Brick by Brick: A Memoir of Endurance, Healing, and Becoming

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 lin...