Once upon a time in the snowy mountains of the north lived a wild child who loved to ski. One cold and rainy January day, she decided to hit the slopes. She got a little ahead of herself on what would be her only run that day, hit some ice going way too fast, and fell hard, ending up in the trees—lucky to have not actually hit one—with a severely broken leg. She was rushed to the hospital, where she would remain for the next ten days post–emergency surgery.
One metal plate and nineteen screws later, she was out of the hospital and on crutches. This state of being would last about a year, which was followed by another surgery to implant yet another plate. Finally, after two years of healing, all the hardware was removed from her leg and the real recovery began. Her doctors cleared her for physical activity, and because she hadn't been very mobile for two years, she felt as though she had been given another chance, and she was itching to get her legs moving again. So she started slow and learned how to walk again, then how to run again. Once her atrophied muscles bulked up and her range of motion returned, she signed her sorry ass up for the New York City Marathon.
She dedicated all of her free time to training and was determined to run that damn race, and she did, finishing in four hours and sixteen minutes. It was one of the most special days of her life. The weather couldn't have been better and the crowd couldn't have been more cheerful. Friends and family were there to cheer her on along with perfect strangers. And though she crossed the finish line, she hasn't stopped running. Of course, that wild child is me.
—MARTHA
