On October 12th 2024 at 5am, I set out on what would become one of the longest 2 years of my life. The recap from that race can be found here (link here), but I went back and read it and was quite shocked as it left one major piece of information out. Well, to be honest, I still didn’t know how bad my ankle injury was at the time of that writing. For several months I fought the pain in my ankle wanting to believe it was just a sprain and I could do what I always do when that happens … run it out. I finally threw in the towel and told Linda I needed to get it looked out (that was a very hard decision for me to make). Went to the local orthopedic walk-in clinic and had it xrayed. Doctor looked at it and informed me it was just a high ankle sprain. Somewhat shocked, I slinked out of the room embarrassed having wasted Linda’s time for something I should have been able to deal with. Rested it again, and then started trying to run again…more intense pain on every step. Saw my chiro several times and he would pull on it trying to unlock it – more intense pain. Finally suggested I see another foot surgeon. I’ll simply summarize the next year:
– New surgeon found that my tibia had two fractures in it
– Spent January and part of February in a boot
– Go back to that surgeon, he takes the boot off and declares me healed
– Start trying to run again – intense pain comes back
– Eventually throw in the towel and go back to see the actual ankle surgeon at the first orthopedic office
– Ankle surgeon looks at it and immediately declares something is wrong and orders MRI
– MRI comes back and confirms major issues including cartilage tears and tendon rupture off the bone
– 6 procedure surgery with Dr. telling Linda when it got in there it was worse than he originally thought.
That leaves me with 6 weeks of no weight bearing, 4 weeks of boot (again) and then 6 weeks of brace with weeks of water therapy and physical therapy dripped in the middle. By October of 2025 I was just getting out of the brace and broke my 5 year continuous streak of competing at the Farmdale ultras – not to mention marking my first full year of not participating in any race since I started my running addiction.
Jump to last weekend, Oct 9th, 2026 when I made my return to the ultra-circuit, lining up once again for the Farmdale 50 mile race.
Hit the jump for the race recap!
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