Permission to Proceed without Limitations

Going from foot surgery to running a 20 miler in 10 weeks

Final summit this week on the Skyline Traverse, Mt. Sanitas

This week, 10 weeks after lapiplasty surgery of fusing bones, adding plates and screws, being on crutches and a surgical boot my foot surgeon gave me permission to proceed with running training without any limitations. Just three weeks earlier he told me I could begin running 1.5 miles a couple times a week if it felt ok. This news of no more time or distance limitations was shocking, and it took a bit for it to sink in.

Being told that I was free to do what I love after so many unknowns in terms of healing, recovery and timelines, felt incredible. I think I already knew that I was capable of resuming more regular training as I went from pain in the foot after just 1 mile to only feeling pain 10 miles in, in a span for less than 2 weeks —but hearing it from your surgeon is pure runner bliss. My healing has been moving quickly, despite it feeling slow to me. I tend to live my life in dog years and that means a week can feel like a month.

At the appointment this week, Dr. Oase said the x-ray looks perfect and my toe flexibility is great, two things he wanted to confirm before giving me free rein to up my mileage. And yes, he does know what kind of running I do and that my goal is to run the HURT 100 miler in Hawaii this coming January. It will hopefully be my 8th finish there.

A day after my doctor’s good news I celebrated with solo 20 mile crossing of the Skyline Traverse. With a total of 6,400ft of climbing, the run is certainly not the easiest run I could’ve chosen. The route hits all 5 peaks above Boulder, Colorado: South Boulder Peak, Bear Mountain, Green Mountain, Flagstaff Mountain and Mt. Sanitas. I finished at my house. My foot was sore, but the soreness had dissipated by the next morning.

I’m back, baby!! 🏃‍♀️

A note on foot soreness: It’s normal to have some pain as activities are resumed and swelling for up to a year with this surgery. As someone who has run for 27 years, I am astute at determining what kind of pain I feel. When you’ve been on crutches and in a boot for so many weeks/months resuming impact sports will be a bit painful. Pain that lasts more than 24 hours would not be good, but some soreness is part of the normal progression of getting our bodies more fit and resilient.

My torn and bloody jersey from my pelvis fracture bike accident in May

After a summer of bike accidents, pelvis fracture, 2 wrist fractures and a hand fracture culminating in 5 weeks of being unable to walk and confided to crutches this news that I am healed was stunning.

It’s been 14 weeks since I fractured my pelvis and this summer has been monumentally challenging, more than any endurance run or adventure and you know I’ve done some hard things. I’ve learned a lot about myself during this time and grown immensely at a huge price, but one that I hope I can say was worth it. Being unable to walk and meeting your lowest lows has a way of condensing your life to the most important things and has shown me what true friendship means as some people in my life showed up when I had nothing to offer but pain and suffering.

Showing up for someone when they have nothing to offer and when they are at their lowest low is a true act of kindness and love. Showing up when they have too little energy to crutch across a room and are sobbing on the floor, when they are stuck in a bed all day, when they can’t sleep for nights on end due to pain, when they are afraid and lonely, when they can’t do anything fun or adventurous… this summer tested me to my core and shook up my life, but through it all some things and some people remained and strengthened. Some broke down and rebuilt.

After running 200 ultramarathons in 200 days this is a fair question!

If your body breaks down, you may find your whole life breaking down. It’s devastating, but the harder you hold on the harder life will jostle you around. When I’m riding my gravel bike across a washboard I think about this. Hold on tight and the bumps in the road go painfully right through your hands & arms and into your head. Loosen your grip, relax your body and you can weather almost any terrain. Whatever is left when the storm has passed is what is really important. Whoever is left are the people who love you. And if you’re left without anyone, you still have yourself. We grasp on to love from others in an attempt to experience a love we do not give ourselves. Generate that love from within and we can free ourselves from the pain that comes from losing it all. I’m talking about real, hard things that I learned the past few weeks, things that for now I will mostly talk about in terms of the lessons I received from them.

I learned that to find peace I had to learn how to not think. It’s much harder than it sounds, but it’s also much easier. It’s just exhausting as I find that I repeat the same painful thought patterns over and over. Here’s how it works:

The more we grasp on to painful thoughts that come into our perception, the more we suffer and the more we live outside of our actual present reality. In other words, ruminating on things that hurt us and trying to figure out what will happen is a way of avoiding living in the present moment. What is here now is what is real, what is past is a story just like what may happen in the future.

As I would ride my gravel bike, fresh out of my foot’s surgical boot, I would refocus my mind away from the many thoughts that came into my head and back to the pedaling. To the sweat streaming down my legs. To my breathing, much harder than I remembered it being a few months ago. To the path as I navigated the single track. In these beautiful moments I am happy. I am at peace. I am movement.

Gratitude grows from opposing experiences, from experiencing loss and coming back from it. When you lose something you love— or almost lose it, whether it be running or something else or someone else, experiencing that again with the knowledge of what it’s like to not have it is truly sacred. I now make sure to pack a bit of gratitude on every run and for all my loved ones. Each little moment is so damn special and all the people in our life are gifts.

20 mile run with 6,400ft of climbing hitting all 5 peaks in the Boulder Skyline Traverse this week

Training from getting out of a surgical boot through this week