How to find success after running injuries and setbacks with Micky Ely! Ep123

Richard Conner: [00:00:00] Hi, my friend. I recently only achieved one of my three goals, which was to qualify and run the Spartan Deka world championships this year. And it was such a long journey to get here and definitely not without its challenges. And today I’m sitting down with one of my race partners and we talk about our journey to world championships and how both of us overcame running injuries and setbacks. And we’re going to share with you tips and things that we did to work through that journey and get back to. Where we wanted to. be, which is at the championship race. So I hope you enjoy.

Intro/Outro: Welcome to inspire to run podcast. Here, you will find inspiration, whether you’re looking to take control of your health and fitness, or you are a seasoned runner looking for community and some extra motivation, you will hear inspiring stories from amazing runners, along with helpful tips from fitness experts.

Now, here’s your host, Richard Conner.

Richard Conner: Hi, my friends. Welcome back to inspire to run podcast. I’m [00:01:00] excited to have Micky Ely here on the show with me again. Uh, Micky is a Spartan OCR and Deka racer, and he was my teammate this year for Deka, and we just had a phenomenal year kind of leading up into world championships that happened not too long ago.

And what I wanted to do is kind of bring Micky on the show. And we both kind of had our challenges during the year, which I think. Many runners and athletes experience in terms of like running injuries and other setbacks. So just as we kind of close out the year here, just want to chat a little bit about our experiences and kind of how we dealt with it physically, but also mentally, cause you know, getting injuries or setbacks is not an easy thing to kind of deal with just holistically.

So we wanted to kind of share our experiences with you. And it’s just a pleasure for me to have a chat with Micky and spend time with him. So Micky, what we’ll do is, uh, Just welcome to the show and, you know, really love to hear a little bit about your story, kind of leading up to some of your, you know, in running injuries and setbacks.[00:02:00]

Micky Ely: Yeah, like I said, Richard, thanks for having me on here again. It’s always a pleasure to sit down and talk to you. Uh, it has definitely been a roller coaster every year. , has its highest has its lows. Uh, we started me and you. On, , 1 of the highest of eyes, I flew to Connecticut, so we can compete together.

It was kind of a surprise. I dropped in without, uh. Telling you to pretty much say, hey. I’m here, let’s run a race. , I think I was quite possibly at the peak of my fitness when I was in Connecticut. Um, I, I knew I had some lingering issues that I was working through, but, , nothing to the challenges that I would face later on in the year and, uh, really have to be in the right mindset to get through all the challenges that not only me and you face, but, , as a team, but as personal.

And I know each of us had our own personal setbacks this year, which really accumulated into the end of year event [00:03:00] that we just finished up, which was, , pretty astonishing that both of us were there and able to compete.

Richard Conner: Yeah, it’s, it’s been a wild year and I appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, I really love to hear, You know, kind of your injuries and setbacks and, you know, just for our listeners, you know, we had Micky on episode 54, you could take the first step in your transformation and Micky’s just has an incredible story about kind of where he’s been to where he’s today.

So when you say he was like, and the most, you know, fitness wise, like in a really great shape this year, and you just have to know that he’s been through so much and has accomplished so much over the years. So really just great to see you kind of. Progress and where you are today and what you’ve been able to accomplish.

So just kind of want to throw that in there. So, yeah. So just share a little bit about kind of what was going on. I think kind of during the summer, kind of rolling into the fall is, is when things started to kind of go off the rails a little bit,

Micky Ely: Yeah. So this is actually my third year training with the underdog and it’s been downright amazing. , like I said, I [00:04:00] continued to train even during the off season, , working through, um, strength training and endurance training. Um, but at the beginning of the year, I started feeling what almost felt like planners, and would manage it.

I would stretch it out. , it was just, but it would be continuous. The longer that I ran, the more sore that it got and it progressed. So, um. Most people would take a rest, take it easy. , so I just dialed it back a little bit, hoping that it was more of a ligament injury and not really something that was long term or, uh, detrimental to my running and that I could work through it.

