Still an Athlete? | Week 1: Starbucks, Creatine, and a Kid on Each Hip

12 Weeks of Rebuilding the Athlete in Me

My freshman year at Fairfield, a girl in our lacrosse locker room asked if anyone wanted to grab Starbucks. I had never been to Starbucks, immediately said yes and panic ordered a vanilla frappuccino. She was a year older, and I thought she was the coolest girl in the room. Twenty years later, I still do. She's now the CMO of a major fashion brand, and she is still a total badass.

We've talked each other through struggles, fears, and just about every stage of life since then, and all of it goes back to that coffee run. So when she sent me a podcast on Friday because she thought I'd like it, I listened to it on Sunday and went straight to Target for protein powder and creatine.

This morning I had a double shot of Nespresso, my first in 10 years. Not quite a Starbucks run with the lacrosse team, but it felt like the right way to start Day 1 of a 12-week experiment. The question I'm trying to answer is pretty simple: what am I supposed to do with my body in this phase of life?

Because I'm not a Division I athlete anymore. I'm a 38-year-old mom of three (with a thyroid issue) training for ladies' 3.0 tennis like it's Wimbledon. I haven’t dabbled in GLP-1s (tempted), and I definitely don’t feel comfortable or confident in a crop top.

Then something hit me this morning. I was carrying my 8-month-old and my 33-pound two-and-a-half-year-old down the stairs at the same time, one on each hip, and that podcast suddenly made a lot of sense. This is what strength is actually for. I need to train for life (and Wimbledon), and I’m going to write about it every Monday for the next three months.

Some quick background if we haven't met. I'm Erin Chase. I played Division I lacrosse at Fairfield, where I was a four-year starter and senior captain, won three MAAC championships, and finished with 190 points. After college I coached in England, at Skidmore, and at UNH for seven years. Now I coach the girls' team at Portsmouth High School and run Lax Free or Die.

I’m also married, and my youngest, George, was born in February. I'm almost eight months postpartum and still breastfeeding. Life is full in exactly the way you'd expect, and somewhere between practices, kids, and coaching, my own athletic identity slid to the bottom of the list. Not on purpose. It just happens.

What pulled it back up was tennis. I started playing again recently, and now I'm on the court every Wednesday. The good news is that the instincts are still there. The less good news is that my bod isn't always working the way I want it to. My conditioning, my strength, and my ability to keep producing explosive movement aren't where I want them to be. More than anything, tennis reminded me how much I love being an athlete. I love competing. I love training. I love feeling physically capable. I missed that more than I realized.

Back to that podcast. It was with Dr. Stacy Sims, and I've been reading and listening to her ever since. She's an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist and the author of ROAR and Next Level. Her signature message is that women are not small men, and that much of the training and nutrition advice we've been handed was built on research done mostly on men. A few of her big ideas really landed with me: lift weights that actually challenge you, prioritize strength and power over endless cardio, build and keep muscle for the long haul, and fuel your training instead of constantly restricting.

"Women are not small men."

To be clear, I'm not an expert on her research, she didn't write my program, and this isn't an official Stacy Sims protocol. I'm borrowing the philosophy and seeing how it fits into my actual life.

So here's the plan. Starting today, October 19, I'm committing to 12 weeks. I'm following a home dumbbell program with two to three strength or athletic-development sessions a week, adjusted to recovery and whatever the week looks like with three kids. Tennis stays on Wednesdays. I'll add walking and mobility, work on gradually lifting more over time, and eat enough to support both training and breastfeeding. I'm also working around an old wrist injury, so some exercises will get modified along the way.

So many athletes finish playing in college and lose their identity. I get it. For years my definition of a workout was simple: if I didn't kill myself, did I even work out? Then you open Instagram and every influencer has a different plan. Does anyone else look at all of it and not know wtf to do?

So for these 12 weeks, I'm only being influenced by an actual doctor (the PhD kind, Dr. Sims) and my therapist slash personal trainer, ChatGPT. Anyone else?

When I commit to something, I go all in. So after Target, I typed "make me a Division 1 tennis player inspired workout following Dr. Stacy Sims protocol" into ChatGPT. It politely told me to chill out. Apparently being almost eight months postpartum, three cortisone shots into my wrist, and not sleeping doesn't exactly scream D1 tennis. Rude, but fair. (Mamas, get your kids into strength training early. But that's a rant for another time, along with my multi-sport athlete speech.) It also told me to be careful with the creatine I'd just bought, since I'm still breastfeeding. So much for all in.

CHAT PROMPT: "Make me a Division 1 tennis player inspired workout following Dr. Stacy Sims protocol"

Now it logs every workout, weight, and rep, it knows exactly what phase of life I'm in, and it keeps me accountable. It's also the only one in my life willing to tell me to calm down and not be so hard on myself. It remembers every question I asked at the end of my pregnancy and postpartum. Is what I'm feeling normal? Is my heart going to beat out of my chest? Why do I feel like I can't breathe? It already knows the whole picture, which is more than I can say for any fitness influencer.

This is not a weight-loss challenge. I'm not doing this to look a certain way. I want to feel strong, powerful, and athletic, and I want to find out what that looks like at 38 with three kids.

So this morning I did the workout ChatGPT built me (the full plan and my numbers are at the bottom of this post). My honest reaction when I finished was simple: I did it!

Not exactly a highlight reel, and that's kind of the point. I've trained at a high level before. Pushing through one hard workout has never been my problem. The real test in this chapter is whether I can show up consistently, recover well, and build strength over time. The harder lesson for a former D1 athlete might be learning that a workout doesn't have to leave me wrecked to count.

Here's why this belongs on a lacrosse blog. I spend a lot of time telling young athletes that strength matters. That they should play multiple sports. That confidence comes from doing hard things, and consistency beats the occasional heroic effort. I tell them their identity should be bigger than one sport. It's time I took my own coaching.

I also want the girls I work with to see that athleticism doesn't come with an expiration date. You don't stop being an athlete after your last college game. It just looks different at different stages of life.

Every Monday I'll share what I did, the numbers, what felt good, what didn't, and what I'm learning. No promises about where I'll be in 12 weeks. I'm curious to find out. If you're a former athlete, a mom trying to fit training back into a full life, a coach, or a player who wants to see what the long game looks like, follow along. And if you're starting your own version of this, tell me. I'd love the company.

See you next Monday.

Erin

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I am simply sharing what I am usng based on what ChatGPT tells me and do not pretend to be an expert by ANY MEANS.