Sean Byrne

My name is Sean Byrne, and I am a recently retired cross country and track athlete in my third year at Texas Christian University. To best understand my story, I first want to share my background with running and why it is so important to me. My running career officially started my freshman year of high school. I originally went to Santa Margarita Catholic High School to play lacrosse, but after making the varsity cross country team, as a freshman, only to have my season ended by a stress fracture, it made me want to prove myself come track season. I spent the next 4 years dedicating every day to achieving my running goals and by the end of my senior year ran personal records of 4:13 in the mile, 9:08 in the 3200m, and 14:52 in the 3-mile. During my high school career, running became not only my sport, but an outlet and lifestyle. From the moment I woke up at 5 am to stretch, to the moment I went to bed at 9 pm, every meal, bottle of water, and free time was calculated so I could run and recover as well as possible. While grueling, it was what motivated me to get out of bed and strive to be the best version of myself.

After high school, I decided to pursue my passion by running for Texas Christian University. Although I had dealt with my fair share of injuries in high school, my real journey started halfway through my freshman year in college. In my first semester, I had a successful cross country season and eagerly dove into my first indoor track season. I ran a new personal record of 4:11 in one of my first mile races, which only motivated me more. However, the week after, in a meet at Texas Tech, my legs completely gave out after two laps. I struggled to dorsiflex and constantly felt weak and tight in the anterior muscles of my lower legs. After a couple weeks of painful practicing and racing, my coach and I decided that I was simply “burnt out” from over training, which is common for freshman collegiate runners. We decided to back off training for two weeks but when I returned to running the symptoms only got worse. We officially decided to withhold me from the outdoor season and began trying to figure out what was wrong with my legs. The injury was difficult for me to describe because it was nothing I had experienced before. From the moment I woke up and started walking around, my legs became more fatigued with every step. The medical staff and I spent the next five months figuring out what was wrong, which included a half dozen blood tests, two MRI’s, three different doctors, an EMG, and eventually a compartment syndrome test.

I had never heard of Exertional Compartment Syndrome before I was diagnosed with it, but once the test confirmed the pressure in my legs, I had surgery a couple weeks before my sophomore year in college. From August to October I did intense rehab and eventually began running with the help of calf socks. While the post-surgical swelling caused problems, I was optimistic the surgery worked, and I was ready to compete. I remember getting fit extremely fast and surprised not only myself but my coach at how well I came back from surgery. Just five months after surgery I began my sophomore indoor track season with confidence. This quickly changed by the last indoor race when I knew something was wrong with my legs. I started feeling the pressure build back up and by the time I had to come home because of COVID I admitted something was wrong again. I got retested and the pressure in my legs was almost twice as bad as before. By this point I did not even know what it felt like to run with normal legs. I made the tough decision to have surgery again in July before my junior year, but after returning to campus I never became the same athlete again.

The one thing that was consistent about my athletic career was that I loved to run. For some people, the most important part is the team or the perks of being a D1 athlete, but for me it was the simple act of running. There was nothing I loved more than waking up early on a Sunday morning and grinding out fifteen miles. For almost two years I was not doing the one thing I loved most, and it drained all my energy and competitive drive. The kid who never stopped thinking about running, felt exhausted just thinking about going to rehab and that is when it clicked with me. After a lot of discussion with friends, family, trainers, and a sports psychologist it became apparent that while I still love running, collegiate running no longer made sense. The year and a half I had left in college was not enough time to achieve my goals because of my setbacks from injury and there were other aspects of my life that became more important in my absence of competing. I struggled to make this decision because of the hope of once competing at the same level, but I knew coming back would not be worth it for me. Of course I would love to have the fairy tale ending to my collegiate career where I come back from injury and compete at the highest level, however I know medically retiring is the decision that is going to make me happiest. The four, nine-inch scars that are engraved on my legs do not tell a story of defeat but are a single chapter of perseverance in a long journey ahead. I gave the sport my all and am finally ready to not only focus on other aspects of my life but celebrate everything I have already accomplished.