Like most injuries, we tend to just try to rehab and try to get through it without too much injury while trying to maintain our fitness at the same time. So fast forwarding through the months, it progressively got worse, , up until about March, April timeframe. , I really didn’t know what was going on.

So I ended up seeing a orthopedic surgeon [00:05:00] and he did a scan of my heel and noticed severe inflammation within the tendon, which happens. I mean, any runner who’s been through it, you get major inflammation at some point somewhere from overworking, overtraining, um, and it’s just natural with this though.

More than just over training, it was a pain that I had never felt before, but I continue to press my luck. I’d like to say, and just push through it. Um, getting up into Connecticut earlier this year, um, I went into the Connecticut races with with the pain in my heel, knowing that I was still able to compete.

It was just understanding my pain tolerance and my ability to work through under duress or under pain. With hopes of rehabbing somewhere down the road.

So, um, as we finished up in Connecticut and had an amazing time [00:06:00] racing, , the pain wasn’t going away. So I headed back to the doctor. And he tells me that we need to have an MRI. He thinks that there’s something else. So naturally as an athlete, you’re like, Oh no, an MRI, what’s going to happen? , what’s the level?

So all the, all the negative thoughts start flowing through my head and I’m like, well, maybe it can’t be too bad. I’m still able to compete. I’m still able to run. I’m still able to do all these other things. And DEKA Fit Charlotte was right around the corner. So I was trying to figure out what exactly. I needed to do to get to that race, which was the week after still compete with Richard and come out of it healthy enough to move on throughout the rest of the year. Tragically, right after Deka Fit Charlotte, we found out that I had bone spurs on my heel that were actually ripping through my Achilles tendon every time I ran. That had [00:07:00] been degrading the tendon for roughly six months. And at this point. Um, I sat down with my doctor and I said, what are the options? He said, well, it’s like a ticking time bomb.

He said, you can keep running on it. The attendance still whole, he said, but you never know when it’s going to completely rip through or you could get surgery. So naturally as an athlete, I was like, no, I don’t want surgery. He said. What are your plans for the rest of the year and this is a hard, hard pill to swallow, but I was like, I’d like to go to world championships at the end of the year.

That was my goal all year. That was my purpose. That was why me and you trained together was to make it to world championships. So I told him to be blunt with me. I said, would you get the surgery? He looked me dead in the face and [00:08:00] said, absolutely not. And I said, well, that’s hard to swallow. I’m hearing it from my doctor that he wouldn’t get the surgery, that he would just, you know, See if he can correct it from other means.

Um, but with that being said, I wanted to know all the options. I asked him, I said, if I got the surgery today, this week, do you think I’d make it the world championships? And he flat out said, no, I don’t think you will. He said, but miracles do happen. People do heal different. Um, if you’d like to get the surgery, we can see how it goes.

See where, see where you’re healing and see if we can get you there. So. Naturally, um, I was like, let’s get it done. Let’s get it done right now. Let’s get it. So I have more time to heal. Um, because we’re at this point, we’re roughly like 125 days out from world championship. So I knew it was gonna be a tight window to be able to get in, get the [00:09:00] surgery and understand how my body feels to get to the point of, uh, being able to compete, not just compete, but competing competitive level.

I’m not somebody to go out there and just say, Hey, I’m here to come here to participate. Give me a chance. No, I’m going to go out there and push and push and push to my body’s limits pretty much until I pass out. It’s just who I’ve always been, my competitive nature and the more that I’m around our underdog team, the more I see how everybody pushes it.

It, it gives you a level of determination. To be better and just overall perform at a level that you’ve never seen before. So about a week after I got that diagnosis, my doctor scheduled my surgery. It’s scared the living crap out of me. I had never had any major injuries in my career and sitting in the hospital.

So many thoughts go through your head [00:10:00] of. Will I ever be the same after this? Will, did I make the right decision? Did The doctor put me on the right path and I just totally ignored him. So it was very Uneasy sitting there knowing that I could have possibly made the wrong decision

So I went through this went through with the surgery It was about four hours long the doctor completely Totally, um, disconnected my Achilles tendon ground down bone spurs on the back of my heel, cut off two inches of my tendon and proceeded to stretch my calf muscle and my tendon back in place on the back of my heel and secure it with five pins.

