There I was, about to hit “Register” for my first full marathon. I couldn’t believe it. One second, I’m sitting in the grass after crossing the finish of my first half marathon saying I’ll never run more than 13.1 miles. The next, I’m signing up for 26.2.
I didn’t know if I could do it. Honestly, I didn’t even fully believe I would. But something about hitting that button lit a fuse in me I didn’t know existed until the words flashed across the screen:
Registration complete.
I was training. I was moving. And for the first time in years, life felt like it had direction.
And then came the accident.
The Stupid Scooter
It was a week before the marathon. I was on vacation with my family down in the Carolinas—my dad, my little sister and her boyfriend, my niece, my aunt, and the guy I was dating at the time. He was the kind of person who thought a relaxing trip needed a motorized death trap disguised as a scooter.
The first day we were there, he teased me about not wanting to ride it. I kept saying, Are you kidding? If I take that thing out, I’ll break my neck.
But the second day, I caved.
At first, it was fun—flying down back roads, wind on my face, in my hair… feeling like I was in a music video instead of hurtling toward fate at nearly 20 miles an hour.
And then, day two of riding the scooter happened.
I was about a mile, maybe two, from the resort when I passed one of those digital speed signs that clock your pace as you go by. Seventeen miles per hour.
I remember thinking, Wow, I’m flying.
And right as that thought crossed my mind, I hit uneven pavement, lost control, and went down—hard.
The handlebars bent on impact. My foot exploded in the kind of pain I didn’t even have time to feel yet because adrenaline was still coursing through my veins. My hands were scraped. My knee was bleeding. But there wasn’t an obvious injury—at least, not yet.
I crawled over to the curb and sat there, trying to calm down, trying to stop my hands from shaking.
A man in a pickup who saw the whole thing stopped and offered me a ride back. I was too embarrassed to accept.
So I hauled myself back onto that scooter with its crooked handlebars and rode it all the way back to the resort, biting my lip so hard I thought that might bleed too as the pain began setting into my foot, my knee, my hands—everywhere I’d hit the ground.
Back at the condo, my boyfriend was more concerned about straightening out the handlebars than the fact that I couldn’t put weight on my foot. He did help me upstairs, but once I was settled, he went straight to work on the scooter.
I had to call my aunt to tell her I couldn’t make the dolphin tour we had planned. She had already bought tickets and was clearly upset, though she didn’t say much. My family left without me.
While my boyfriend spent an hour fixing the scooter—and then took it for a ride—I sat on a stool at the stove, one foot dangling, the other wedged through a bar on the stool to keep myself steady, cooking dinner and convincing myself it was just a sprain.
But I couldn’t even touch my hurt foot to the ground without excruciating pain.
By that night, the pain had me in tears. By morning, I was in the hospital.
Three broken metatarsals. Marathon deferred. Foot shattered. Heart in pieces.
Titanium and Torn Nerves
Surgery came next: three plates, fourteen screws, and the broken tip of a drill bit they tried to fish out but couldn’t. The surgeon told me afterward they had to re-break the bones, line them back up, and piece my foot together like a jigsaw puzzle held in place by titanium.
And I had no idea what any of it meant.
Would I set off metal detectors at the airport now? Would I run again? Would I even walk again? And if I did, would I walk funny forever?
They didn’t tell me the answers right away. They just handed me a pair of crutches, a list of instructions, and painkillers with strict warnings about staying ahead of the nerve block before it wore off.
But I was so groggy from anesthesia and meds after surgery that none of it fully stuck.
The irony? My running anthem for years had been Titanium by David Guetta. And now my foot literally was.
Part human. Part made-in-China alloy. Like I could date my car if I wanted to. A self-fulfilling prophecy in the worst way.
But there was nothing funny about the pain when that nerve block wore off at 2 a.m. and I was hours from reaching the surgeon. Nothing funny about overdosing on pain meds just to catch up to the agony because the person who was supposed to track the schedule… didn’t.
The Pain Nobody Sees
My little sister became my caretaker, driving nearly an hour each way several times a week for appointments, groceries, medication—anything I couldn’t manage alone. And there was a lot I couldn’t manage alone.
I was so stubborn I refused to ask for help unless I had no other choice. I realized then how independent I really was—so independent I barely knew how to use the word please.
I stayed on crutches until the rubber tips wore all the way down to the metal underneath. One afternoon at the mall, the metal hit the marble floor, and I was slipping and sliding like a bad slapstick comedy while strangers stared.
When I wasn’t sliding across the floor, I was crawling or hopping up and down two flights of stairs, depending on what I needed.
One day I had to do laundry and my sister couldn’t come. I strapped the basket to my back, sat on the stairs, and went down one step at a time—stopping every few minutes to cry because what used to take fifteen minutes now took half a day.
When the crutches became too much, I switched to the knee scooter. Loading it in and out of my car alone was exhausting, but it was the only way I could get to work once the office reopened.
And because life has a sense of humor, I had just started that job remotely, so no one had met me in person yet.
By the time the office reopened, I showed up for my first day with pink and silver tassels, a squeaky duck horn, and a daisy-topped bell on the handlebars because someone had joked I should decorate it—and I took the idea way too far.
I thought it might get me fired. Instead, it broke the ice. People laughed. It started conversations that might never have happened otherwise.
But beneath the jokes was a daily frustration no one else saw. Every forgotten item on the top floor—or the basement—meant hauling myself up or down the stairs, trip after trip, day after day.
What used to be simple—laundry, groceries, making dinner—now took triple the time and energy.
And yet, I’m grateful for it.
Because losing the ability to walk without pain taught me preparation. It taught me resilience. It taught me to respect my own body in a way I never had before. It taught me grit I didn’t know I had.
And it made me grateful for every step I’ve taken since.
Copyright © 2025 Kimberly Beth Thomas. All rights reserved.
If this story hit home, I’d love to hear yours. Share in the comments or join the conversation at The Berbly Project. Together, we can turn setbacks into starting lines.
Next up in Part Three: The 26.2-Mile Redemption
What happens after a year on crutches, a broken foot rebuilt with titanium, and a dream put on hold? Part Three takes you to the starting line of the marathon I wasn’t sure I’d ever run—and everything it took to get there.
🔗 Catch up on the series:
👈🏻 Part 1: Beer, Bagels, and the Half Marathon Hangover
👉🏻 Part 3: The Miles Between What Shattered the Hope That Brought Me Back to the Starting Line