British sprinter Maia Heward-Mills proves why you should never give up in a viral TikTok video she posted of herself crashing into a hurdle, face planting, losing her shoe, and still getting back up and gunning it to win her race.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fall as bad as mine on hurdles,” she wrote in the caption.
The 16-year-old is highly competitive, and is accustomed to being a front runner, as evidenced by another video she’s recently shared of herself racing the 100 meters and finishing several paces ahead of the other athletes while snippets of a Kanye West speech play over her victory: “Everybody wants to know what I would do if I didn’t win. I guess we’ll never know.”
She’s not your typical underdog, but her fighting spirit on the track is an inspiring reminder to other runners that a race is never over until it’s over, so it’s always worth getting back up and giving your all, because you never know what’s going to happen.
Heward-Mills is in good company when it comes to losing a shoe and/or falling in a race and still rallying to a win or finishing strong. Nia Akins’ perseverance in her heat of the 800 meters at the 2024 USA Track & Field Indoor Championships led her to win in 2:02.53, despite losing her shoe in the first half of the race.
Then there was Sean McGorty’s nail-biting moment at the 2021 Olympic Trials to determine who made the team for Tokyo; about 1,000 meters into one of the 3,000-meter steeplechase prelims, a runner stepped on the back of McGorty’s shoe, pulling it half off of his foot. It took three tries and 10 precious seconds for him to get the tight-fitting spike back in place, and when he rejoined the race, instead of panicking, he made strategic, incremental moves each lap to put himself back in contention. The Bowerman Track Club runner finished in ninth place, which qualified him for the final. His final lap of 1 minute 1.8 seconds was the fastest of anybody in either of the event’s two heats.
Lauren Fleshman’s dramatic mid-race walk off the track during the 5,000 meters at the 2007 USATF Outdoor Championships wasn’t the result of a missing shoe or stumble, but the demons in her own head; after 13 stalled seconds, she still put herself back in the race and ran all out for fourth place.
It’s all about having that dog in you.
Like Sara Hall said after her 15th place finish at this year’s Boston Marathon, “‘Next time’ is never guaranteed. If you’re healthy and prepared at that starting line—let it rip like it’s the last time you’ll ever get to do it!”
Abby Carney is a writer and journalist in New York. A former D1 college runner and current amateur track athlete, she's written about culture and characters in running and outdoor sports for Runner's World, Like the Wind Magazine, The New York Times, and other outlets. She also writes about things that have nothing to do with running, and was previously the editor of a food magazine.