Most people would say that sounds absolutely terrible and I’ll probably never be able [00:11:00] to run right again or anything. Um, but. I put my faith in Dr. Ray. I’ll say his name. It was Dr. Thomas Ray down in Kingsland, Georgia, one of the best surgeons I’ve ever been to, um, said that everything was a success when I came out, um, which couldn’t have been more music to my ears and put me in the highest of high spirits directly out of surgery.

Um, so at that point it was a known success that the surgery went well. And I was On my road to recovery, a very, very long, hard, emotional filled recovery, um, that took me to dark places, to days of anguish, upset, crying, pissed off every emotion that you could possibly feel as your one focus [00:12:00] is an event 90 days away, essentially.

So it was tough. It had to put me in the right mindset. To succeed, at no means, at no means whatsoever after my surgery, did I ever think that I was going to have an even 1 in a million shot to be able to race how I felt it was excruciating. It was debilitating. It was a feeling and a place that I probably never want to be in again in my life.

It was, it was rough. It was absolutely rough.

Richard Conner: And you know, I don’t, I didn’t know like 95 percent of what was going on with you. I know, you know, we’re going back and forth and messaging and checking in on you during that time. But, you know, as you’re talking about it here, like I realized I didn’t know most of what you’re going through, but I knew it had to be hard.

I knew it had to be painful, but I obviously it’s hard for me to imagine kind of what that was like. So I appreciate you sharing that and, you know, really kind of sharing [00:13:00] how you felt, you know, emotionally, how you felt physically. And I think you’re right, like When you said it was music to your ears, like that is the best possible outcome in that moment to hear that the surgery was a success.

And then that really just means that you have to focus on your recovery, right. And getting better, whether it meant racing or not, like just really kind of getting back on your feet and getting better. And, and we all know how the story ends, which is, you know, quite a success story, but you know, that’s really incredible to hear kind of what you went through during that time.

And, you know, I’d love to hear maybe what are like the Three things that you did or that helped you during that time to get back on your feet, get back into training and eventually get to where we were, which is world championship.

Micky Ely: Yeah, honestly, I want to put the number one thing out there and that was the amount of positive comments, feedback, people checking on me. I can’t express enough the number [00:14:00] of people that actually reached out to say, Hey, you got this. You’re on the right path. Keep pushing. Keep motivating. Keep, keep yourself in the right mindset.

Everybody would, a lot of people would check on in on me. Kevin, he would have his tough love as always. Um, but that’s, that’s a major thing that I needed, um, to get back. And number two, I’d have to say was set goals, set goals for yourself. Even the small ones. When I started out early, it was like, Hey, let me just stand up in front of a chair.

It wasn’t, let me take a step. It was, let me stand up in front of the chair to see if I can even stand on my own two feet again. And it was little wins like that. That was, hey, I stood up today and then, oh, look, I stood up without crutches or I got [00:15:00] 3 steps. It was the little wins every day that kept my mind.

In the right place to be able to keep reaching those small goals. I actually wrote down on a piece of paper dates in which I wanted to meet certain goals. Obviously, the world championships was the last goal. So you had that longevity of a timeline. To say, hey, what do I want to accomplish in these 3 months to be able to make it to my long term goal and it was those little steps that I wrote on a piece of paper meticulously from the words of the doctor gave me.

He said, hey, 30 days. You should be doing this 60 days. You should be doing this. And by the time you get to the world’s championships, you should have met every 1 of these steps. So definitely focusing on the small goals instead of the large picture. Because I feel like you can get lost into, oh my gosh, I got to compete in three months.

Uh, I can’t even take a step or I can’t even go to the bathroom without a [00:16:00] scooter. It’s, it’s, it’s those little things that you need to stay focused on. And the last one is believing in yourself. I’ve talked about this during our last podcast. It’s understanding who you are and who. You want to become so if you lose sight of who you are, what your goals are, what your motivation is, you’ll never be able to get to the place where you need to be.

