When I visited the office of Tamanna Singh, MD, director of Cleveland Clinic’s Sports Cardiology Department, the original plan was to just talk about runners’ heart health for an upcoming feature story.
But once there, I also learned about the Cleveland Clinic’s recently opened a comprehensive treatment center designed specifically for female athletes of all ages and abilities, Women’s Integrated Sports, Exercise and Research (WISER), which Singh co-founded with Marie Schaefer, MD, a primary care sports medicine doctor, and Barbara Anthony, a licensed independent social worker who provides clinical athlete support.
And when Singh and Anthony offered to conduct a simulated visit with me to get a feel for what WISER’s intake exam looks like, I was all for it. We sat down in an examination room, and after Singh asked me to share a bit about myself, my medical history, and the sports I do, I used this opportunity to share all my concerns.
At the time, I was training for a 10-mile race, and it wasn’t going well. My legs were recovering very slowly, and my heart rate seemed to be above the appropriate zone ranges at all times, no matter how slow I ran or what I did—which led me to concerns about my heart, which, in turn, led me to concerns about any pain I experienced when I pushed slightly past my comfort zone.
Because I had done a VO2 max test a few hours earlier, Singh was able to quickly dispel any cardiovascular concerns: my heart was perfectly fine, with some metrics even above average for my age.
Then Anthony, in her role as a social worker, asked about sports in my childhood. I told her that I used to be a very active child, doing every after-school activity possible, with basketball being my favorite (I was quite good, too, and made up for the lack in height with speed). But sooner or later, I had always been pulled out of these activities—whether the reason was the increased time requirement placed on my parents as I was getting better or, later, because of money (amidst my parents’ divorce).
“It sounds like anytime you advanced or accelerated in a sport, you had to stop,” Anthony said. “Your experience has been, ‘I get really good, and then I can’t go any further.’ I wonder if you don’t even know what you’re capable of, because you haven’t had that opportunity or the resources.”
All the remaining notes I wanted to write in the notebook on my lap left my mind. I have been in therapy for over five years and in many ways understand how my childhood is still shaping my experiences today. This, however, was a complete revelation to me, something I’ve never thought to share with my therapist. “I wonder if there’s some experience that your body is having with this,” Anthony added.
I needed to sit with it for a moment. I always thought that perhaps I just simply didn’t enjoy the nature of racing like other runners do. My coworkers would even say: “Pavlína? She is allergic to racing.” But regardless of my excuses about why I cannot and do not push past certain limits or claims that I am just not that competitive—of course I am; for sure in intellectual ways, no question about it. I never would have thought that my childhood experiences—never being pushed past my limits or supported through dismantling them—could still be interfering with how I run and race today.
“Athletes, women, we do tend to live up here.” Anthony pointed to her head.
The WISER center is the result of the founders’ own frustrations with the healthcare system and the fact that it doesn’t allow experts to share patients’ information to create a holistic approach and solutions. Besides the expertise of the three female founders, the center has access to an OB-GYN, physical therapist, dietitian, sports psychiatrist, dermatologist, and a sleep specialist—and keeps adding on more. “We just wanted to be present for anyone who really wants to have a relationship with movement,” Singh says. “We even changed the language on our site, and we describe this program to say, yes, obviously, this is made for an athlete, but who is an athlete? It’s about how we can integrate movement to help the quality of life and help you feel great.”
Women’s sports are experiencing a moment, but that doesn’t mean that the infrastructure for both genders is equal. Plus, women navigate many competing priorities—and preventive healthcare doesn’t always make the cut. “Women tend to present a little late,” Singh says, “so oftentimes, a visit will be about so many different things when, if someone came to me maybe six months before, it could have been one isolated issue.”
Singh and Anthony understand that women have limited free time—and that’s where the center, with all its interconnected experts, can help. “Women don’t have the time to see six or seven different providers,” Singh says. “I’m not saying that men potentially do, but within the culture of womanhood, there are just so many more responsibilities on women, and I would argue, whether you’re married, single, have a sibling, have parents, you inherently are taking on more responsibilities, and that may even be in your workplace.”
The core question the founders built the center around is “what does performance mean to you,” Anthony adds. “When you show up in your doctor’s office … and they say ‘you seem just fine,’ but you say ‘I can’t go for a run, cut the grass, do my daily activities, and this is what performance means to me,’—we want to see them,” Anthony adds.
For the rest of the visit, I hung on Singh’s and Anthony’s every word as they offered explanations for my experiences, complemented each other’s thoughts, and built out my evaluation. Among the reassurances that, no, I don’t talk about myself too much and do not need to apologize (Anthony); that I don’t have to worry—even if running feels challenging right now, it won’t feel like that forever (Singh); and the burden of helping me create a care plan is on them—I am not alone (Anthony); I left the WISER office feeling empowered, validated, and listened to in a way I never had before in a medical setting.
“It feels so much better, and it feels more empowering when you’re synergistic,” Anthony’s words were replaying in my head.
I’m currently training for the SeaWheeze Half Marathon happening in August, and with this new knowledge—that what holds me back is my mind, not my body—I decided to push myself and go beyond just breaking 2:00 (which I have done before and therefore know is within my comfort zone).
It’s time to aim for a more ambitious goal.
Pavlína Černá, an RRCA-certified run coach and cycling enthusiast, has been with Runner’s World, Bicycling, and Popular Mechanics since August 2021. When she doesn’t edit, she writes; when she doesn’t write, she reads or translates. In whatever time she has left, you can find her outside running, riding, or roller-skating to the beat of one of the many audiobooks on her TBL list.