Two miles from the finish line of Massachusetts’ Stone Cat 50-mile trail race, Aliza Lapierre fell so hard she blacked out. “When I came to, my right leg was perpendicular to the rest of my body,” she said. “I lifted it and flopped it parallel to my left leg.”
Lapierre blacked out a second time. When she came around again, she was still wondering if she could squirm to the finish line. She got two inches before—you guessed it—blacking out a third time. Lapierre, of Williston, Vermont, would later find out at the hospital that she had broken her femur. The culprit was a tree root.
Orthopedic surgeons call her accident a “sudden deceleration injury.”
The medical profession also has another catchy term for a fall: an “unplanned excursion to the ground.” Falls vary so widely, they went for a catchall definition, so to speak.
The process for how we stop trail running and start plummeting is far more complex and delicate than what we may think when biffing full force into Mother Earth.
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Esta historia es de la edición Summer 2021 de Trail Runner.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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You Cannot Erase us
Over the years and through thousands of miles of running, I have thought about the words that marked the beginning of colonialism on the land and the end of Indigenous sovereignty.
Inside The Adaptable Mind
How Courtney Dauwalter uses adaptability to stay cool, calm and collected when the going gets tough.
Take it Easy
How to stay at aerobic pace when you live in the hills
Here Comes the Sun
Where pessimism meets its match
Connecting the Dots
How Laura Cortez uses her passion for trails to build community.
Carbohydrate Confusion
When it comes to food and nutrition, we tend to overcomplicate things. Eat this, not that. Run fasted, restrict sugar. Unfortunately, much of the controversy stems from observations and sensationalized media headlines vs. actual data, leaving the consumer more confused from their Google search than they were before.
This Wild Life
ONE MAN’S 92-MILE RUN OF GRIEF AND SELF-DISCOVERY.
Our Town
Trail running is all about the community it fosters and the beauty and diversity within the community. Here’s a look at seven places, and the faces that call them home.
Fueling for Females
Here’s how female runners can use recent research findings for performance breakthroughs
Lose Weight with a Shake
Being a health and nutrition correspondent means that companies frequently send me their products, and ask for my stamp of approval.
