re-energize myself, re-fall in love with running, because it’s also easy to be really frustrated with the sport after a tough year,” she said.
“What are some things you feel like have been helping you? Like what do you do in terms of rest and re-energizing?” I asked.
“Yeah, good question. So I’m at a family wedding, so I’m obviously spending a lot of time with my family. My fiancé Jordan is awesome. He’s not a runner, so he doesn’t always want to talk about it. So that’s kind of nice. And just having really great friends and having a job and having that life balance that I can turn to and be more all in on a different kind of work. So a combination of things, but mostly just trying to not lurk track results,” Mehra said.
While not having the most perfect year performance-wise, Mehra has turned to other aspects of the sport to focus on. Right now, Mehra is a proxy for a member on the USATF Foundation board. This is a unique position as a temporary member of the board who is also a female athlete, which is rare, if not never done before. “I’m young. There are not very many women. So I’m a different form of representation. Just having an eye for, you know, a lot of groups that are not necessarily represented. So yeah, it’s been a cool experience and also, the Foundation funded pretty much every single person who won a medal at the World Championships. And so that was really fun to have seen the decision process for that,” she said.
In her time with the Foundation, she’s worked on both maternity grants and grants towards the youth clubs. “In my last few years of my track and field career, I want to, you know, even if the running itself doesn’t go as I wanted to, I want to be able to feel like I did something good to make the sport better and this is one way I feel like I get to be that,” Mehra added.
The following week, Mehra would be on her way to Mammoth with her old high school team. She jumped at the invite from her former coach. “I was like, ‘That sounds like a great way to love running, to just run on fun trails that I grew up on.’ I think that’s just great,” she said.
There’s a lot on the docket for Mehra which seems to be filling her cup while she recovers. Though there are, of course, still goals that Mehra wants to chase when she feels ready. The bright light in the odd circumstances of an even-year World Champs is that if 2022 was not your year, you don’t have to wait too long for another chance. Mehra wants a spot on that 2023 team.
There are also some nagging time goals that she’s close to hitting. “In the remaining few years of my career, I’d love to take a shot at getting as close as I can to breaking four minutes in a 1500. I think that that’s doable for me. I really wanted to break two minutes in the 800 for years and I’ve known I’m right there. So hopefully that one I think is really, hopefully, attainable.”
And maybe what we all forget most: “Just have fun. Do my best. There was a post that a friend of mine who’s a fellow 1500 meter runner made last year when she finished fourth at the Olympic trials in the 1500. And she’s like, it’s really frustrating that all these people are so sad for me, like reaching out saying, ‘You were so close. I’m so sad.’ She’s like, ‘Don’t tell me that. Like I did my best. I did my absolute best and that’s where I was on that day. And I was fourth.’ And I feel similarly. If I get the chance to show up at a national championship and be at my best and feel like I had a great race, I could still end up being sixth or fifth or 10th or whatever. I just want to feel like I gave myself the shot to do it and I did my best on that day. And that’s all you can really ask of yourself.”
