Friday Features: Running Out of Darkness: Renee Cox's Journey to UWF
By Chris Megginson
As she circled the Florida State University track in the 2016 Seminole Invitational,
Renee Cox was living the moment she envisioned five years before. The Tallahassee native used to run the FSU track at midnight, long before she ever knew running for the University of West Florida was an option.
“Instead of running in the dark, all of the lights were lit up and it was such a surreal moment because it was just as I’d pictured it,” Cox said. “My family was there. My friends were there. I was wearing the uniform, just as I pictured … I will never forget that.”
The race was more than a hometown meet or 5K Top 20 finish with a then-personal record 19:03. It was her “what you do in the dark puts you in the light” moment – a culmination of her journey out of a near decade of substance abuse.
At 15, Cox had her first drink of alcohol. Her abuse increased after high school, then she dropped out of college. By the time she turned 21, she was drinking every night, in the morning and then, to avoid withdrawals, a drink before going to work as a bartender.
“Everything started spiraling and getting worse and worse … I knew I needed help. I knew I had a problem. It wasn’t just college drinking, it was definitely more than that,” Cox said. “I was scared of stopping to drink on my own because of the withdraws. I couldn’t quit. Even when I tried to I felt so powerless.”
She went to her first detox at 21 and began attending Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) meetings.
Her late night runs on the FSU track began as a way to keep from going out with her friends to drink all night. In February 2011, at 23, Cox ran the Tallahassee Half Marathon – her first race since her freshman year of high school. She went 40 days without a drink during her training and loved the new high she got from running, but she did so well, she was afraid she couldn’t match that performance. She didn’t enter another race. The drinking returned.
After a hangover from a night of drinking Sept. 3, 2011, Cox didn’t drink all week. On Sept. 10 she found out she was pregnant. Cox said on top of being an alcoholic, she was not ready emotionally or financially to raise a child and could not find herself giving a child to adoption. She scheduled an abortion, canceled it, and then scheduled again.
“I think I hit a new low when I scheduled that appointment,” she said.
She doesn’t know why but after scheduling the appointment, she decided to visit a pregnancy resource center, where she received an ultrasound and saw her baby’s heartbeat. That is when she learned about open adoption for the first time – a chance to give a child to adoption, yet still know the child.
“Everything became so clear to me then that this is a beautiful thing. There are people waiting to have a child that can’t get pregnant. I can give my child life, and give my child a great life,” she realized.
She selected a family and in May 2012, she gave birth to a baby boy.
“It was such a life-changing thing. I didn’t want to go back to drinking,” Cox said.
In March 2013, after going through a breakup, Cox responded the way she had in the past, with alcohol. It was her first drink in 18 months.
“It was such a bad experience that I fell on my knees and prayed to God, ‘Please, I don’t want to go back to this,’” she said.
The next week, she returned to running competitively, signing up for the Spring Time Tallahassee and finished in the Top 10 among women and Top 5 for her age group.
“I felt a new fire, that fire that I felt in that first race,” she said.
She entered more races and was suddenly surrounded by people different than those she’d been around during her struggles.
“They were all happy and positive, they encourage each other,” Cox said. “You’re competitive when you’re on the course, but the second it’s done, you’re like best friends. The people were totally different.”
One of those individuals was UWF head coach and Tallahassee native Caleb Carmichael after they both won the Sizzler 5K on St. George Island in August 2013. Cox did not know Carmichael was a college coach, only that he appeared to be knowledgeable about the sport, when she first approached him about running shoe advice. Carmichael became a source of information for Cox about training programs.
As he learned her story, he realized the impact the running community was having.
“The running community in Tallahassee really got her out of that funk and some people uplifted her,” Carmichael said. “I think that was one of the big influences in getting her out there and running and getting her involved were the people. Runners in general are warm and welcoming.”
Cox realized drinking was a way of covering her insecurities and has used running as a way to mature. Other than the one slip up in March 2013, she has remained sober since September 2011. She went on to win more than a dozen races in 2013 and was named the Gulf Winds Track Club Female Runner of the Year in 2014.
“I would never return to drinking, ever. I think I’ve learned so much about how to handle life through running. I have just had such a complete change of entire self,” Cox said.
One day, when talking with Carmichael, she mentioned she’d completed her associate’s degree and asked if West Florida had a nursing program. Carmichael, who’d never thought before about Cox as a possible recruit, responded he’d have her on his team if she had eligibility. She did – all four years.
“When I realized the dream was actually coming true, there were no words for how excited I was,” Cox said. “I knew it was something God was calling me to do. It was an opportunity I’d been given, a second chance really, and I knew I was going to grab this chance and give it my all.”
In the fall of 2015, Cox enrolled at UWF as a 28-year-old junior academically and freshman athletically.
After adjusting to the training regimen and increasing her mileage, she began to get faster and ended up leading UWF for the first time with a personal record (19:38.10) in her first Gulf South Conference Cross Country Championship in November 2015. She has since been the Argonauts’ No. 1 runner in 10 of the last 11 races.
“She thought she’d be the grandma of the team, but she sets the example,” Carmichael said. “She’s definitely going out there and setting the tone for us. When she has a good race, we usually have a good team score.”
Cox, who turned 30 this year, graduated with her bachelor’s in nursing in August 2017 and is currently pursuing a master’s of science in nursing to be a family nurse practitioner and maybe one day psychiatric nursing, so she can help others fight addiction. Earlier this week, she found out she passed her nursing boards and is now a registered nurse. This weekend, she has her eyes set on her first sub-19:00 cross country performance and a Top 10 finish at the Gulf South Conference Championships. She ran a 18:15 at the University of Alabama this past spring.
Looking back at the last 5-10 years, Cox says she sees how God has intervened over the years.
“I never knew that all those times that I would stay strong (and not drink) was building something so amazing,” she said. “I’ve experienced such a life change when I thought there was no hope. To go from that to this … You grow closer to God in your struggles. I feel like I’ve learned to rely on him through the years and he’s blessed me tenfold with all of the opportunities.”
Those opportunities include getting to know her son’s adoptive family from day one and being part of his life through. She spends holidays and birthdays with her son, who is now 5. She was even present when he took his first steps. They have come to support her at races in Tallahassee and gave her flowers when she first spoke publically about her adoption story.
“To this day I feel like my son was never meant to be mine,” Cox said. “I feel like God had it planned all around, he was meant for this family.”
Cox wants to continue to tell her story of how she went from quitting her high school track team after two weeks in 2001 to a life of addiction and now competing in the NCAA at age 30.
“It’s never too late to not give up on your dreams,” Cox said. “I want my story to be heard, because I want someone who’s struggling, just like I was, to find hope … I want people to know there is a way out.”
Follow Megginson on Twitter @jcmeggs. Email comments to megginsonjc@gmail.com.
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