Far Beyond Gold
Far Beyond Gold: Running from Fear to Faith
By: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone
“All of us want to know who we are, why we are here, and what’s going to make us happy and fulfilled. We want to have a purpose, a strong sense of identity, and clarity about how we are supposed to spend our days.”
“When I left Rio, I thought I was leaving behind the biggest challenge of my life. I had no idea that the next two years would be even harder. And to reach joy, I had to go through trials too big for me to face on my own.”
I wouldn’t be caught dead running on a track.
Scratch that, I would most definitely be caught dead if I was running on a track because I’m a firm believer that running— especially my hardest— would kill me. My knees and legs hurt just thinking about what Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone does for fun. So no, I didn’t read this book to help me get off the starter blocks better or get my legs over hurdles in a graceful way—I pulled a hamstring just writing that sentence—but her story did really resonate with me and it was a true joy to read.
Because even though she’s a 4-time gold medal Olympian with world records, she’s just like you and me. She struggles with fear, anxiety, identity, and the desire to find meaning and purpose in life.
This book chronicles not only her literal races and Olympic experiences, but the race the author of Hebrews refers to: “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” (12:1)
Far Beyond Gold is Sydney’s story that beyond her gold medals, she found freedom and life she never knew existed and now could never live without. And she wants you to know about it too.
I think this would be a great book for people who compete in track and field but also for young people in general. She is transparent about her physical and emotional struggles but also real life things like navigating dating relationships, food, and social media. I think it would be an inspiring read for a lot of young women to see that you don’t have to capitulate to cultural ideals for sex and fame and appearances.
It’s interesting reading the negative reviews on this book because they largely all say the same things: too much Jesus; it was preachy; too much about her faith journey and not enough insights on her career.
But man! To take Jesus out of this book would be completely missing the point. She wrote to show how HE is the center of her life— not running, not winning. That’s the ‘beyond’ part. She can’t tell her story without Jesus, the catalyst for her life transformation, the basis of her character, the strength for each day and each race.
I appreciated her candidness in sharing truth. Because it was genuine. She didn’t just put in bite-sized pieces that appease the masses without making them feel uncomfortable. No, she is overflowing with love and praise for her Savior and she should shout it from the mountaintop.
“Along the way, I’m going to show you how I came to recognize my fears and how you can spot the same anxiety in your life, then respond by going to the one who can set you free. I pray my story will point you in his direction and show you that no matter who you are or what you do, God is calling you to trust him, to let go of the struggle to define yourself or live up to other people’s expectations. He wants you, no matter who you are, to find your identity in him and his Son, Jesus Christ.”
Her Career
On the track side of things, Sydney is known for running the 400m hurdles. In fact, she holds the world record for this event (50.37 seconds). She won gold at the 2020 Olympics and then at the 2022 World Championship. After this book went to publishing, she won gold again in the 2024 Olympics, breaking her own previous world record.
"It’s widely considered one of the most grueling events in the sport, often referred to as “the man killer.” Because of the hurdles, you have to master the technique required to clear the barrier every fourteen or fifteen steps without losing balance or velocity. And the length is just long enough to demand extraordinary endurance while being short enough to require superior speed.”
She has also won gold for participating in the 4x400 m relay in 2020 and 2024.
Her career began as a teen and has only progressed from there. I suppose it’s not really a surprise: both her parents were track stars and her brothers also ran track. It was her destiny in a lot of ways.
But her own competitiveness and the pressure to succeed created a growing and debilitating fear of failure.
“It wasn’t enough just to be a runner; I had to be a winner. I viewed victories as value… I convinced myself that I was put on this earth to win. And in order to receive love and respect from others, I had to finish first. If I didn’t, what good was I?”
I imagine the pressure and anxiety and fear she felt is what a lot of young actors and actresses face as well. They have achieved something great, and yet are treated beyond their years or have expectations put on them that they are not ready to bear.
“Inside, I felt like I still needed good role models to help me through all these wild changes, yet everyone was already looking at me differently, expecting me to share wisdom I did not yet possess.”
