The returning runner
Act 7 – Another runners’ catastrophe (Tsedale Tomlinson’s story)
At the World Master’s Track and Field Championships I met many amazing runners, but none captivated me as much as Tsedale Tomlinson’s story. Join me in hearing first of her tragedy and then, next week, her path to an amazing comeback.
I had just started at my new middle school, 5th grade, and every year my school held a school-wide jog-a-thon event, all grades, all genders, one track and you just ran as much as you could in a certain amount of time (hours!). That morning, I had had a stressful time at home. Home life was sometimes turbulent. I was 10 and I’ll never forget--I started off and was still feeling distraught. By the end of it, all of those feelings were gone and I felt happy, stable…incredible! And I won. That pain just fueled me. So that was it, I fell in love with running and its healing way. I went on to win every jogathon every year until I graduated, and I still have the trophy they gave me when I graduated. I used to practice in Central Park at the reservoir. I maintained a love for running and its mental health benefits, not to mention physical, and will for the rest of my life. I always preferred to run casually, though, and didn’t want to compete.
When I was 27, still figuring things out in life, I had just moved from San Diego to San Francisco, imagining I would fall in love with the ‘east coast city of the west’ (I grew up in NYC and Rome). Running has always been a mainstay in my life, and I did it regularly, no matter where I lived. I enjoyed running in Berkeley. But what happened to me, happened not while running but on roller blades. My first apartment happened to be in Berkeley, and I would commute to my job, also in Berkeley, on rollerblades. I was quite good at rollerblading! 6 months later, I had found an apartment in San Francisco finally, and had also just secured a very promising new job, also in the city. My father, happy for me, had just told me days before, ‘break a leg!’ Well now I know, be careful of this saying. I was on my way to the Bart station, my last day at the old job in Berkeley. I had my rollerblades on, but had multiple huge bags full of goodies from my last day, and so I was pretty much ‘walking’ on my blades. Came to a big intersection on a central road, one of those that is more like a mini highway, with multiple lanes in both directions. I waited along with a group of people at the walk sign. When the walk sign came on, they started out just ahead of me while I gathered my enormous amount of heavy bags and shuffled across the loooong intersection. Still a walk sign. Crossing the second half, I notice that a car was coming my direction, going very fast. It started to turn right in order to whip through the walk sign and make the light. Then there was That Moment…the split second moment when I realized that the car would hit me, and also that I was unable to move out of the way in time. Next thing, beautiful blue sky, and time stands still and the world gets quiet. Next my head bounced off the pavement (I kind of remember this). Then unconscious so there was nothing else until I came to, hearing a strange animal screaming sound, which I then learned was me. This sound haunted me for a long time. I learned something fascinating about the body that day. The worse the injury, the less you feel. Incredible superpower of being alive, our body really protects us! I felt absolutely no pain when I woke up, but knew I could not walk. The serious pain didn’t come until post-surgery.
That day, the car—which I was so glad to hear was totaled in that accident (Me=1, car=0) –destroyed my right leg, damaged my left leg, and left me with a serious concussion that would take maybe 6 months minimum to even begin to recover from (the sore spot remained for so much longer). My right leg, the leg highlighted for this blog: the tibia bone had a large crack running from the top and straight down. The top of my tibia, near the knee joint, was also crushed/compression of the tibial plateau. It was looking very bad. My left leg had a painful bone contusion from knee to ankle, all along the top of the shin but thankfully did not break. I needed surgery. My guardian angel must have been feeling guilty and so hooked me up with the most amazing orthopedic surgeon, who’s work on my tibia has been admired since by other specialists, after looking at MRI’s!
Next week we will hear about Tsedale’s return to running and her amazing competitive successes!