July 30th, 2022: “I wrote this piece, primarily, as an excuse to educate myself. Perhaps all of my research will scare me into doing better. Probably it will not. The most likely scenario, I have come to realize, is that I will keep running until I literally break. Maybe I will get another year of competition, maybe ten. What I do know is that my current lifestyle is unsustainable, if not from an emotional standpoint than from a physical one. I dread that day–hearing that snap, spending those hours in the waiting rooms of doctors offices, following my favorite races from behind the computer screen. I am terrified that it is inevitable, but I can’t imagine changing.” (https://lgaudrault.uneportfolio.org/2022/07/30/disordered-eating-in-runners-a-firsthand-perspective/)
On the final Saturday of February, I completed an easy 30-mile run. Well, easy, at least, compared to the previous week’s 30-miler, which I’d run at a more moderate effort. Even with the pre-dawn 5am temperature hovering barely north of 0 degrees, I noted in my training log that it felt just “slightly chilly,” and only from my leggings, which were damp as a result of kicking up snow on my run the day before.
The next day, Sunday, I wrote, “woke up feeling really good, energized, and happy. And with the wind chill it was -6 degrees out! I can only imagine how excited I would’ve been had it been an actual nice temperature and not slightly icy!” I ran 11 miles, a recovery run.
It was during Monday’s 16-mile workout on ice-glazed roads that I registered the first bit of tightness in my left groin. Though it wasn’t even enough to note in my training log, I clearly remember running past the sandwich shop downtown and thinking that something felt just a little bit off. The tightness grew into a dull pain that lingered for the remainder of the day as I walked from class to work, but I thought nothing of it.
On Tuesday, we got a blizzard. My 8am class was canceled, which was great because it meant I would have time to run more than 10 miles before rushing to campus. 3 miles into the run, I felt great and breathed a sigh of relief thinking of the previous day’s twinge. But then the tightness returned about 5 miles later. After 10 miles, my groin felt so stiff that I needed to stop and stretch it. Once I stopped, I could barely start again. What had begun as mere tightness quickly shifted to a sharp, stabbing pain that left me shuffling a 10-minute pace back home. Then I could barely walk. My log that day reads “oh nooo literally want to cry my groin hurts.”
July 30th, 2022: “When aches and pains do pop up, I run through them, relying on ibuprofen, ice packs, and foam rolling to alleviate the strain. Days off are not an option, cutting mileage from my self-written Google Doc training plan frowned upon. I once wrote in my running log that perhaps my body wouldn’t allow itself to get injured, that my physical dependence on the sport is so great that I literally couldn’t function without it. Though this is, of course, wishful thinking, it is true that I am dependent on running, if not in a physical sense than in an emotional one.”
The next day, my alarm woke me at 4:15am (my shift at the nursing home where I work on Wednesdays during the school year starts at 6:30am, so, if I rush, I can squeeze in 8 miles beforehand). I could barely put weight on my left leg to get myself dressed. It was dark, frigid, spitting snow, and unnervingly quiet as I headed outside at 4:45. I stubbornly limped for an hour around my neighborhood, completing just over 3 miles. 20-minute pace was literally the fastest I could travel. That evening, driving home after a long day of work, class, and ever-present pain, I screamed and cried in my car. It sounds so dramatic–and it was–but I couldn’t fathom another day of being held back from running. It terrified me.
I won’t describe every day of this injury in such detail, but I wanted to capture how it began. After that first day, I continued to attempt to run, limping around town for 2 hours or more at a time, and made some “progress.” Over the next few days, I decreased my pace to 14-minute miles, then 10. But it still hurt badly, and, then again, 10-minute miles isn’t really running for me. Trying desperately to assert some control, I decided to take the weekend off. Then everything would surely heal and I’d be back to normal training on Monday–plenty of time before the US 50k road championships the following Sunday.
Monday came, and the pain was still just as bad. I limped 6 miles at a 17-minute pace, writing in my log, “beyond frustrated, lost, sad.” I began going to the gym, working out on the elliptical. I also noted around that time how I was having trouble focusing during the day. I would sit down to do schoolwork only to find myself researching upcoming races or scrolling through the Strava feeds of other runners, hating myself for every mile they ran that I couldn’t. In my journal I wrote that I felt pathetic when I couldn’t train, that running was the “only cool thing about me.” I spent obsessive amounts of time on the Instagram account of Candice Burt, an ultrarunner who was in the midst of setting a world record for the most consecutive days of running a 50k. Watching the videos she took on her runs and reading the captions she wrote about how her body had adapted so well and was totally free of pain only added to my anxiety and despair.