I think Caitlin Clark probably feels the same weight. We see these young people in the spotlight and they’ve done great things, but then we look to them for wisdom or to portray something beyond where they are and feel disappointed when they misstep or misspeak.
They are young and still figuring out their identity, still learning how the world works. We can definitely admire their work and achievements, but we should watch how we burden them with our needs or expectations that they should not be responsible for.
“Everything that had once seemed to be my peace quickly became my nightmare. I couldn’t fix myself. I couldn’t let go of my fear, anxiety, and need for approval on my own.”
Sydney shares the struggles she faced in relationships, during Covid and how that affected her training and Olympic hopes, and her mental health. She’s looking in hindsight now, but it’s perceptive of her to realize that when she sought help for her anxiety and depression, she wasn’t treating the root of the problem.
“I knew I needed to overhaul my life, change how I thought about my worth and my purpose, but everywhere I went for help I was getting only temporary solutions for my problems. Remedies for the symptoms of anxiety and sleepless nights, not the disease of self-focus and a misplaced identity.”
In many cases medication is wise to help us, but in so many cases there is a problem that sinks deeper into every fiber of our being and cannot be remedied by a pill, but a Person. Who bears the weight of our sin and our failures and gives us hope for tomorrow, a future.
To piggy-back off the Covid thing, I thought it was really interesting to hear how Covid impacted her ability to train. She was living in LA at the time and the stay-at-home order closed down tracks. A hurdler can only practice so much in a studio apartment.
To also think of the anxiety all of those Olympic athletes must have suffered under the duress of Covid testing that could so easily end their chances to compete.
“Each day, we endured multiple rounds of testing, knowing that if we got a positive, our Olympic dreams were over. I became hyperaware of my body. Am I showing any symptoms? Am I feeling tired, congested, or lightheaded? Twice a day, I had to take a COVID-19 test. Those were always nerve-racking, facing the possibility that we had flown all the way to Tokyo just to not be able to compete.”
We all can share ways that Covid influenced our lives— for starters, my twins were born in 2020 and spent almost two months in the NICU where my daughters were not allowed to visit. But I’m always interested to hear how others were impacted and how they grew during those times. I hope the next time stay-at-home orders are on the table, our 2020 experiences can better speak into future decisions, weighing people’s quality of life above uncertainties.
Her Faith
I’ve read many memoirs and heard many faith stories. Sydney’s is the real deal. She very explicitly shares the gospel message. And she shares the thoughts she had had about Jesus and the Bible that we’ve probably all thought at one point and brings good counsel.
“With an overemphasis on the judgment part of the gospel, I often didn’t value God’s other characteristics, such as love, grace, and forgiveness.”
“There were days where I would just sit on my dorm bed looking at a Bible, not knowing what I was reading. I was searching for any sort of comfort or solace. It never came. Not because God wasn’t there but because I wasn’t truly seeking him. I was seeking a Band-Aid, something to cover the pain, something to pass the time just to get me to the next thing planned. That’s not how God works, though”
“I’d always seen the Bible as a self-help book. Open it and get a boost of encouragement. Some practical tips for the day. A mantra for Mondays when you’re irritable... all the uncertainty, as well as my newfound hunger to understand the Bible, was slowly teaching me that I wasn’t the center of the universe. God had a plan that was way bigger than my running, my relationships, and even my family’s health. The Bible wasn’t a road map to the best version of my life; it was a road map to God. And my job was to trust, obey, and be patient. Talk about a reality check. In a culture that teaches that we are to live our truths and do whatever makes us happy, God was completely tearing down those ideologies for me.”
"Not only did Jesus want my present, he also wanted my future. With him at the helm of my life, I could take my eyes off things of this world and my past infractions and look forward to a glorious future in his presence. A massive weight was lifted. I was never meant to lead my own life. I had tried that up to this point, and it landed me in the most unfortunate places. Surrendering to God was not giving up my freedom; it was finding it."
She also avoids preaching a prosperity gospel that says, once you find Jesus all your problems go away and you always find health, wealth, and success. That is not the true gospel. Jesus actually promises us that we will have hardship and pain. Health, wealth, and success are never guaranteed. But nonetheless, we have all we need in Christ.
