A reflection on the race, the recovery, and a realignment of being
A painful & happy accident
By 7:00am September 18, 2024, I was lying in the back of an Adams County Fire ambulance with something that resembled a foot attached to my left ankle, but it sure didn’t work like one. I would come to find out a few hours later that 3 metatarsals were fractured, a completely snapped pinky toe, and a little leak coming right out of the top of the foot to boot.
That new carbon fiber SuperSix Evo road bike I had just bought off a friend? Crumpled. The truck that ran me over? Nowhere to be found. He must’ve thought I was just part of the curb that his trailer jumped. They need to stop giving out these CDL licenses to any joe shmoe who walks in the place – but I digress.
The worst part really, though, was fact that I was decked out in a cycling chamois – I looked like I’d pooped my pants in the ER!
Eventually I’d come to learn that I would need surgery and some new hardware to get back on my feet, so about 36 hours later, I was under the trusted knife of Dr. Kuhlman. Seriously, two or three of the nurses wheeling me to the operating wing recounted their own surgeries he performed and told me not to worry, I was in great hands.
Dr. Kuhlman was so cool, man. I asked him to take a picture inside my foot so I could see what was going on. I assumed he’d be weirded out, but he instantly said yes. What a legend.
Count out another 24 hours, and I was back home in my new apartment we’d just moved into; boxes still strewn about the apartment half-unpacked and I really had no choice but to lay in bed and leave them for the next few months.
Recovery was no joke. I’d broken a few things before – a clavicle, a hand, and a fibula; the foot was easily the worst. I woke up anywhere between four and six in the morning every day for six weeks or so in searing pain. Every time I got up, blood rushing to my foot almost dropped me then and there. I went to lay down every night brimming with anxiety, knowing there was no tossing and turning allowed, I was fixed in position and simply had to wait to fall asleep or for the pain to start creeping in.
All this to say, it sucked.
Most days when I was down, bored of all the entertainment and distractions I had strewn about the bed, I found myself thinking about what I would do as soon as I could walk again. That was the first step; walking. More than anything, I just wanted to walk.
Well, not more than anything – I started feeling something I had sort of turned off for the better part of a decade: I wanted to run.
Day after day, I found myself thinking about running, from the good old days running for Brookline and eventually University of Maine, to the un-named dream all runners have at some point; the dream that was never fulfilled, the ‘what if’.
…
Running was the first thing in my life that I truly found confidence in. I don’t think it wrapped up my entire identity, but it was an integral part of my life; every day I ran, whether it was scheduled practice or a long run on Sunday. I would simulate the ends of races, kicking up the hill on Beacon St towards our apartment playing the announcer in my head, “…And Hardiman blasts by him with 250 to go..!“
It was the thing that no matter what was happening in school or at home, I had this thing every day that I could point to and say that I did. The constant and consistent improvement day in and day out, the moving meditation to keep myself from spinning out into somewhere or nowhere.
At some point in my senior year at Maine, though it’s hard to admit, I lost that drive and focus. It showed in my times and place at meets, and by the time Conferences came around, I wasn’t really there. I remember looking across the track with 300 to go and hearing Kelton, my teammate, had won the 5k. I crossed the line maybe a minute later more or less, and knew my college running career was a wrap.
I just shut the door; I believed the fire was out. I was done thinking about it, worrying about if I was in shape, thinking about the hours pounding pavement, the inevitable pain of pushing your body to it’s limit, the nerves, all of it. I had no belief in myself in that way anymore, and I was frankly eager to move on with my life. I quickly stopped running, started smoking weed again, and largely let it all go.
…
I guess it took an accident and ten years to realize that beneath all of that, there was still an ember burning, a desire for this whole long distance running thing. I lay in bed and found myself fascinated with it again in a way that I’d long forgotten. I told myself that as soon as I could, I would never take movement for granted, and that I would do something with it.
By November, I was vertical and crutching around. By December, I was beginning to stand on two feet again. I’d lost all of the callus on my left foot, and it felt like the bones of my foot were making contact with the hardwood floors directly – but I was up and hobbling on my own.
Old Fountain Workshop 