A cycle slowly emerged. I would cross train madly for a few days, start to feel ever-so-slightly better, convince myself I was fully healed, try to run, find that it actually still hurt quite a lot, get depressed, limp through a couple of runs, then end up back in the gym. I went to the doctor, where an X-ray revealed nothing. They told me to get an MRI, since X-rays don’t always detect fractures, but the soonest appointment I could schedule was over 2 months away. I also started physical therapy. Time spent on the phone, sitting in waiting rooms, and explaining my pain again and again began to rack up. I was told my injury was most likely a labral hip impingement or stress reaction. Both PTs I saw didn’t think it was severe enough to be a full-on stress fracture or labral hip tear, based on my mobility and reported pain.
Near the end of March, I went through a strange period where running seemed to feel slightly less painful, but for some reason I couldn’t run fast – as in, faster than 9-minute miles. I convinced myself that a few weeks “off” had left me woefully out of shape and the newfound slowness was totally normal. I mentioned this to a physical therapist, and he looked at me strangely. “You don’t get out of shape that quickly,” he said, “especially with so much cross training.” But I was convinced it wasn’t pain holding me back. Then I attempted a track workout and the pain came back with a vengeance, so that was the end of running for a while.
Another source of frustration was the fact that the pain seemed to be constantly changing locations. It was no longer solely in my groin but also my hip flexor, upper hamstring, and outer glute. One day I would convince myself it was high-hamstring tendinopathy, the next a femoral neck stress fracture. I even began to think that maybe it was all in my head. In that period, I spent greater and greater amounts of time on the elliptical. I was racking up more hours of training than I ever ran, even during my highest mileage weeks, but I was convinced it wasn’t enough. Every few days I would try to run, and every few days I would fail.
July 30th, 2022: “A stress fracture in my ankle had kept me out of commission for about six weeks during my freshman year, but aside from that, I have been remarkably healthy. A bit of knee pain here, a tight glute there, but nothing out of the ordinary for an ultramarathoner. Perhaps it is because of this luck – I have heard injury-free runners referred to as “golden unicorns” by some – that I continue to train and race recklessly, rarely stopping to consider the possible consequences down the road.”
On the outside, I was holding it together well. I was getting straight A’s in all of my nursing classes, completing a self-directed internship, and performing well at work. But inside, my brain wouldn’t shut up. Not an hour went by that I didn’t obsessively worry about running. After that first day, I didn’t do a lot of crying. Instead, I mostly was numb, unable to feel anything but dread and guilt. Why wasn’t I tough enough to just push through the pain? This internal anguish was only compounded by the beyond-my-wildest-dreams racing season I’d put together the previous fall. Over the previous six months, I’d run stronger than ever. In September, I broke the course record at a respectable 50k race–a course record set by a woman who’d placed 2nd at Western States. In October, I won the Maine Marathon in 2:52, a 4-minute PR, then ran a 6:28:01 50-miler 3 weeks later, the 10th fastest time in North America in 2022. In November, I set another 50k course record. In December, I placed 2nd at the Millinocket Marathon, then set the overall FKT on Maine’s 65-mile Eastern Trail, averaging an 8:27 pace for over 9 hours. I was on fire, feeling light and effortless on nearly every run. The winter had been tougher–after the FKT, I took 2 days off then ran a 95-mile week, so some fatigue lingered–but I was building fitness and didn’t have any indicators of a coming injury. The pain began just days before my first planned race of the spring season.
On April 17th, the day I was supposed to run the Boston Marathon, I found myself livestreaming the race during a 3 ½ hour elliptical session. An older woman on the machine next to me commented that I “looked like the runners on TV,” and I burst into tears, blubbering, “I’m supposed to be there.” I am not one to show emotion or vulnerability in public, and went home pretty embarrassed.