And I know the last 2 kind of tie into each other, but they’re definitely dependent upon each other to make that 1 goal and that 1 possibility at the end.

So, I mean, it’s those are the 3 major. Those are the 3 major things that were driving my success to be ready to be there in December with you.

Richard Conner: That’s incredible. And I appreciate you sharing that Micky, you know, I, I love what you said. And as you’re [00:17:00] talking through those three things, I do, it does remind me of our Last conversation on the podcast. So, you know, you’re very consistent, you’re very methodical, you have your process and obviously it’s working.

And, you know, so you’re talking about, you know, kind of setting those goals, but really kind of celebrating the wins, you know, absolutely love that. You talked about, you know, believing in yourself and you talked about really. Having that support system or that community, right? Which we have with the underdog community.

And I’m sure beyond that, like your family, your friends, having that’s so important to help you if you’re going through it. But I would say if you’re not going through it and you know, someone who is check in on them. See how they’re doing and give them words of encouragement. Cause you’re hearing, you know, from your story, Micky, how much it helped you.

And, you know, that’s really nice to hear that that was part of your recovery.

Micky Ely: Absolutely. It’s definitely a team effort, um, from your closest friends to your teammates to your family to your neighbor next door. [00:18:00] Everybody checking in on you as part of the process. It’s. It, it fills your happiness bag as we like to say in the Navy, we have our happiness bag and anytime we can put little tidbits in there, it’s always, it’s always nice to keep it full and keep, keep you energized with positive energy.

Richard Conner: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, I appreciate you sharing that and I’ll share just a little bit of my story, which I’ve talked about on the show, but I’ll just share it here again. And then we’ll talk about how, like what all this led to. So, you know, my side, I kind of dealt with two. Main issues this year, one was around my knee, my right knee.

And it was, it was just kind of bothering me during the year, but mostly when I sat, not really when I was active or running, um, until maybe the middle of the year, later on the year, then it would bother me a little bit when I was running and that, you know, really caused concern. So I’ve been working with a physical therapist and, you know, and that’s been going well and you know, it’s, I was able to kind of get through the year.

So nothing major there. So that’s something that I just need to [00:19:00] keep an eye on. But to your point, Micky, like. You know, we just kind of want to work through these things, right? We just kind of want to work through, um, if something happens, you’re like, we don’t want to stop. You’ve got these goals, you got these races and just got to kind of make the best of it.

So, you know, so that, that was one thing that was, Somewhat minor, maybe not too terrible, but you know, what really kind of took me out for a little while was I ran, um, my half marathon, one of my half marathons this year in the fall. And it’s one of my favorite ones. And for the second year in a row, like I got slower, right.

I, I did improve my time, even though I PR and other races during the year. And I felt like I was getting stronger and faster in this one. I just didn’t, didn’t PR and which in and of itself was fine, but really what got me was At the end of the race, I kind of didn’t care, like, not in the like, yeah, whatever.

I don’t care. No, like, I really just don’t care, you know, if I did better or not. And that concerned me because that’s not normally how I am. Right. I’m like, no, I want to do better. I want to know why I didn’t achieve what [00:20:00] I set out to achieve. And in that moment, I didn’t. So, you know, I kind of, you know, self diagnosed, but I kind of came to the conclusion that maybe I was experiencing burnout, which was a terrible time for that to happen because, you know, I had a marathon that was coming up.

And then of course, you know, we’ve been talking about Deka world championships. So, you know, I went through this process of like figuring out like, well, what’s going on with me and what do I need to do to get out of it? And, you know, I talk about it in episode 117, how to bounce back from burnout for marathon success, just to talk about what was going on in my life during that time.

But, you know, I’m happy to say that I. Was able to kind of get through it. And some of the basics was really around, like, just taking a break. So I’m just like, you know what, I’m not running. I’m not working out. I’m not doing anything. Like the only thing I was doing was like work and like family. And like, that was it.

