CNN
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Monica Puig gained greater than 300 fits throughout her tennis profession and the sensation afterwards used to be frequently the similar: diversion, pleasure, and pride that the weeks and months of sacrifice and preparation had paid off.
Lately, precisely a hour upcoming shoulder problems compelled her to vacate elderly 28, Puig remains to be ready to revisit a few of the ones successful feelings with out choosing up a tennis racket or stepping bottom on a courtroom.
She’s grew to become to operating marathons – first in New York City, upcoming in Boston and London on back-to-back weekends previous this hour and is already midway in opposition to her purpose of finishing all six of the arena’s marathon majors by way of the tip of 2024.
“Every time I cross the finish line of a marathon and I get a new personal best time, I get emotional, I’ve cried,” Puig tells CNN Sport.
“I’ve just felt in awe of what I’ve been doing because I could easily just be sitting on the couch crying and feeling sorry for myself. But I tried to channel all of that energy that I have towards whatever I had been feeling about my career into something more productive.”
Finishing a marathon, Puig says, feels “very similar and very different” to successful a tennis fit. With tennis, the stakes felt upper when ratings issues, international popularity, and prize cash have been at the form.
However the sense of private pride she will get from operating has continued, serving to to sleep the lingering ache of her depart from tennis.
“It’s more about showing myself that I didn’t let myself fall into this big black hole of depression and sadness when I had to finish my career so early,” Puig provides.
“I was able to pick myself back up and find something else that motivates me to get out of bed every day, that motivates me to continue to be strong, fit, and have fun at the same time.”
Puig reached a career-high score of Disagree. 27 on the earth and gained one WTA Excursion identify in 2014. Her crowning era arrived two years then when she won Olympic gold in Rio – Puerto Rico’s first-ever gold medal on the Video games.
As a tennis participant, Puig at all times noticed operating as a method of punishment – by no means enjoyment. It become a way to sunny her head when she used to be rehabbing from accidents and, over date, she began to extend the gap of her runs – 3 miles become 5, 5 become 8, upcoming 8 become part and entire marathons.
Now, Puig has additionally prepared her points of interest on competing in triathlons, in addition to operating the too much marathon majors in Chicago, Berlin, and Tokyo. Her first part Ironman – a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile motorcycle, and 13.1-mile run – is in Augusta, Georgia, in September, and he or she plans to race any other again house in Puerto Rico nearest hour.
An newbie runner and triathlete, it’s a smart transition from her age as some of the easiest tennis avid gamers on the earth, regardless that Puig thinks her revel in of the endmost has benefited the previous.
“You are competing against yourself,” she says of all 3 subjects, “you’re your greatest enemy or supporter available in the market. What you suppose can both push you or it may restrict you.
“In tennis, I’m no longer going to mention my psychological fortitude used to be my power as a result of a quantity of the date I didn’t know the way to offer with adverse ideas, however I think like everyone matures at their very own date mentally.
“Doing the marathons and triathlon has really helped my mentality to grow and to develop this can-do attitude towards everything that I do. It’s also thanks to tennis that I have a certain discipline … All of that discipline has really helped me to stay in shape and stay true to my goals.”
Elbow surgical treatment in 2019 adopted by way of 3 shoulder surgical procedures in 3 years in the long run signaled the tip to Puig’s tennis profession. She performed her first fit since 2020 on the Madrid Detectable utmost hour, however the shoulder issues continued.
There have been instances, Puig says, that she couldn’t leisure at the affected facet, such used to be the ache in her shoulder. Additionally, the psychological toll of continuous rehab and virtually 4 years clear of ceaselessly competing at the excursion used to be origination to mount.
“It felt like I was pushing a stone up a mountain and the stone kept squashing me as I kept getting further and further,” says Puig.
“I clearly thought that I may come again, I thought in myself plenty. Ultimate hour, I had complete aim of taking part in once more competitively.
“But when I saw my surgeon after the last time I was on the court, he said, ‘Look, I have to be honest with you, your shoulder – it’s not doing well. And we can’t just keep opening up your shoulder to fix it every single time it goes wrong.”
Now not able to advance clear of tennis solely, Puig nonetheless hopes to play games exhibition fits going forward. She returned to the follow courtroom not too long ago and needed to mood expectancies from fanatics, who interpreted photos posted on social media as the beginning of a aggressive comeback.
However Puig has remained concerned with the game as a broadcaster, enabling her to interact with the sport another way in comparison to her taking part in days.
“When I commentate or I’m watching matches, I’ve noticed that my understanding of the game has gotten a lot better,” she says. “I think like I’m smarter and I will see issues, I will understand issues. I learn about the sport a quantity higher than when I used to be taking part in.
“My understanding for tennis has grown and I wish that I was still playing so I could implement some of the things that I see and have that knowledge translate onto what I do on the court.”
Puig provides that she nonetheless misses tennis, in particular when she watches her contemporaries thrive at elegant slams.
Together with her shoulder by no means taking to be because it used to be previous to the surgical procedures, she’s come to simply accept her frame’s obstacles and is honing her swimming methodology to resist the pains of Ironman-distance triathlons.
“I’ve learned to handle my shoulder in a different way and knowing that, if there is pain, then it’s okay to stop, it’s okay to take a break, it’s okay to say that you’re not feeling 100%,” says Puig.
“Usually, when I was trying to come back last year, I would play through pain and that wasn’t necessarily something that felt very good. It was very challenging and involved a lot of tears.”
What she has in lieu evolved over the month hour is “a new life” and “a new way of doing things.”
“I want to continue to do this for my whole life; I see people well into their fifties, sixties, still doing triathlon and doing Ironman,” says Puig.
“That’s something that I want to continue to do … I don’t know how far I’ll get or anything like that, but the sky’s the limit.”