But then, after Boston, something seemed to change. The very next day, I ran 10 miles at a 9-minute pace, writing that the pain felt like a “deep bruise in my hip.” That feeling persisted, but it wasn’t bad enough to keep me from running. I decided to race a 50k in Massachusetts that weekend. I swallowed Ibuprofen obsessively in the days leading up to the event. Throughout this injury, I have taken countless painkillers and worried about their long-term effects, but they allowed me to run, so that was enough justification to keep going.
I placed 2nd in the race. After a rough first 18 miles, I got a second wind and the pain in my hip seemed to almost disappear. I flew through the final loop of the course and choked up at the finish. If I’d been healthy, I estimated, my time probably would’ve been 30-45 minutes faster. The pain worsened in the week that followed, but I ignored it.
By now it was nearly May. I decided that a comeback had to be imminent, and made the trip to Sunapee, New Hampshire to run the US Mountain Championships. I knew something wasn’t right heading into the race and that I had no business being there. In fact, no part of me wanted to be there. Everything felt so hurt; broken. Prerace fan polls had predicted me to finish 7th. I limped to 36th. The race ended at the summit of the mountain, where it was raining steadily and barely 40 degrees. Rather than ride down on the cold metal chairlift in my wet tank top and shorts (continuing my pattern of bright ideas, I’d foregone shuttling warm clothes up to change into), I opted to jog down the mountain with a friend. By the end, my outer hip was so stiff and painful I couldn’t walk well. I pretended the pain didn’t exist, and limped through a 21-mile trail run a few days later. By the end of that, I could barely put weight on the leg. Back to the elliptical. I was defeated and embarrassed.
The light at the end of the tunnel came a few weeks before my MRI: Acupuncture. After being recommended by my PT, I decided to give the practice a try. In the days leading up to my appointment, during those mind-numbing 3-hour elliptical sessions, I convinced myself this would be the solution. These would be my last few days on the elliptical. On a Tuesday in May, I limped into my first appointment, spent 30 minutes lying on a table with needles stuck in my head, ears, hands, and legs, then limped out, discouraged. The next morning, Wednesday, I set out to run, unoptimistic. But it felt good! I ran 7 miles at an 8:53 pace, the fastest I’d gone in ages. The next day, I completed the most blissful 18-miler of my life, averaging an 8:33 pace. “YES YES YES!!!” I wrote in my log. I quickly booked more acupuncture appointments and jumped right back into training. That weekend, I ran for 5 hours at Pleasant Mountain, climbing up and down the 2,000 foot peak four times. The next weekend, I went back and set the FKT on the route. After that run, I drove into the lakeside town of Bridgton and ordered French toast with coconut from a cafe. “So happy, this is the first ‘race’ in almost 4 months where I’ve felt like myself,” I wrote. I had never felt so relieved – I was back.
The MRI appointment was still on my calendar for Tuesday, May 23rd. What the heck, I thought, I’ll see what they find. After all, the pain still lingered when I tried to run faster than an 8-minute pace. I was registered to run a 100k trail race that weekend, so I didn’t think the lack of speed would be a real issue, but it was clear something was still at least a little bit wrong.
Before the MRI procedure, I had an X-ray so the doctor could inject contrast dye into my hip joint. Right away, we saw something abnormal. A mass of bone was forming around an obvious crack in my pelvis. The doctor was blunt: “When you break your pelvis,” he said, “it’s like biting into a pretzel: Hard to crack in just one spot.”
During the MRI itself, I was placed in a cramped tube facing an ocean scene, which I found funny because the techs had asked me so many times if I was claustrophobic, and surely someone who was would be made to feel as if they were drowning! They also played pop music and told me to lie very still, difficult to do when my favorite song came on.
I wasn’t supposed to know the results for a few days, but the doctor made a point to approach me before I even left the hospital. In addition to the broken pelvis, he’d found a broken sacrum, full-thickness labral hip tear, and stress reaction in my acetabulum. “Do NOT run” was his only advice.
I should have been devastated–the doctor had said things like “surgery” and “months off–” and I was, but mostly what I felt was relief. Relief that the ever-changing pain was actually justified, and I wasn’t making it all up. And maybe a little bit of twisted pride, too–pride that I could push myself to my breaking point, and that I could run and even race through it.