Like everything else was just put aside. So just. Really is a time for me to reset and recharge. And there were other things that I was kind of during that, doing during that time to help me [00:21:00] just get out of whatever it is that I was kind of going through. So happy to say that that led to my first marathon in France in November, which, you know, I ran pretty well.

I did it according to plan and it was just beautiful and awesome and really just kind of regained my love for running and what I’m doing. And I got to the end of that saying, yes, I did it. I feel great about it. I’m so happy I did it. Yeah. Now I’m ready for like world championships. So that’s a little bit of my story.

So not, you know, not necessarily dealing with surgery or the injury to your extent, Micky, but you know, I was going through some stuff. And like I said, a lot of runners and other athletes go through things during the year and you just. Need to work through it with kind of what we’re talking about here, right, depending on what we’re going through

Micky Ely: Yeah, absolutely. Injuries do happen all the time to the most elite athletes to just the normal weekend warriors as I like to call them who just go out and. Do a run on the weekend, but injuries are a real thing. And, and I kind of took that for [00:22:00] granted that we’re invincible, um, that we can’t get hurt. And sadly this proved me wrong.

It, uh, but I think this injury absolutely did change me as a person and a competitor. Um, because it let me know that yes, I’m human and yes, I need to work harder. Um, what I mean by working harder. Is was I overtraining before? I don’t know. Uh, was I doing everything that I need to on a daily basis to be the best athlete I could?

Yes, but there’s always those unknowns and you don’t know what’s going on with your body underneath your skin. Um, it’s continuously working, especially as we get older, you have to put in that extra effort or that extra, um, free workout or post workout stretches. It is. Or just the [00:23:00] prehab that you have to do or the taking care of your body the the saunas the cold plunges the the rollers the Massage guns anything you could possibly do to kind of alleviate The muscle tension and the possibility of injury um over time and while you’re training The the more that I train the more that I understand that that 30 minutes before and after Can really dictate how your training is going to go You In the future down the road,

Richard Conner: 100 percent and, you know, I totally agree with you on some of the things that you, you can do, like the massages. So, like, I have massage boots. I go to get massages now, which, you know, in the past, I didn’t really like to do. So I think all that’s been really helpful. So definitely agree with you there. Uh, there’s also tech and gear that can help you.

Like I use in credit where, so I have a sleeve for my knee, which is super helpful. Um, so yeah, there’s just so much out there that can help you, but it’s really just kind of taking the time and seeing what’s right for you and [00:24:00] just being consistent and doing those things.

Micky Ely: that’s exactly it. Consistency. Um, you couldn’t have used a better word and consistency is what helped me recover, um, consistency and understanding. So, consistency, I preach this guy up and down 1 side. And the other Kevin knew exactly what I needed, what consistent level of training that I needed, how much to push my leg, how much not to push my leg, understanding when to take off, when to take to tell my body, okay, it’s enough for today, even, even looking at the workload, it’s like, okay, I’m not done, but my body’s done.

And I think that’s a misconception or something most people don’t understand is. Your body tells you when it’s, it’s ready or it’s not. Um, and I think some people will get hurt because they don’t listen to their body. And that was the biggest part of my success and coming back and being able to be there with you [00:25:00] guys was knowing my limitations and understanding what my body is telling me.

Um, because during this recovery process, there was days where I woke up that I, I could barely walk. It was to the point where I was in recovery. I was working the muscles. And my body just said enough, like, take a break, sit down, reset, and we’ll come back with tomorrow. And I think I posted a lot about that is, is understanding that my body was ready, but it wasn’t.

Richard Conner: So of this led us to Deka World Championships this year, which was both of our goals. And, you know, we, we qualified as a team. We ran as a team, we fought hard as a team, and I know you ran a different race as well, um, with Krissy, which is great. So, you know, we arrived right throughout the struggles and setbacks and running injuries.

We arrived in Ocala, Florida, and it [00:26:00] was just a tremendous time. So. You know, really just grateful that, you know, you were able to, to recover and heal and be there kind of on your terms. So, you know, no pressure for me, like this is totally on your terms, but happy there, true there, and, you know, you’re able to get to that point, um, and reach your goals despite what happened this year.

