I felt like I had sacrificed “enough” in the name of recovery and yet was never getting enough mental rest. I struggled to juggle class, work (despite being a full time student, I was still working part time), and the seemingly endless appointments I had to keep to stay on top of my physical health. Several times I needed to stay up late working on a paper or study for an exam but was physically incapable of holding myself up and would just fall asleep in a weepy, snotty mess.

The amount of physical change I experienced paired with the lifestyle change of giving up my full-time job and going back to school often felt like too much to process. The mental recovery was debilitating, and being thrown into an intense work environment allowed me to put off addressing it. At times, I felt thankful for having so much work to do, because it allowed me to ignore my mental recovery.

But the issues resurfaced. I was plagued by flashbacks that flared up when I was tired and stressed. Memories of my crash would hit me without warning regardless of whether I was sleeping, up late preparing for class, walking down the hallway at my office, or riding my bike. It was always the same — a heavy feeling of sadness and total helplessness would overwhelm my entire body. Visions of what little I can remember would flood my mind and I’d become completely frozen and disabled. Sometimes I could stuff it back down and move on. Other times I’d have to take a seat, or stop riding my bike, drop my head, and remind myself to breathe.

Even worse than that, I began suffering panic attacks. I can still remember the first time it happened. I woke up and decided I was too scared to ride outside, so I hooked my bike up to my indoor trainer and started my workout. After about 30 minutes, I couldn’t take it. I fell over my handlebars and sobbed, all the memories of my crash pouring into my head. Suddenly my back hurt. My neck hurt. My face felt swollen and bloody. I pictured the ceiling of the hospital that I was forced to stare at for so many hours. I visualized being rolled into the OR and the surgeon taking scalpel to my back. I had to get off my bike. I had to cry.

I was shocked when my therapist told me I have post-traumatic stress, not wanting to believe I could have such a thing. It felt foreign, like something only soldiers or victims of domestic violence suffer. No one else. Especially not me. I had trouble accepting that I had experienced something that could be classified as a “trauma.” Although I was making progress in certain areas of my life, I felt like I didn’t know who I was anymore.

Don’t Call it a Comeback

Despite all the pain and trauma, never once did I resolve to quit bike racing. Racing again was always the goal. But I was scared — not only of crashing again, but of being too afraid to even get myself to the starting line.

I joined another team in the CRCA full of women I had known for a long time and who I thought — more than any other group of women in NYC — would be most supportive as I navigated my recovery. I trained alongside them throughout winter and although it was a long slog, I gradually started to feel stronger — not like my old self, but stronger. Once the NYC race season started in March, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d want to race again, too. I desperately missed the adrenaline rush, that special connection with teammates that only happens at speed, and above all, that elusive post-race glow.

I planned for my first race back to be just a few days after I handed in the last paper for the first year of my Ph.D. program (the fewer things my mind needed to occupy itself with, the better, I reasoned) and chose a Central Park CRCA race so that I could compete against people I knew on a course I could ride with my eyes closed.

Still, in the weeks leading up to the race, I couldn’t commit. My internal dialogue was a continual debate: Should I race or not race? If I race, will there be a crash? Unlikely. But, if I do crash, will I have to repeat everything I went through over the last year? Unlikely. But even so, am I ready to crash again? It is, after all, an inevitable part of bike racing. Even the greatest bike handlers hit the deck every now and then. So am I okay with crashing?

I looked to my coach to decide for me. Despite much prodding, he wouldn’t. I asked friends and teammates to tell me what to do. Everyone said the same thing: Race if you’re ready. Don’t if you’re not. It’s ok if you don’t race right now. It’s ok if you don’t ever race again.

Paralyzed by indecision, I decided to take the advice of a teammate and go through my pre-race routine, taking everything one step at a time, always giving myself the option to quit.

So Friday night I pinned my number onto my jersey and set my alarm for 4:30 a.m. At 5:30 the next morning — exactly 10 months and nine days out from having my spine screwed back together — I showed up in Central Park and made my way to the starting line. When the official blew the whistle, I clicked into my pedals and rolled off with the group.

Things more or less fell into place. It was a five-lap points race — with sprints at the finish line of every lap — and I led out two teammates who took first and third in the first sprint. Later, when one of those sprinters got dropped, I buried myself to make sure she made it back to the field to contest the remaining sprints. I got dropped with one lap to go, but I didn’t care. I felt like I had won.