Last year's lack of racing can be excused because she tore her hamstring in May, then she was obviously depressed because of what happened at the Trials.
This year, she has struggled mentally with getting over the Trials. She was honest about that in her interview after being eliminated in the semis at the U.S. championships. She said:
- "I think it's alright. I mean, I came into this meet pretty content with, obviously I'm hoping to make the team, but I'm also just happy to be here and able to compete. Like I said, there's been a lot of mental breakthroughs that I had to get myself through. And so just getting myself into this meet was a big challenge."
- "When it comes to track, your mentality...takes a big toll. If you're not mentally in it, then your body won't be in it."
- "It's just been a lot of things lingering from the past year that's come into this year that's kind of held me back a bit."
- "I think I can say I have been very resilient. It's been pretty tough... These are pretty drastic and traumatic things that happened."
"Goes home devastated" is a meme on this site, but it really does apply to Mu's state of mind after last year's Trials. She took that disappointment *hard* mentally, and it's taken her a very long time to move past it. Sounds like an ongoing battle for her.
That's where I think having training partners could make such a huge difference for her. When you're training by yourself all the time, it's so easy to get stuck in your own head because there's nobody else to focus on but yourself. If she had training partners, she could stop wallowing in her own thoughts, be more present, think about what other people are doing, and just have fun with the sport again.
Check out this drawing she made prior to the U.S. championships to try to put herself in the right frame of mind to race:
Notice the use of the word "courage". I think that's regarding her fear of falling. Just overcoming that fear to race again in a competitive environment was a big win for her mentally. I was hoping she'd build off that win and do some racing in Europe this month. Sadly, she decided not to do that.