So I’m, I’m really happy for you and also excited that we got to run this together.

Micky Ely: Yeah, it was almost surreal walking in the arena the 1st day, and I got there really early, um, before most of the team got there, and it was. Almost like walking into a dream. I like to say a dream because that was my dream to get there to recover enough to walk through those doors on my own two feet without aid and Looking up to see my name on a board.

Um Was unbelievable. That’s the only feelings that I can I can say did I go in a hundred percent? Absolutely not. Um, [00:27:00] Me and you have talked about it over and over again that the race was painful Painful not just Cardiovascular endurance. It was, it was painful. My foot, um, is not 100%, but it’s, it was well enough to get there and compete to a level where I thought me and you were respectable.

I like to use respectable because we didn’t walk. We didn’t minimize our efforts. We went out there and we actually pushed the issue and pushed our levels of fitness where we were at. Overcoming major injuries that we had not to in the distant past to literally finish about a minute off our personal best.

We can’t complain whatsoever [00:28:00] about how that day went and the feelings that we felt crossing the finish line. I think I might’ve died inside a little bit because, , I, the, the cardiovascular demand was not there from sitting around for three months. , but it. It passed, it passed and the feelings, uh, engulfed my body with the positivity and the, the celebration of the turnaround that I had over, , the 3 months.

And when I went back to the, the area where we were all staged and sitting down, I looked at my son and with the quietest voice, I just said, I did it and he laughed at me a little bit like a typical teenager would. But it was, it was those words. I did it, which was my goal from the beginning, the minute I left that hospital and I’m, you can hear it in my voice.

I’m getting a [00:29:00] little emotional about this, but my heart and soul went into my recovery. There was days where I sat in my garage, literally in tears, trying to accomplish something as simple as doing a single leg toe raise. To where I couldn’t even move my foot, the level of emotion that I felt when we cross that finish line is nothing that I ever had done in my life. I finished Spartan ultras. I’ve ran marathons, I’ve done weightlifting competitions. I’ve even played in the little league world series back in the day, but the level of emotion that I felt when I cross that finish line with you. Was the best feeling in my life. And I think this is the first time I’m telling anybody this, but I couldn’t have [00:30:00] asked for a better teammate, a better team, a better support network, and overall, just the level of support to make that magical moment happen.

Richard Conner: Love it. Love it. And I appreciate you. Like I said, we, we qualified as a team. And honestly, like it was a two of us that got us there as a world championships together, you know, so I appreciate you and I appreciate the battle that you fought. Physically mentally to get there and just the opportunity to run with just a wonderful person as yourself.

So, so thank you so much, Micky. And thank you for being vulnerable here and sharing your story. And, you know, typically, as you know, my, one of my last questions is, you know, what is the one thing that you would say to our listeners to inspire them to run, and I think I would change that for this conversation.

I would ask you, what is the one thing that you would say to inspire our to not give up. After running injuries and [00:31:00] setback.

Micky Ely: The 1 thing I’d have to say is probably stay true to yourself. And what I mean by that is all of us have our silent goals. And what I mean by silent goals, it’s something that we don’t tell other people that we want to accomplish. Of course, we write down our accomplishments and our goal, long term goals, short term goals, but there’s always those self goals that you never tell anybody about that.

You hold true to yourself and that you have the ability to focus on those above and beyond everything else. Yes, you have goals for teammates. Yes, you have goals for and aspirations for doing things. Down the road, or with friends, but. Your goals are what matter. The things that are near and dear to your heart is what you should always focus on.

And if you focus on those things, it will always pull you through the dark moments.

Richard Conner: Love it. Love it. Micky, [00:32:00] congratulations on all that you’ve accomplished this year, despite everything that you’ve been through. Thank you again for being an awesome running mate. I’m really looking forward to 2025. We’re absolutely going to crush it next year. You’re on your road to recovery. I’m on my road to recovery next year is going to be our year.

So really just congrats again. Thank you for sharing your story here on the show. And you know, with that, have a great day.

Micky Ely: Thanks for you too. Appreciate it. As always.

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