USF Women’s Soccer Alum, Daniela Andrade, Sets Out to Make a Change
TAMPA, Fla., June 8, 2023 – Imagine running the equivalent of 126 marathons in 140 days.
Imagine traversing the length of an entire country by foot, beginning in the searing heat of a desert and finishing in the bitter cold of a snowstorm.
Imagine attempting an athletic challenge so breathtakingly unprecedented that your family was fearing for your safety, strangers were calling you a fool and the only things keeping you going through fatigue and injury were proving people wrong and helping a social cause.
Former USF women's soccer player Daniela Andrade (2011-14) doesn't have to imagine performing such incredible feats. She completed them all — and so much more — during an improbable 3,415-mile journey through Chile, which slithers down the west coast of South America and borders the Pacific Ocean.
One year after the grueling event, which she hopes will become the subject of a documentary or movie, Andrade said she still gets lots of questions. They can essentially be boiled down to one word:
Why?
"I have always believed that sports are an agent of change in society, that they have the power to make big changes in our world,'' said Andrade, 31, in an e-mail interview. "So when I decided to take on the challenge, I wanted to do it for a bigger purpose than myself. I knew I needed something that, when things got tough, could be the huge reason to keep going.''
Andrade, a native of Guatemala, learned that her home country had the highest malnutrition rate in Latin American and the sixth-highest in the world.
Raising awareness and funding for Guatemalan malnutrition became her
why.
Then Andrade set out to answer the most difficult question of all:
How?
"I came to know myself at a completely different level,'' Andrade said. "I learned what triggers me and why I have those triggers. I really enjoyed learning to live with the basics. It's amazing to see how fulfilled you an feel when you let God and the universe do their thing in your life.
"What it's going to remind me through my whole life is how there's always a way to make things work. You have to trust life, just like life trusts you to do great things. And you better enjoy the process and journey of your life, so you're not asking, 'Now what?' It's always about the process, not the end result.''
Andrade was always viewed as an elite athlete by USF women's soccer coach
Denise Schilte-Brown. Andrade, a member of the Guatemalan National Team, played professional soccer in the U.S. and Chile before her retirement in 2018. That's when her full-time focus became competing in Cross Fit events and Ultra-Marathons with the ultimate goal of being accepted into the Badwater Ultramarathon (135-mile course in California's Death Valley), which is considered the world's most difficult race.
Andrade has become accustomed to pushing her abilities to the limit, even though the people who knew her in the USF women's soccer program are perpetually amazed.
"What Daniela did humbles me,'' Schilte-Brown said. "This kind of feat is unbelievable. She has always been determined and intelligent. She was a super skillful and smart player. But I had no idea that she would have this kind of capability in her.''
The Chile Journey: From Top To Bottom
How did Andrade prepare for her Chilean adventure?
Some ground rules:
Andrade was accompanied by two physical trainers, who drove in a camper. Her parents, siblings, and best friend appeared at various points of the journey. But mostly it was Andrade and
herself, a daily confrontation with her excitement, fears, inhibitions, and physical exhaustion.
She lived nights in the camper, always careful to not use much water or gas because the next stop was uncertain. Every two weeks or so, she would arrive in a new city, where they could shop for groceries, take showers, prepare food, and clean clothes. Occasionally, they gathered themselves with a one-night AirBnB stay.
Andrade got in the rhythm of running about 26 miles — or the length of a marathon — per day. Over the journey's final 20 days, she was putting in 31-mile efforts. Every time she hit 1,000 kilometers (or 621 miles), she did a short-term mental challenge, such as getting in 50 miles over 24 hours or running 24 hours nonstop (which she did, covering 76 miles).
On average, she was running/walking up to nine hours daily. By the end of the journey, Andrade said "my feet weren't responding that good.''
Midway through the journey, Andrade said she got anemia because "my body wasn't really absorbing the nutrients and vitamins from my food.'' She also developed a stress fracture in her shin and went to the hospital. The doctor, of course, recommended that Andrade take all weight off her leg and cease walking (let alone running).
