I wanted to start this page off with a little introduction about myself! My name is Angelina Perez, I'm 19 years old and was born & raised in Ringwood, NJ. I moved to Jacksonville, Florida in July of 2022 after graduating high school. I started running my sophomore year of high school and quickly fell in love with it. I found lots of success within the sport which allowed to me get an athletic scholarship to the University of Florida. This became one of my greatest passions and also an outlet for me and my recovery from an eating disorder. Running saved my life in many ways, but unfortunately, the stress of my ED due to injury and losing my grandpa right before starting college in the fall of 2022 left me in an extremely bad place. I managed it for a while, but I hit complete rock bottom last February and decided to come back home on medical leave and finish my semester online.
I spent the majority of the spring working on healing both my body and mind from all the damage I'd put it through. For the first time in years, I was putting myself first and truly recovering. Consequently, this time allowed me to realize that I was not happy with the school I was currently at so I decided to go into the transfer portal in May. I was lucky enough to reconnect with the Coach from Wake Forest whom I had previously been recruited by in high school and everything felt like it was finally falling into place. However, there was still this bad omen lingering in the sense that I still had a lot of work to do in terms of recovery if I wanted to race for Wake Forest in the fall. After lots of discussions my coach and I decided it would be best for me to take a gap year. I won’t lie I was very hesitant at first especially thinking about the backlash and hate I would receive from people, but after thinking about it for a while I started to see the benefits that could come from it. I was getting a second chance and my full ride back for 3 years. I had a whole bonus year to get in solid training from my coach while focusing on getting to my healthiest best self and I was allowed to take some classes at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville so I could still be in a school environment.
I’m currently writing this on December 31st, 2023. I have completed my first Semester at UNF, I am in a great place in terms of recovery and this was one of the best holidays I have had with my family in years. My training is going well, I have been running consistently and will be starting up workouts soon. I know this does not sound very exciting, but thinking back to where I was a year ago and how lost I felt as well as how uncertain I was about this gap year just a few months ago makes me feel so proud of where I am at now.
So that is pretty much me & my story thus far! I am so excited for this next year and to share more of my life with ya’ll!
Always remember no matter what life throws at you, YOU GOT THIS💜
I wanted to start this page off with a little introduction about myself! My name is Angelina Perez, I'm 19 years old and was born & raised in Ringwood, NJ. I moved to Jacksonville, Florida in July of 2022 after graduating high school. I started running my sophomore year of high school and quickly fell in love with it. I found lots of success within the sport which allowed to me get an athletic scholarship to the University of Florida. This became one of my greatest passions and also an outlet for me and my recovery from an eating disorder. Running saved my life in many ways, but unfortunately, the stress of my ED due to injury and losing my grandpa right before starting college in the fall of 2022 left me in an extremely bad place. I managed it for a while, but I hit complete rock bottom last February and decided to come back home on medical leave and finish my semester online.
I spent the majority of the spring working on healing both my body and mind from all the damage I'd put it through. For the first time in years, I was putting myself first and truly recovering. Consequently, this time allowed me to realize that I was not happy with the school I was currently at so I decided to go into the transfer portal in May. I was lucky enough to reconnect with the Coach from Wake Forest whom I had previously been recruited by in high school and everything felt like it was finally falling into place. However, there was still this bad omen lingering in the sense that I still had a lot of work to do in terms of recovery if I wanted to race for Wake Forest in the fall. After lots of discussions my coach and I decided it would be best for me to take a gap year. I won’t lie I was very hesitant at first especially thinking about the backlash and hate I would receive from people, but after thinking about it for a while I started to see the benefits that could come from it. I was getting a second chance and my full ride back for 3 years. I had a whole bonus year to get in solid training from my coach while focusing on getting to my healthiest best self and I was allowed to take some classes at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville so I could still be in a school environment.
I’m currently writing this on December 31st, 2023. I have completed my first Semester at UNF, I am in a great place in terms of recovery and this was one of the best holidays I have had with my family in years. My training is going well, I have been running consistently and will be starting up workouts soon. I know this does not sound very exciting, but thinking back to where I was a year ago and how lost I felt as well as how uncertain I was about this gap year just a few months ago makes me feel so proud of where I am at now.
So that is pretty much me & my story thus far! I am so excited for this next year and to share more of my life with ya’ll!
Always remember no matter what life throws at you, YOU GOT THIS💜