Just Jennifer

Fast Girl: A Life Spent Running by Suzy Favor Hamilton

Suzy Favor Hamilton was at the top of her game during high school, college and immediately after: she was a three-time Olympic athlete, a spokesperson for several sports apparel companies and had an adoring husband and beautiful baby girl.  But Suzy also had a secret: she suffered with a mental illness that caused bouts of mania, often helpful to her running except when she was in the races of a lifetime, her Olympic heats, when she found herself frozen and then consumed by shame at what she considered her failure.  As she struggled more and more with her disease, which she later learned was misdiagnosed, she began to find herself trouble in her marriage and with motherhood.  Taken over with a new mania, Suzy finds the same adrenaline high in a new addiction: becoming a high-priced escort in Las Vegas.  When her husband first agreed to consider an open marriage, he never realized his wife’s mania would result in this new obsession, and an entirely new life as Kelly.  Standing by her, he realizes when she is on the brink of complete self-destruction and gently pulls her back, standing by her and supporting her and she receives a proper diagnosis and finally gets the type of help she so desperately needed.  Told with honest candor holding very little, if anything back, Suzy details a life of running, not just in the physical sense, but from herself.  As she examines her life and explores her past she comes to realize that in spite of what she thinks on the conscious level, this is NOT the life she wants to live and digs deep inside, relying heavily on the support of her family, to come to terms with her illness and live a more productive, traditional life, without given up the exuberance that made her special.