Junior captain Marissa Gedman missed last year with a torn Achilles' tendon. Now, she's back.

Junior Marissa Gedman’s 2012-2013 season ended facedown on a track during an early morning workout in mid-September.

The defenseman had spent the summer pushing herself to the brink, attempting to take her game to the next level. A potential Olympic tryout lay on the horizon, not to mention her third season with the Harvard women’s hockey team.

“I was training really, really hard, trying to get into the best shape of my life,” Gedman said. “It was all or nothing.”

On Sep. 14, after stretching herself for months, Gedman snapped. Literally.

Running a 10-20-30 shuttle drill, she fell in a heap. At first, she just thought her shoe had fallen off. She tried to get up and finish the drill. But then she fell again. Her Achilles tendon had ruptured and rolled up her calf.

“A lot of people describe it as a gunshot,” Gedman said. “It’s a weird injury.”

Within a week, surgery kicked off Gedman’s yearlong rehabilitation program. She withdrew from school to preserve her eligibility before heading home to Framingham, Mass., where she was bedridden for weeks.

But Gedman came back to Cambridge often. As she walked to Bright Hockey Arena on Oct. 20, 2012, she thought she was excited to watch her team begin its season. She sat in the stands where her family always positioned itself, directly across from the home bench, so she could see all of the players.

Then Gedman started to cry. She could not stop.

“I started bawling and I was like, ‘Wow I didn’t expect this,’” Gedman said. “I thought I was ready, but I guess I wasn’t.”

She continued going to all of the Crimson’s games, but watching from the stands never stopped feeling weird.

“I’m getting the chills thinking about it now,” Gedman said. “I never liked it and I never want to do it again.”

But Gedman was not alone on the sidelines. She was able to lean on teammate Josephine Pucci, who missed 2012-2013 with a head injury, during the rehab process.

“I don’t know if I could have done it without her,” Gedman said. “I owe a lot to her just for getting me up in the mornings.”

Gedman added that she never had to search very far for motivation. She was hungry to return to the Crimson stronger than before, and also still had her eyes set on a potential Olympic tryout.