Brick By Brick
Trauma, Resilience, and the Search for Home.
What was it all for?
A Memoir of Endurance, Healing, and Becoming.
Anna Hertel
Author • Counselor-in-Training • Endurance Storyteller
Brick By Brick
A Memoir of Endurance, Healing, and Becoming.
When my doctor pointed to the cysts on my knee scan, he said, “We all only have so much money in the bank. There isn’t much left.” He meant my cartilage, but I heard my life.
For years, triathlon was the scaffold that held me together after two abusive relationships had stripped me down. The thought of losing it filled me with panic. And then came the question that haunted me into writing this book:
“What was it all for?”
“With a foreword by Matt Dixon, elite triathlon coach and founder of PurplePatch.”
About Anna
Anna Hertel’s work lives at the intersection of resilience and story. A former endurance triathlete and current graduate student in Clinical Counseling at Saybrook University, she brings the same dedication that carried her through forty-five races to the work of healing, both on the page and in practice.
Her clinical training is grounded in approaches that honor the complexity of human experience — narrative therapy, existential therapy, internal family systems, and somatic awareness. Each of these informs her belief that recovery is both personal and communal, built brick by brick through story, connection, and the body’s own wisdom.
