Overview

When a doctor examined Anna Hertel's damaged knee and asked, ""What was it all for?"" he was referring to the toll of years of endurance training. But the question opened a deeper reckoning. In Brick by Brick, Anna traces the story of a woman who poured everything into motion, becoming a two-time Ironman and completing forty-five triathlons years earlier in an effort to move beyond two abusive relationships in early adulthood that left her fractured. After she finally got away, the imprint lingered for over a decade, showing up in perfectionism, self-erasure, and a nervous system wired for survival, long before she understood its source. Born in Germany and raised in the United States, she grew up in a loving, privileged family, afforded safety, education, and opportunity, yet internally splintered by cultural dislocation and a deep hunger for connection she did not yet know how to name. Years later, a late-in-life diagnosis of ADHD would cast new light on her emotional intensity, impulsive trust, and relentless drive to prove her worth. She turned to discipline, believing it could hold what her relationships could not. But the body keeps score. Injury, not insight, finally made her stop. Told in vivid scenes and braided with reflective footnotes, this memoir begins in the doctor's office and spirals backward through collapse, migration, and reclamation. In the end, she would leave two more relationships, guided by a quiet knowing that the echoes of trauma still required excavation before she could move forward as an integrated self. Choosing single motherhood was not an ending but an arrival, a way of finally finding the home she had always longed for inside her body. With insight into trauma recovery, somatic memory, ADHD, and the myth of romantic salvation, Brick by Brick is a meditation on endurance, identity, and the long way home.

Full Product Details

9798891387010

Table of Contents

Reviews

""What a gift to the world! Brick by Brick is such a powerful, courageous, vulnerable, and deeply necessary testament to the ways movement can mend and heal, even in the darkest of times. Through triathlon, Anna doesn't simply rebuild strength; she rebuilds trust, agency, and a sense of self that trauma tried to take from her. This incredible memoir shows us that healing isn't a finish line but a series of honest, deliberate steps--much like training itself--and through her story we learn of the unwavering resilience that emerges when discipline, compassion, and courage meet . . . An inspiring reminder that endurance, in sports and in life, can be a pathway not just to survival, but to becoming whole."" --CHRISSIE WELLINGTON OBE, FOUR-TIME IRONMAN TRIATHLON WORLD CHAMPION ""Brick by Brick is a searing, intimate tapestry woven from multiple narrative threads: the impacts of abuse, the healing regulation, rhythm, and dissociation of endurance training, and the therapeutic journey to find an origin story. Anna Hertel shares her exploration of trauma and healing with courage and insight. She shows how trauma lives in the body--and how discipline can both heal and harm. Ultimately, Brick by Brick reveals that healing is not about endurance but about intention, grace, rest, and reset--all through a lens of self-compassion."" --BRUCE D. PERRY, MD, PHD, PRINCIPAL OF THE NEUROSEQUENTIAL NETWORK AND COAUTHOR WITH OPRAH WINFREY OF THE NEW YORK TIMES #1 BESTSELLER WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?: CONVERSATIONS ON TRAUMA, RESILIENCE, AND HEALING

Author Information

Anna Hertel is a writer, retired endurance athlete, and therapist-in-training whose work explores the intersection of trauma, identity, and the healing potential of embodied experience. A two-time Ironman finisher with forty-five triathlons behind her, Anna once believed discipline could outrun pain. Instead, it led her back to herself. Born in Germany and raised in the United States, Anna grew up between cultures, continually seeking belonging. The long echo of relational abuse shaped how she moved through the world, distorting her sense of safety and how she learned to navigate closeness long before it was recognized. Her experiences, including a misdiagnosis of postpartum depression later clarified through undiagnosed ADHD, unfolded within this lens. She writes to give voice to what remained unnamed, building language for what it takes to feel whole. Anna holds an MFA in creative nonfiction and is currently completing her master's in clinical counseling. She integrates narrative therapy, somatic awareness, and existential depth into her evolving therapeutic practice. Her memoir, Brick by Brick, is a meditation on endurance, motherhood, and the quiet work of coming home to one's body. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her young daughter, where she continues to rebuild, reflect, and write, brick by brick.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available