Electric Peak, NW Yellowstone
The Ridge Run and my Payoff Series of exuberant adventures already feel like a long time ago. But, this blog has it’s roots much further back in time…
It was 50 years ago next spring. The first race of the season was coming up. I had gone to a friend’s house to load up my bike. He was off picking-up last-minute items. I decided to go for a short ride. There was a track we had formed through months of riding at the edge of a rising industrial park. I did a few easy laps, when a buddy on a 250cc 4-stroke flashed by me in full-throated roar. I gave chase.
I stayed glued to his rear wheel, but couldn’t get by him. My focus was entirely on his machine, looking for openings. The terrain was wide open, but still, I didn’t see it coming. Our track crosses another dirt trail. A split second before impact, I catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. There are two riders on the trail we are about to cross. I slam on the brakes. Too late, one of the bikers T-bones me, a direct hit to my right foot. The other just misses. I fly through the air, bike tumbling after. I land on my back.
Pain sets in. My foot, my right foot is crushed. One of the riders goes to a close by industrial building, asks to use the phone. Ambulance comes, puts me on a stretcher. My metatarsals are splintered, but I am young, I will heal. In six-weeks the cast is off. My parents insist, my time racing motocross has come to an end. I repair the bike, put it up for sale, find other pursuits.
I had always enjoyed running and as I moved beyond high school, I continued to run. Mostly I ran distances in the 4-7-mile range. There were few races back then. I just ran enough to keep engaged in the sport, and to keep in reasonable shape.
In 2005 I entered my first marathon. As I started picking up the training distance I noticed first a tingling, then pain, in my right foot. The further I ran, the more it hurt. My orthopedist took X-rays, said my second and third metatarsals were too close together. The nerve between them was getting irritated—Morton’s neuroma was the term he used. Motocross revenge seemed more accurate to me. He sold me orthotics with a metatarsal bump that would spread the metatarsals as I ran. The bumps made the pain tolerable, but it reasserted itself every run.
I continued running distance after that marathon, though I found that I preferred half-marathons to marathons, and I learned to build my own metatarsal bumps by stacking moleskin on store-bought orthotics. This kept me running, but the pain got a little worse each year.
I raced half-marathons regularly, often having to finish the last few miles with the toes of my right foot clenched so as to keep the ball of my foot from touching the ground. The pain was excruciating.
In 2015, I finally relented and had surgery to have to about an inch of inflamed nerve removed from just behind my second and third toes. The pain eased, but never fully went away and has steadily increased. It hurts a lot more on roads where my pace is faster than on trails. I run trails a lot, but I run roads a lot too. Even in Bozeman, roads have the convenience factor of being right outside the door, and I find it easier to stay in training zones on roads, so I depend on being out on pavement.
Many of my runs this past season were 10 miles or more. On most of those runs, I had to take a 5-minute break after 5-7 miles to give the pain a chance to ease up. Sometimes two breaks were needed. I got a second surgery last Friday (11/17/2023). This time the doc sliced the length of 2nd and 3rd metatarsals and pulled out the whole nerve. It was inflamed. It was tangled in with the scar tissue from the previous surgery. I am glad to be rid of it.
The first few days of recovery were easy enough. Aftereffects of anesthesia made laying around feel right, and the anesthesiologist numbed my leg from my knee down. Stayed like that for two full days. Weird. I thought my right foot was encased in a hard cast. Nothing but gauze and an ace bandage I discovered once my leg came back to life.
Today I passed 5-days post-surgery. I’m feeling a mix of got to sit still to speed healing and anxiousness to get back to my life. I am not used to sitting still. You’d think this would be the perfect time to write, but I associate writing with activity. I have very little to say when I am just sitting, or, more accurately, lying back with my right leg elevated.
After a season of the most rigorous training I have done in my entire life, this feels like hitting bottom. The Payoff Series came to a crashing halt with the Covid, or bronchitis, I acquired in Ireland. House projects followed recovery, then surgery, now recovery again. I expect to start getting back on my feet late next week, though I don’t expect I’ll be doing much walking or any running for nearly a month. After a year of committed training, and feeling great, this is hard.
If the surgery works, though, for the first time in nearly 20 years, I will be able to run without pain, that will give my spirits a huge lift. I have big plans for the coming season. I want to enchain the Bridger Range on bike and foot, and there are mountains I am determined to climb, backpacking trips I want to complete. I intend to be faster than I was last year. I’m going to have to build back slowly to get out of this hole, then surpass where I was. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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