Written by: Richard A. Lovett
Posted: Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Page 2 of 2
Her second Worlds in Switzerland wasn't such a great experience, mainly due to the fact that shortly before the race she wound up laid low by a virus. Due to drug regulations, she couldn't take any medications; and by the time she came out of the water she knew she was in trouble. She ended up in a Swiss emergency room, "where nobody speaks English. They all speak French," recalls McMahon.
When her ankle started to hurt last fall, McMahon finally had it evaluated by a sports-medicine professional - not that she expected anything serious to be wrong. Ultimately, she was hoping for a "just rest a bit and you'll be fine."
But an MRI revealed the hole in the cartilage, measuring about five millimeters by nine millimeters. That may not sound like much, but imagine a piece of sandpaper about one-fourth the size of a penny stuck between the tibia (the main weight-bearing bone in the leg) and the talus (the top bone in the ankle).
"Trust me," says McMahon, "the pain will tell you!"
In hindsight, McMahon thinks the 2004 sprain re-aggravated the damage from the initial one. Then training for three more marathons eventually caused the damaged cartilage to break loose from the bone.
Because of the seriousness of the injury, her doctor didn't want her to run. But McMahon wasn't about to give up what might be her last marathon (the Marine Corps). So she ran it on Sunday, October 28, 2007 - finishing in respectable 3:24:49 - and went in for reconstructive surgery four days later. In retrospect, McMahon calls her decision to run "probably the worst mistake I have ever made."
The surgery involved drilling tiny holes in the bone, in the hope that this would spur the regrowth of cartilage. It had only a 25 percent chance of success, and to achieve that she had to avoid putting weight on the foot for six weeks.
"I was a mess," she says of her resulting emotional state. "Just devastated that I'd gone from being a marathon runner to being completely helpless."
Like all folks who have represented the United States in their sport, McMahon has some intimidating red-white-and-blue clothing. But when she ran recently with a group in Portland, she was more prone to wearing red-and-white with a maple leaf, reflecting the Canadian flag and her time at the Worlds in Montreal.
"There's a big party after the race," she says, "and everybody exchanges clothes. I swapped a lot of my U.S. gear for foreign gear. At one time, I had a South African jacket."
In her third trip to the Worlds, in 1999, McMahon didn't get sick. But she was training at close to pro levels, while holding down a demanding job. That, in fact, was why she switched her primary focus to marathons, running a 3:15 in her debut race at the 2000 Chicago Marathon.
"I was really burned out," she says of her last season of serious triathlon racing. "I was either training all the time or working. I look back on my training logs and wonder how I ever had time. I was up every morning doing something. Almost every day, I was doing two [workouts]."
The exception was Monday, which she always took off.
"I never understood people who tried to train seven days a week. Monday was my recovery day. My coach was adamant about that," says McMahon.
It wasn't overtraining, though, that did in her ankle. It was simply not realizing the damage done by the sprains.
"If someone had done an MRI [in high school]," she says with the benefit of hindsight, "they might have said stop running, to allow it to heal."
Similarly, if she had realized the extent of the damage the second time, she might have prolonged her career by abandoning the marathon for shorter distances.
Unfortunately, the hole-drilling surgery didn't work, and now McMahon is looking at a second surgery late this summer. It will be much more invasive than the first surgery, requiring the doctor to break her fibula in order to access the defect on the outside (lateral) of her talus bone where the defect is located.
There's a chance it won't work either; in which case, she's out of options because full ankle-replacement surgery is still in its infancy.
McMahon is preparing herself mentally for either outcome.
"If I can just go out and run four to five miles a couple of times a week, I will be the most excited person in the world. Marathons are out, but I can do triathlons again," she says
If the second surgery doesn't work? Well-meaning friends have tried to convince her she can always walk or play golf, but the only way exercise truly makes her happy is if she can break a sweat and get her heart rate elevated.
"I've struggled a little, trying to redefine myself," she says. "I'm trying to convince myself I'm going to be a cyclist."
But other than wishing she had known more as a teenager about ankles and articular cartilage, she has no regrets.
"I wouldn't have traded it for all the world," she says.
McMahon does have advice, though, for anyone who sprains an ankle.
"If you just go to a regular physician, they don't look for things like articular cartilage damage. They're looking for broken bones. It's worth going to a sports-medicine physician."
Better yet is prevention, which involves monotonous ankle-strengthening exercises such as drawing the alphabet in the air with your toes - plus taking the time and money to get good, stable running shoes.
McMahon has a good job and will finish an MBA in December, but competitive endurance sports are what provide her sense of identity.
"It's who I am," she says. "I was a runner. I was a triathlete. I don't think I realized what I got out of it until I couldn't do it anymore."
Hopefully, the second surgery will be successful and McMahon will be back in action. But for the moment, she has a very simple message: "Had I known all those years ago how important strong ankles were, I wouldn't be in this position."
Editor's Note: Christie McMahon is engaged to Tom Malchow, 31, a 2000 Olympic Gold Medalist in the 200-meter butterfly and former world-record holder. Malchow, a sales person for orthopedic implants in Seattle, and McMahon are planning a summer wedding prior to her second surgery.
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"Starting Line" by Richard A. Lovett 
