Story

Bed-ridden at 54. Trail racing at 60.

In 2020 I was 54, and my back put me on the floor for eight weeks. Two years of on-and-off pain followed, without a clear answer. In 2022 the diagnosis landed: two levels of spondylolisthesis, with a fusion surgery recommendation attached. I said no. Four years later I’m turning 60, I can do 80 hanging knees to elbows, and I’m training to podium at a trail race on Cougar Mountain. What happened in between is the whole point.

Spring 2020

I was 54. The first eight weeks are a blur I mostly spent on the floor of a bedroom because the bed itself was worse. I could not sit upright for more than a few minutes without the pain catching. I read a lot, slept strangely, and thought about which parts of my life I was about to lose and which parts I’d be allowed to keep. The acute pain eventually eased enough that I could be upright again in short stretches. But the back was not back. It was waiting.

The two-year blur

What followed was two years of pain that came and went without a pattern I could trust. Some weeks I was fine. Some weeks I was on the floor again. I saw doctors. I got some imaging. Nothing gave me a plan I could actually work from. “Probably a strain.” “Maybe a disc.” “Let’s see how it goes.” I kept waiting for a clear picture that didn’t come. But I wasn’t wasting those two years — I was collecting data on my own body. Which positions flared it, which movements calmed it, which foods seemed to matter. That data is what made it possible, later, to actually build something.

The diagnosis, 2022

In 2022 I finally got the imaging and the reading that matched what I was feeling. Two-level spondylolisthesis. Both levels in the lower lumbar spine, both with enough slippage and instability to explain every bad week of the previous two years. The first orthopedic surgeon said I’d need a fusion. The second one, for a second opinion, said the same thing with different language. Nobody said “maybe.” I was 56 and I said no. It wasn’t some noble posture — it was closer to stubbornness mixed with a specific fear. I’d seen what spinal fusion does to how a person moves afterward, and I did not want that.

Choosing PT — as a teacher, not a prescription

My primary care doctor wrote the referral and sent me to a physical therapist he trusted. That PT is the reason any of this exists — but not in the way people usually mean. He was not going to hand me a program to run for six weeks and sign off. He showed me where I was weak, what those weaknesses meant, and the first movements that could start to change them. The program itself — the thing that would have to be built and added to and adjusted for years — was going to come from me. He said something I remember exactly: “The spine you have is the spine you’re going to have. The muscles around it are the ones we can change.” PT was the teacher. The program is mine.

The first deadbug

The first exercise we tried was supposed to be a deadbug. You lie on your back, raise your arms and your legs, and lower one opposite pair at a time while keeping your lower back pressed flat. It is the gentlest core move in any rehab book. It is what your grandmother does in aqua class. I could not do one. Not one. I could not keep my lower back flat on the floor for the half-second it took to lower one arm. That was the baseline. Everything I can do now — every core move, every run, every hill, every race — started from that floor. If you’re reading this and you can’t do a deadbug either, I know exactly where you’re standing. And the other side of it exists.

The four-year rebuild

The rebuild had four pillars, and I needed all four. Exercise — strength and mobility work aimed at the muscles around my lumbar spine: the glutes and the core that were supposed to be holding me up and weren’t. Physical therapy — not a six-week event but an ongoing relationship with someone who could read my body and keep adjusting the program as I changed. Diet — cleaning up inflammation, getting protein high enough to actually build muscle at this age, dropping the weight my spine did not need to carry. Supplements — the boring basics, taken every day: creatine, vitamin D, magnesium, collagen, fish oil. Nothing exotic. Nothing fast.

Year one was learning to walk without fear. Year two was walking longer, then adding short, slow jogs. Year three I was running again — not fast, not far, but running. Year four I started climbing hills. Year five I signed up for a race.

Pain-free

Somewhere in year four I realized I had stopped bracing for the next flare. The background ache I had lived with for so long that I had stopped noticing it was just — gone. Not every day. Not forever. But most days. Pain-free is not a finish line you cross once; it is a thing you build, maintain, and keep choosing. The work does not end. But the work also stops being punishment. It becomes the reason the rest of your life is possible.

Racing at sixty

I am sixty years old. I run trails. I line up at the start of races where most of the field is thirty. I am not fast, and I am not trying to be. I am trying to move well, to keep moving, and to stay in this body for a long time. The goal has never been to win anything. The goal was to stop being the guy on the floor. Everything past that is a gift.