"I couldn't think of not keeping going,'' Andrade said. "So I took two days of full rest and started very slowly to come back. Everything got better until we were like 15 days away from finishing. My other foot got swollen very bad. My body was very tired.''
But Andrade refused to quit.
When Andrade's journey began, in April 2022, she was in the Atacama Desert, bordering the Andes Mountains. She weathered temperatures in the 90s at an elevation of 3,500 feet.
At the mid-point, she rain through constant rainstorms, which required her to dry her clothes through the camper's heat.
And the final month in August 2022?
"We had snow and Chile (in the Southern Hemisphere) was having the hardest winter of the last 10 years,'' Andrade said. "Lots of snow. It was (sometimes) impossible to run. Our camper got stuck in the snow a few times. A tree fell on the camper and almost broke our windshield.''
Andrade kept going.
And going.
And going.
Until finally, she reached the end of her journey, which by then had become an all-out odyssey. And as she learned, the end of an impossible task sometimes signals a new beginning.
Lessons Learned At USF
Andrade says now that there's no such thing as an impossible task.
"These were the moments where I felt the most fulfilled and content, when I felt the closest connection with life, nature, and, above all, with God,'' Andrade said.
Andrade said her project ("Cals4Life'') raised $14,546, which doesn't sound like much in the grand scheme of things. But she happily donated it all to Mejores Familias, a program that empowers women in Guatemala and teaches them about the importance of nutrition for their children.
She signed a contract with a movie producer and she's hopeful of attracting interest from a platform such as HBO.
"The idea is to inspire others and keep raising awareness about social responsibility through sports,'' Andrade said.
She looks back now with pride, knowing her mental toughness allowed her to finish the journey.
"It was hard for my family to understand what I wanted to do and making them believe in what I was doing,'' Andrade said. "It was very tough to feel like I was alone somehow because not even my family believed I could make it. They had their own fears, but were not able to talk it out with someone else.''
Andrade was resolute to the point of practically pushing away her family so it wouldn't talk her out of it. Now they all admire her effort and persistence.
"This was a life-changer event for me,'' Andrade said. "It's still hard to put into words.''
But if the Chilean journey comprises the most compelling portion of her life story, the lesson learned at USF had a special place in the opening chapters.
"I have always said that Coach Denise (Schilte-Brown) and Coach Chris (Brown, associate head coach) have a lot to do with who I am today in terms of my strong-willed character,'' Andrade said. "During my four years at USF, I learned what it is to push through hard times and how to be positive.''
Andrade specifically remembers the coaches having a rule during road trips: NO complaining about anything, even if you didn't sleep well.
"That would cause a negative on everyone else, so I tried to never say how tired I was or if anything was hurting,'' Andrade said. "If anyone asked me, I always said how good I was and how much I was enjoying the process.''
Andrade also remembers an encounter with the Navy Seals when that unit visited USF. She was inspired by their challenges.
"One of the lessons that the coaches taught me was that sometimes you are on the field with the ball without knowing what you want to do with it,'' Andrade said. "But you have to make people on the outside believe that you know and that you are decisive. Even if you don't get the right play, at least be decisive with the ball and with your movements.
"I have come to apply that in other areas of my life. Maybe that is why many people believe things come easy to me, even when they really don't. I have the next-play mentality. When something goes wrong, I just move on and go to the next play.''
Maybe that explains why Daniela Andrade, a decade after her USF soccer career and one year removed from the journey of her life, is still going.
And going.
And going.
About USF Women's Soccer
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The USF women's soccer team has posted ten consecutive seasons of 10-plus wins under head coach Denise Schilte-Brown. The Bulls made their first NCAA tournament appearance in 2010 and returned in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. South Florida has five consecutive seasons with a conference championship, earning the tournament title in 2017, 2019 and 2020 as well as the regular-season title in 2018, 2020 and 2021. The program had its first draft pick and second-highest pick in USF Athletics history with Evelyne Viens being taken with the fifth overall pick in the 2020 NWSL Draft by Sky Blue FC, now Gotham FC.
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