Knowing now the severity of my injuries, it would have been downright suicidal to compete in a challenging 100k trail race that weekend. Instead, I took Wednesday off, ran a nearly pain-free 10 miles on Thursday, and decided to run the 50k instead (the event had multiple distance options). On Saturday morning, I showed up to the race, telling no one I was running. I was terrified, knowing how broken I was, but the pull to compete was magnetic. My fears were set aside when we started running and, for the first time in months, I felt like I was flying. Hitting effortless 7:20 miles over challenging terrain, I completed the first of the race’s two loops well ahead of my projected time. The pain began on the final loop, but it wasn’t in my hip. I won in a great time, but knew as soon as I crossed the finish line that my right foot was broken. I barely felt happy afterwards. Instead, I spent two hours lying motionless in the shade by the finish line, sick to my stomach and filled with dread realizing that I could barely stand up.
Like my hip, I pretended that the pain in my first metatarsal bone didn’t exist. I tried to run and failed, worse than ever. After seeing the doctor, I ended up in a boot, which put extra pressure on my already damaged left hip.
Last Wednesday, I was limping down the road at an 11-minute pace. It was 4:50am. I looked ridiculous. It was then, for the first time in nearly four months, that a little voice said, “Lila, this isn’t working.” I had tried and failed so many times to fight through the pain, ignoring my body’s screams to stop. It was time to listen.
So that’s where I am now. Ultimately, I’ve given myself a week of recovery, riding the spin bike for just 30 minutes a day. I know that probably won’t be long enough to make any substantial progress, but it’s as far as I can think ahead without getting too anxious. I’m trying so hard to change my mindset too. I am not lazy; I am hurt. I am not quitting; I would sure as heck be out there if it was even remotely possible. I am not getting fat when I eat a big dinner after only working out for 30 minutes that day; I have low bone density, multiple fractures, and amenorrhea, and am craving nutrients after years of abusing my body. These are things I have to tell myself dozens of times every day, and sometimes I still don’t believe them. When I’m able to run again, I will try not to be reckless. I have just two goal races this year: The Grindstone 100k in September and the JFK 50-miler in November. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to the starting line healthy, but I’m going to try.
“You have to find yourself outside of running,” I’ve been told again and again during these months. At the surface level, my life away from the sport is busy and full. I am a nursing student, have 3 fulfilling part-time jobs–two in memory care and one at a local farm–and belong to a great church. But somehow, I never feel fully committed to any of these endeavors. Running is my thing, and these other pursuits are just how I fill the rest of my time. My faith has always been important to me, but since this injury I’ve barely picked up a Bible or said a prayer. I felt closest to God through the sport, and now I feel detached from Him. What I do know is this: After a day of working with people with dementia, or interacting with customers at the farmstand, or acing an exam, or spending time with Church friends, I feel good. But there’s still a very prominent running-shaped hole.
I’m going to get another bone density scan, because it is not normal to break four bones in six months (I also fractured a bone in my forearm earlier this winter after falling on a run). I worry about osteoporosis–that I already have it or that it’s imminent. But I’m also optimistic and excited. On my way to the gym this weekend, the first day I vowed to let myself heal once and for all, I cried tears of joy that I was going to run without pain again. Moreover, I have already had success in this sport, and in a little girl’s body. But it is women who set the records and win the big races, and when I get healthy and strong and finally let go of that stubborn little girl, I know the potential is endless. This is what I hold onto as I heal.
As a nursing student and CNA, I am exposed to illness, death, and suffering regularly. These are problems much bigger than mine. Perhaps it is only a show of privilege that this injury, that losing something so inconsequential as running has impacted me so much. But it is also difficult to minimize the toll this time has taken on me. Far worse than any physical pain I ever felt was the mental anguish, the feelings of worthlessness, despair, and self-hatred. Going forward, I would love to create a community or support group for injured runners. Injury is, unfortunately, not uncommon among us, and it is almost always easier faced with others, even when the default reaction is often to isolate.
This story doesn’t have a happy ending, because it doesn’t have an ending at all–yet. As I write this, I am anything but healed, struggling physically and mentally every day, and have no idea when my legs will once again cooperate with my brain. If there was a way to mentally overcome a physical injury, I would’ve done so ages ago. I miss running so much. I envy those who can. But this is temporary; a few months on the sidelines are just a drop in the bucket of my running career as a whole. I also hope that I can get to a place where my happiness and self-worth aren’t so dependent on running. Clearly true healing for me is more than just physical.
