Fans of Minnesota cross country skiing have recognized the name Jessie Diggins for almost two decades. Long before Diggins powered her way past two skiers to help the USA win a first-ever team relay gold medal in the 2018 Winter Olympics, Diggins was a high school star at Stillwater High School, making varsity at age 12.
From the outside looking in, Diggins was a 4.0 student skiing prodigy nurtured by two loving parents, loved by her sister Mackenzie, coaches, teachers, and teammates. Her life was picture perfect.
Until it wasn’t.
The incalculable drive that made her a great athlete almost killed her. In her new book Brave Enough, Diggins recounts her years-long battle with bulimia, her attempts to hide it, the family intervention, the counseling work at the Emily Program, and the many steps it took to overcome it.
Through it all, Jessie managed to train and keep her fitness level high, as she raced up the ladder and made the national cross country ski team at age 19. There she encountered constant bullying by a teammate who lied to her about what the coaches thought of Diggins’ illness, and she struggled mightily with her self-confidence.
Written in the first person with author Todd Smith helping through the process, these 276 pages detail the life of an athlete who gets everything she can from her body and mind in the most prominent Nordic ski races held on the planet. Diggins wraps the reader in an envelope of race pain; lactic acid almost drips off the pages as she recounts the battles against the world’s top female cross country skiers. In great detail, Diggins recounts the epic training sessions and sacrifices she has made to race to the top of her sport.
Growing up, Jessie tells about trips to the family cabin on Lake Superior near Thunder Bay, Ontario. Even as a small child Jessie was energetic and fearless. By the time she was eight or nine, she was jumping off the 25-foot cliff into the frigid waters of Lake Superior, and she was competing in endless games against older cousins at the family camp.
Her father was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and her mom moved with her folks from Canada to Duluth when she was three. Her parents, writes Jessie, “had winter in their bones since they were kids.” And her parents did a lot of winter activities with their children.
As a seventh-grader, Jessie qualified for the first state cross country ski meet. She was the youngest skier to make state from Stillwater, a traditional Nordic skiing power house in Minnesota. Because she never grew taller, Jessie wore the same race suit until she graduated from high school. Today, that suit is encased in glass in the Stillwater ski team wax cabin, an honor, she says, that tops making any hall of fame.
We know Jessie Diggins as a golden girl: all glitter, grit and glamour. But as these pages turn, we learn Jessie is much more than that. She has fought through exercise-induced asthmas from age 12 on, battled body image, bulimia, fought with legions of self-doubt, and yet she managed to train consistently at a high level for years to get to the next finish line. How?
Talented? You bet. Tough? Absolutely. Tender? At times, indeed. Tenacious? That’s what comes through more than anything. Jessie Diggins is tenacious. Minnesota nice was encrypted in Diggins DNA, but tenacity more than any natural talent seems to define her.
Win or lose, Jessie Diggins has survived and thrived. There are lessons in this book Brave Enough for everybody.
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