When everything fell apart—after the surgery, after the crutches, after the scooter, after the half-used shoes piling up in the corner—there was a long stretch where I didn’t think I’d ever run again.
I had moments I didn’t think I’d even walk again.
When the nerve block wore off at 2 a.m., the pain was so bad I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t think. I could only lie in bed sobbing as the hours crawled by. Six hours. That’s how long it took before someone at the doctor’s office finally picked up the phone and said, “She has to double up on painkillers just to catch up.”
Six hours of white-hot pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
And somewhere in that dark, sleepless night, I realized just how alone I felt. My mom was gone. My family wasn’t showing up for me in the ways I needed. My little sister was, thank God. But the rest of them? Nowhere to be found.
The pain nobody sees
Physical therapy hurt like hell. The boot rubbed my skin raw. The swelling made my shoes fit funny. Hell, I threw away pairs where only one shoe was even worn out. My gait was uneven. My knee ached. My back started to protest.
And I could feel the metal in my foot, the way Freddy Krueger drags his blades together in Nightmare on Elm Street. That sharp, taunting sound?
I was the reverse Freddy. The reverse Wolverine. A foot made of knives instead of bones.
Hold my beer
I went from running miles to crawling stairs with a laundry basket strapped to my back.
And yet, somewhere under all that frustration, there was this tiny spark of defiance.
My physical therapist told me it might be a while before I was on the treadmill again.
So naturally, I went home, signed up for a virtual 5K, and thought to myself, Hold my beer.
I didn’t care if it was ugly. I didn’t care if I limped. I just needed to feel like me again.
That virtual 5K had no time limit. No rules beyond proving you ran the miles. Just you, the distance, and the finish line—whenever and wherever you decide to reach it.
Signing up was messy and stubborn and probably a little reckless, but it was also the moment I stopped waiting for permission to start again.
The 5K that changed everything
That virtual 5K got me on the treadmill. It got me through the first miles where every step screamed, You shouldn’t be doing this.
I remember walking into the physical therapist’s office and the look on her face when I told her I’d signed up.
The words out of her mouth—after the Oh my God, did she really just say that? look drained from her face—were, “Okay… I guess we’re getting you on the treadmill next week.”
And that’s when everything started to change.
After completing the virtual 5K, I signed up for a company 5K. I ran it slowly. I nearly came in last place.
The next morning, my manager congratulated me. And without thinking twice, I blurted out how embarrassed I felt—how disappointed I was in myself for finishing so close to last.
He looked me dead in the eye and said,
“Kim, you were the only person at that starting line with all that hardware in your foot. That’s nothing short of amazing.”
That single line flipped something in me.
It stopped being about pace.
It stopped being about medals.
It stopped being about finish lines.
It started being about courage. About showing up when everything in you wants to give up on yourself, wants to quit.
26.2 miles in the rain
Two years after breaking my foot, I stood at the starting line of the Jim Thorpe Marathon.
I was supposed to start at 8 a.m., riding the train to the start with the other runners who had chosen that path to the starting line.
But there was a second option—a 7 a.m. start for those who could find their own way there.
I didn’t have a way there.
I showed up to that race alone. The person I was dating at the time was originally supposed to come, but we were on the rocks, and I didn’t know if I could count on him.
Whether it was fate or God or maybe just luck, I met a woman the night before who had a ride to the earlier start. She offered me a seat. I took it, figuring I’d need the extra hour.
The next morning, after a nearly sleepless night with anxiety coursing through me about what finishing this race might mean, I stood at that starting line at 7 a.m. with a new friend beside me—ready to run the first miles together before I was on my own.
The weather was brutal. Pouring rain. Flooded trails. Cold mountain air. Bears rumored on the course.
I was undertrained, anxious, and alone.
But mile by mile, people started showing up for me.
The miles that mattered
Mile 1 – That new friend running beside me, giving me the courage to start.
Mile 13.2 – The farthest I’d ever run in my life. I cried for the first time and believed—maybe for the first time—that I might actually finish.
Mile 16 – More tears. More friends. People I’d known for years through running groups shouting, “Go Kim!” from the trail side.
Mile 22 – It felt like waiting for Santa Claus. You wake up on Christmas morning, see the presents under the tree, so you want to believe… but you’ve never actually seen him. I knew there had to be a mile 22 because to reach mile 26.2, obviously, there had to be a mile 22—but it felt like forever before it showed up.
And in every single mile in between, people on bikes sweeping the trail. People at water stations calling my name. People running beside me. People I passed. People who passed me.
The running community showed up in ways I never expected—when I thought I was running this race entirely alone.
Even before the race, my boss at the time had sent me what felt like the Bible of running:
“It’s not about the person ahead of you or behind you. It’s about the ground under your own feet. About being present. About running your own race, because this is nobody’s journey but yours. Be present. Look at your surroundings. Enjoy being out there while you’re out there, because not everybody gets that kind of experience. Don’t compare yourself to anyone but the person you were yesterday.”
I carried that with me through every flooded mile, and I think it’s one of the only reasons I didn’t quit—because people were quitting. The weather was that bad.
But I didn’t.
I kept going.
I kept pushing forward.
Mile 26.2
Maggie—my friend, my rock—left the warmth of her car after running the race herself.
She had finished before me and was told I was maybe a mile out from the finish. When she got the news, she ran backwards on the trail to find me… and then ran me across the finish line of my first marathon.
I didn’t finish fast.
I finished drenched.
Blistered.
Exhausted.
Cold.
But I finished.
And that race changed everything.
The starting line
It wasn’t the marathon that lit the fuse.
It was the virtual 5K.
The day I said Hold my beer, signed up anyway, and stopped waiting for permission to start over.
That virtual race brought me to every single starting line since—the company 5K, the trail races, the marathons, even the 100-miler, where everything went wrong:
The bees at mile three.
The vomiting after mile 30.
The crew that fell apart months before race day.
The heat. The cold. The dark. The aid stations that felt impossibly far away.
Any rational person would have quit at any one of those points.
But I didn’t.
Because that first yes to myself—the day I signed up for that virtual 5K—taught me something I’ll never unlearn:
The starting line matters more than the finish line, because the starting line is where you decide you’re not done yet.
Copyright © 2025 Kimberly Beth Thomas. All rights reserved.
Join the Conversation:
These miles carried more than just my footsteps — they carried the fear that I might never walk again, the grit to show up when everything in me wanted to quit, and the hope handed to me by people I never saw coming. If you’ve lived through your own season of uncertainty, the kind that strips you down and dares you to keep going anyway, I’d love to hear your story. Share it below — because sometimes, just knowing someone else gets it can be the start line we all need.
What’s Next in Part 4:
Part 4 takes you beyond the miles into the people who showed up when I least expected it — the ones who ran toward the hard moments instead of away from them. It’s about trust, connection, and why it matters who’s in your corner when life doesn’t go as planned.
🔗 Catch up on the series:
👈🏻 Part 1: Beer, Bagels, and the Half Marathon Hangover
👈🏻 Part 2: The 17-Mile-Per-Hour Fall Before the 26.2-Mile Climb