Ashlyn Harris is opening up about the toll her soccer career has taken on her body.
Harris, 39, retired from soccer after the 2022 NWSL season after 10 years in the league, and now the two-time World Cup champion tells PEOPLE her body “hurts every day.”
“I dedicated my life to my sport and to my craft, and I rode these wheels they until fell off,” says Harris in a PEOPLE interview pegged to her partnership with Tylenol. “And I loved doing that! I loved being a part of something bigger than myself. I loved the chase of perfection, and championship, and winning with a collective that was willing to stand on the right side of change.”
But these days, she wakes up “in a lot of pain,” Harris admits. “I have so many broken parts of my body, but it reminds me every day what this shell was capable of, and it was capable of really great things, but I have a feeling I have a long road ahead of me.”
Ira L. Black – Corbis/Getty
Ashlyn Harris plays in the NWSL on Aug. 29, 2021
Harris says she “used this body to the fullest” during her competitive career. “And I say that proudly,” she prefaces, “but I also understand that things don’t feel like they used to.”
When it rains, Harris feels achy. Even sneezing the wrong way can “throw something out” — a problem that has helped Harris understand “why my parents complained all the time,” she jokes.
And chasing around the two kids she shares with ex-wife Ali Krieger can be challenging when her body isn’t cooperating. She’s had to prioritize things like stretching, yoga and Tylenol to ease the pain.
“I think that’s most women in sports, we don’t have the pensions that men do. We don’t have the big 401Ks in retirements. So I’m just trying to chase around my two little kids as best as I can, and run around at the park, and hope that I have people like Tylenol in my corner that keep me active at this age when my body has literally been repaired and put back together.”
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Harris says she genuinely uses Tylenol to help ease her pain, one of a handful of reasons why she agreed to partner with the company.
“I think what Tylenol’s doing that I really, really appreciate is the investment in women in general,” Harris tells PEOPLE. “They have dedicated a lot of money not only to the NWSL, but I sit on the board of the Women’s Sports Foundation, which is Billie Jean King’s foundation.”
“As someone who’s had more surgeries than I can count at this point — I’ve had two knee reconstructions — I know Tylenol is the leading sponsor in pain relief when it comes to making sure these players are capable to perform,” she says.
Harris adds that she is grateful the brand has stepped up when it comes to investments in women’s sports. As a mother, it’s also what her kids’ pediatrician recommends.
“We want safe pain relief for not only ourselves, but our children, our family, and what goes into our body matters,” she says.
Read the original article on People
