Long walk back in the race for former SJSU athlete
Race walker heads to the Tokyo Olympics years after struggle with eating disorder
Robyn Stevens has taken an improbable road to the Summer Olympics in the arcane sport of race walking.
It probably should never have happened — not 17 years after she quit competing at San Jose State because of an eating disorder.
“When I walked away in 2004 I did not see myself coming back,” Stevens said last week. “I was done.”
Stevens, 38, punched her ticket to Tokyo on June 26 by winning the 20-kilometer race walk in the U.S. Olympic trials in Springfield, Oregon. With a winning time of 1 hour, 35.13 minutes, she became the first San Jose State woman to make a U.S. Olympic track team since discus thrower Margaret Jenkins in 1932.
Her boyfriend Nick Christie won the men’s 20K in Oregon and will find out this week if he also earned an Olympic berth.
Race walking has been an Olympic sport since 1908, although it wasn’t until 1992 in Barcelona that women made their debut. The sport has only two rules, the biggest of which is that walkers must
A friend persuaded Stevens to enter a 20K race walk in 2014 in Sacramento. She not only competed, but she qualified for the 2016 U.S. Olympic trials, surprising even herself in just her second race at that length.
have part of one foot on the ground at all times. Losing contact with the ground is called “flying,” an infraction that is called by judges on the course and can lead to disqualification. Races are 20K (12.4 miles). There is a 50K event (31 miles) for men only.
The U.S. has never won a medal in the women’s competition; Larry Young is the only American medal winner with bronzes in 1968 and 1972. Stevens, ranked 55th in the world, isn’t likely to change that, but making it to the starting line on Aug. 7 in Sapporo at age 38 will be a victory in itself.
The Vacaville racer looked like a potential Olympian for the 2004 Athens Games until she began suffering from eating issues in response to a weight gain during college.
“I was starving myself and then binging and then trying to work out,” Stevens said of her situation at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, where she began her college career before transferring to San Jose State.
The National Eating Disorders Association estimates 30 million Americans suffer from an eating disorder at some point in their lives. Elite women athletes in endurance sports such as running have a higher risk of developing problems.
“In the world of competitive sport where you have individuals who are achievement-oriented, they’ll pretty much do anything to get that gold medal,” said Katherine A. Beals, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Utah.
Stevens said she had no one to talk to about her condition while at Parkside. She returned to California to get support.
She told her former youth coach in Solano County: “What I am doing to my body might end up killing me.”
Stevens transferred to San Jose State for the 2003 cross-country season while continuing to struggle with the condition.
Stevens said she survived on two ice cream cookie sandwiches a day because it cost her only $3 and provided the 2,000 calories she thought she needed.
During this period a San Jose State teammate confided to Stevens that she had eating issues. The teammate even told Stevens about a product she used to make herself vomit.
Stevens did not tell the teammate about her own trauma, or how after binging she would struggle to vomit to purge the food.
But she bought the expectorant the same day her friend mentioned it.
Stevens has since learned she suffered from the early stages of the female athlete triad, a combination of disordered eating, the absence of menstruation and osteoporosis that can result in lifelong health issues.
By early 2004, she had decided to stop the induced vomiting because it caused so much pain. But she took the drug one more time after a cross-country race in which she posted disappointing times.
Two days later, Stevens said, race walker Al Heppner killed himself by jumping off a bridge in San Diego County after failing to make the 50K Olympic team.
“He just gave up on himself,” she said.
Stevens realized her mental state might resemble Heppner’s.
“I’m no different,” she thought at the time “I’m not focused on winning anymore. I’m just focused on getting skinny.”
Stevens called her mom to say she was done with competitive sport because it had become a toxic environment. She’d finish out the season with San Jose State and then quit.
“I hate myself and I hate food,” she told her mother. “How do I live?”
Beals, the author of “Disordered Eating Among Athletes,” said some of the root causes of the problem come from the pressure to be thin, to be faster and an awareness of body image with the type of skimpy uniforms women distance athletes often wear.
“You put that kind of pressure on a female athlete and I’m surprised they’re not all suffering from disordered eating,” said Beals, a retired triathlete.
Stevens struggled for years to feel good about herself although the condition never required hospitalization or clinical help.
She worked multiple jobs to pay for college, earning an art degree in 2007. The dangerous behavior of starving, binging and overtraining to purge the food did not stop when she left the San Jose State crosscountry team. Stevens said she still suffered for years, including symptoms of body dysmorphia.
“Every time I looked in the mirror I would cry,” she said.
By the time Stevens was well enough to train again, the Olympics was no longer on her mind. This time, she did it for fun.
A friend persuaded Stevens to enter a 20K race walk in 2014 in Sacramento. She not only competed, but she qualified for the 2016 U.S. Olympic trials, surprising even herself in just her second race at that length.
After the success of qualifying for the Olympics came Stevens’ concern that a return to full-time competition could also bring a return to her health issues.
“I don’t know if I’m a good match” for racing, she said. “If I was going to return to it I needed to know it would be a healthy relationship and wouldn’t cause abuse again.”
Stevens kept the idea at arm’s length until competing in the 2015 Pan American Race Walking Cup in Chile.
The pull was too strong. Stevens loved racing. She made the 2016 World Team championships but suffered a calf strain about a month before the Olympic trials, where she finished 11th.
The disappointing experience motivated Stevens to try for the Tokyo Games. She wanted to race in at least one U.S. trials while healthy. But it didn’t seem feasible because race walkers must support themselves financially.
Stevens was ready to forget her dream until the owner of the Campbell tax firm where she worked suggested she dedicate the next four years to race walking.
She quit the day job to give the sport one more shot.
Stevens said she cried the day before the June 26 race in Oregon remembering all the people who helped her over the past two decades.
Some of those tears also represented how she found her way back from the darkness, almost two decades after she first qualified for Olympic trials.
“This athletic version of me is the best I’ve ever been,” Stevens said.