"God may have track victories in my future, or he may not. All I can do is be faithful with today. I can work hard. And perhaps more importantly, I can enjoy the process.I see that running is God’s plan for my life. He gave me this gift. He gave me a platform. I tell people all the time, there is a responsibility that comes with that. No matter who you are or what you do, what is in your heart pours out. How you present yourself is a representation of who you serve, whether God or other people."
"I’d learned that in racing, and in life, God gives you exactly what you need to run the race he has for you. He gives grace and help to all those who look to him, not themselves, for strength, courage, peace, and joy."
Her career could be over at any moment. She may suffer an irreparable injury. She may lose a loved one. But Sydney knows that her hope is not in her ability to win. It’s not in the people who love her most. It’s in the God who holds the world together, who calls us his own, and who has plans better than any we could come up with on our own. His race is always best because it goes far beyond gold. It takes fear and it turns it into faith. It takes captives and sets them free.
Other Negative Reviews
Besides people being annoyed by Sydney’s confident and evident faith (because how dare she?!), there were a couple other themes I noticed.
A few reviewers thought she wrote her memoir too early and she should have waited until more of her career had happened. If she had waited another year, she’d have had the 2024 Olympics to include.
But no one knows the future. It’s clear that God had laid it on her heart to use her platform to share the Good News of life and freedom for all who call on the name of the Lord. Share it while you can! We don’t know what tomorrow holds, we don’t know how many days we have left.
Plus, who says you can only write one book? Now that she has shared this, maybe she’ll write one with more details about her coach Bobby Kersee who also coached Allyson Felix and Flo Jo. Or maybe she won’t because it’s none of our business. I don’t know.
Some reviewers commented on the ordinariness of her life and how her ‘trials’ weren’t really that big a deal. I guess they were looking for stories of things hardly anyone has ever endured?
I mean, I would argue that not many people have endured the training she has, but even so, doesn’t that make her story more relatable and useful for us ‘normal’ people? We are a fickle people, the way we treat the ‘elite’ or the ‘famous.’ We put them on pedestals, place our own expectations on them, complain about their privilege or how they are or are not using their platform, complain that they had it too easy, or that they just could never understand what it’s like to be us. And then when we find out they’re just normal people with struggles just like us, we’re bored, unimpressed, and looking for the next ‘AMAZING’ thing.
We need to stop comparing our hardships with others. Everyone battles fear and anxiety—Olympian or not— and she shares how Christ freed her from that. That’s not a training or therapy reserved for the elite- that’s a remedy for every normal run-of-the-mill person. She wrote this book, not to raise herself higher, but to bring something down to us.
Do we only care about ‘the most’ extraordinary people/lives? Those are the only ones worth knowing and learning from? Are we really going to read this book and say- hey, cool story, but why don’t you go experience something more life-threatening or what we’ve ‘agreed’ to be super hard things, and THEN we’ll give you the time of day’? Is that how you would want someone to treat your story and what has shaped you? Is that how we measure value?
We may not have death around the corner or extreme emotional or physical challenges that constitute ‘major hardship’, but we all still have to go through every day. We all still have our struggles. We all still hunger for purpose and meaning and identity. We all still matter. You don’t have to wait to experience the highest highs or the lowest lows to matter. In the everyday, the mundane, you matter, and that’s why Sydney wrote this book. Because she knows you need the freedom of Christ in the everyday and the mundane. She knows we need the freedom from our own aimless stumbling.
Recommendation
There will always be people that put down books that preach the name of Jesus. But I hope you are willing to listen to Sydney share her story and the freedom from fear she has found in her life. She wrote this book for you, I hope you’re open to hearing from her.
Is it a literary masterpiece? No. Is it a story of epic proportions? Depending how you feel about the Olympics, maybe not. But it’s genuine. It’s real. It’s hope. It’s truth. And I think we could all use a little bit more of that!
"It’s not about what medals I win or how history will remember my career. It’s far beyond gold. It’s about glorifying God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, through whom the Spirit works to bring redemption to those lost in sin."
You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.
Share this book review to your social media!