OLYMPIC HOPEFUL
After overcoming her eating disorder, Starla Garcia feels privileged to run
Before the sun rises, Starla Garcia laces up her shoes, chooses a path, and she runs.
She runs now because she wants to, not because anyone is expecting her to. The 29-year-old thinks it’s a privilege to run, to compete, to exist exactly as she is in the body she was gifted with.
Now, Garcia is training to qualify in the marathon category for the 2020 U.S. Olympic trials in February. Her personal record is 2 hours and 47 minutes, which she achieved at Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn., in June.
The qualifying time for the Olympic trials is 2 hours and 45 minutes, and she hopes to run that time at the California International Marathon in December or the Chevron Houston Marathon in January.
Twelve years ago, Garcia was just trying to survive being an athlete competing at the collegiate level.
Since she graduated in 2012, she has earned a Master’s in Education with a concentration in health from the University of Houston and now works as a registered dietitian, a job that she loves in a city that she loves.
But it took time for her to look at the sport as a privilege — to destress and exercise in a healthy way. She no longer feels
like she has to run for her life.
“Being a student athlete, being away from home, dealing with an eating disorder — I was really just trying to survive my undergrad,” the Pharr native said. “After collegiate running, I felt burned out and just tried to figure out who I was without running.”
Garcia was recruited to run at the University of Houston after a successful career as a high school athlete in the Rio Grande Valley. She typically competed in crosscountry and the 5,000-meter run.
Houston was a culture shock, she remembers.
“I had never really experienced being a minority before, until I came to Houston. Even experiencing different Latino cultures was new to me,” said Garcia, who is Mexican-American. “I found out quickly that I was different than my peers in figuring out who I was as a Latina and where my place was in athletics.”
She didn’t realize it right away, but a feeling of isolation and pressure to have the same body as her teammates contributed to an unhealthy relationship with food. It had started in high school.
The 5-foot-1-inch runner said she suffered from anorexia with restriction, binge eating and compulsive exercising while in high school and as a collegiate runner. She celebrated restriction, and the false sense of superiority and strength that accompanied a day without eating.
“There’s a hyper-focus put on women’s bodies in sports, especially running,” she said. “It totally affected me and put an unrealistic value on how a distance runner should look — my legs not being long enough to strike far — which is ridiculous.”
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, more than one-third of female NCAA Division I athletes “reported attitudes and symptoms that place them at risk for anorexia nervosa. Though most athletes with eating disorders are female, male athletes are also at risk — especially those competing in sports that tend to place an emphasis on the athlete’s diet, appearance, size and weight requirements, such as wrestling, bodybuilding, crew and running.”
Disordered eating can often accompany amenorrhea (absence of monthly menstrual periods) and osteoporosis for women athletes. The lack of nutrition can lead to calcium deficiency and bone loss, which when combined with compulsive exercise or competitive sports, can put the person at greater risk for stress fractures.
In 2012, Garcia was diagnosed with osteopenia (when bones are weaker than normal, but not full-blown osteoporosis), which was what she called a pivotal part of her recovery. She didn’t have a menstrual cycle from age 17 to 22, she said. After receiving initial treatment, Garcia’s body regulated. When her period returned, she was so excited that she texted all of her running teammates with the good news.
“It was the first real physical sign of the detrimental effects (the eating disorder) had placed on my body,” she said. “Having disordered eating patterns is not normal at all, and it shouldn’t be celebrated in athletics, college or society.”
Garcia said she was lucky that the university had resources for her to first accept, and then treat, her eating disorder — and they paid for it. Not all athletes at NCAA-regulated schools have that option, so many choose between treatment and other bills.
She believes her placement at the school was instrumental in how the rest of her life has developed — it was all right time, right place.
Garcia stayed in Houston during treatment and ended up earning her master’s degree and becoming a dietitian, not a common occupation for Latinos, she noted.
“People don’t receive the help they need because they can’t afford it, or their families can’t pay,” she said. “The one thing that really encouraged me to stay was all the support I had. There’s a lot of pride that comes with that, too.”
For the first time in years, Garcia stopped running. She took two years to recover, study and have a life outside of sports. But she couldn’t stay away long.
She qualified for the coveted Boston Marathon in 2014, but an unexpected injury took time to heal. She started training again in 2017 by joining the Houston Harriers and incorporating her collegiate knowledge into her workouts again.
“Having that time away from training allowed me to redevelop my relationship with exercise and my body,” she said. “As someone who trains now, I definitely have a much healthier outlook.”
Her initial goal was to run 26.2 miles in under 3 hours. Now, she’s shooting for 2 hours and 45 minutes, and she knows she has what it takes to compete at an Olympic trial level.
She calls it “unfinished business.”
“It’s there, so why not? I’m healthier, in a better place emotionally, physically and mentally,” Garcia said. “Why not me?”