My family recently took a trip to New York City for the marathon.
For those of you who don’t know, my husband, Chris, is a huge runner. It’s his ‘thing’.
He’s run more than 40 marathons around the world.
Most notably, he is one of a few people worldwide, to finish 15+ consecutive NYC marathons.
This year was his 18th in a row (19 finishes total).
Amazing in its own right… but, made even more remarkable given the fact that Chris broke his hip in late May…just five months ago. FIVE!
I’d love to tell you he broke his hip in some exciting way, but it was really a simple and freak occurrence.
He fell while racing my son.
I was standing right there, and saw it happen as if in slow motion, the quick stutter steps backwards,
The loss of footing,
And, then… down.
The next thing I knew, I was frantically trying to get our kids, and my 6’2″, 180-pound husband into the car.
I’m still not sure how we managed to get him into the SUV from the driveway.
After a not-so-speedy emergency room visit, we discovered he broke his femoral neck bone all the way through.
His bone had also fragmented, meaning it broke into little pieces.
Doctors told him a hip replacement was the best course of action and that he would never run again.
But somehow through his narcotic-induced haze, Chris managed to find a willing doctor and talk him into a hip repair, which in this case had a 30% chance of working.
You’ll be even more impressed with his mad persuasive skills when you realize, it was 5pm on the Friday, before Memorial Day Weekend, and our doctor was not scheduled for the night shift.
His name, by the way, is Dr. Bryan Kaiser (Yup, I’m naming him.)
We are both indebted to this wonderful doctor!
I wasn’t sure he would cross the finish line, and if he did, I didn’t have high hopes for his condition afterwards.
But, somehow, he pulled it off. He finished in 4 hours and 38 minutes.
Not a personal record. Not even close, but this year it was just about finishing.
One of his friends described him as “Superman.”
I think that’s about right, at least in our house, he’s Superman. But, I need to add amazing dad to that title.
My husband inspires me all the time (in a good way) to take risks, to push myself… to be my best self. And, I just want to say thank you to him, and to all of you who are doing extraordinary things. All of the Supermen and Superwomen out there!
Bundle Up…
A Must In NYC…puffer coats!
(Because you knew I was going to have some shopping…)
Here are some options (below):
