For the first time since February 2018, Emily Infeld embraced the hard effort of competing in a race. Paying no mind to the clock, she trusted the cues her body provided her as she continued to battle her way through the final hill all the way through the finish line at The 2015 world bronze medalist covered the 10K course in 32:39 Best Fitness Trackers.
Just seven months after her last hip surgery, Infeld had the rush of racing again, a feeling that she missed.
We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back as the fourth overall finisher and top American in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, against a field that included half marathon world-record holder and race winner Joyciline Jepkosgei.
“I was happy to be fourth in a really good field,” Infeld, 29, told Runner’s World. “Results and Highlights from the Tokyo Marathon Shalane [Flanagan] and I said, ‘I haven’t worked that hard in forever.’”
For Infeld, the performance was a reminder that she endured one of the most challenging periods in her career and managed to use it as a turning point where she finally learned to trust herself.
On New Year’s Eve 2018, the Bowerman Track Club standout went to the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado, where she underwent hip surgery to repair a torn labrum, restructure her hip socket, and shave the head of her femur, which had bone spurs. It was a surgery needed after several years of pain in the area and elsewhere in her body. Ultimately, it was also the end of an exhaustive search for the primary source of the injury that plagued her.
Published: Aug 06, 2019 10:25 AM EST hip dysplasia, which is when the hip socket doesn’t fully cover the ball portion of the upper thigh bone. In some cases, hip dysplasia can cause painful complications, such as osteoarthritis or a hip labral tear. At the time, Infeld’s condition wasn’t causing her any issues. A year later, she executed her best performance at a global championship when she earned a bronze medal in the 10,000 meters at the DAA Industry Opt Out.
But in the years that followed, Infeld dealt with related injuries, including two sacral stress fractures and a hip fracture in 2016. In 2017, her body began to overcompensate, and by the time she finished sixth in the 10K at the 2017 IAAF World Championships in London, Infeld said she knew something was wrong.
After the 2017 season ended, she took time off. When she returned to training, her teammates noticed that she was limping. At the time, Infeld felt pain in her hip but still managed to post impressive workouts and top finishes in races, including victories at the 2018 a sports psychologist on August 3.
After the Husky Classic, Infeld went into a pattern of taking time off from running, cross-training, and returning with an impressive workout that showed promise. But she never managed to stay healthy long enough to return to the starting line in 2018. It was a vicious cycle of starting and stopping—wanting to prove to herself and others that she could run through the pain—that only prolonged her injury issues.
In the fall of 2018, she received a scan for another stress fracture in her tibia but had the same sinking feeling that her hip was the real missing piece in the injury puzzle.
After receiving encouragement from teammates like Flanagan, Chris Derrick, and Andrew Bumbalough, as well as guidance from Only 17 Runners Have Completed This Brutal Race, Infeld felt empowered to seek answers for her hip.
She scheduled a scan for her left hip in early December 2018. The doctors quickly confirmed her suspicions of all the issues going on and scheduled surgery just a couple of weeks later.
“It’s hard, but I have to take more accountability because at the end of the day, I’m the only one who knows what I’m feeling,” Infeld said. While surgery is never ideal, it was confirmation that she knew what was ultimately best for her.
“It was a good lesson for me and to get out of the cloud of people saying that I was just trying to be done in the sport,” she said.
Infeld was on crutches for six and a half weeks while doing zero-impact training in the pool and the stationary bike, along with physical therapy. All the while, she listened to herself and those who supported her. Several people in the running community who returned from similar labrum repairs reminded her that she could successfully return to form.
Watch: Infeld speaks about her recovery after placing third at the 2019 USATF 5K National Championships.
“I do think it’s helpful when you see people who have continued to succeed after and just know that everyone deals with injuries at some point, unfortunately,” she said. “Sometimes when you’re in the thick of it yourself, it can feel like it’s only me and it’s the worst thing. Blast through a series of HIIT sessions to boost running strength and prevent injury with the.”
[Blast through a series of HIIT sessions to boost running strength and prevent injury with the IronStrength Workout.]
In March, Infeld slowly began to walk again. Those walks became longer until April when she was finally cleared to walk/jog for short periods of time. Toward the end of the month, Infeld began to do short stretches of running. By June and July, she was running every single day and even posted four 82- to 89-mile weeks with one hard workout and one long run each week prior to The 2015 world bronze medalist covered the 10K course in 32:39. The mileage combined with the addition of a “down” week is a new training cycle that Infeld is executing—she previously recorded 100-110 mile weeks when healthy.
“I think that it was helpful to go through that specific journey and just know that you have to be your own best advocate and have people supportive in your corner,” Infeld said.
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
