Throughout my recovery I adhered 100 percent to my doctor’s orders except one. With a 200-mile, 20,000-vertical-foot, across-the-West mountain bike ride to train for, I needed to get my heart and lungs pumping harder again. The only way to train those organs is to put in the time.

Our feet are amazing and complex. Each has 26 bones and 33 joints, of which 20 actively articulate. A foot has more than a hundred muscles, tendons and ligaments. With all those mechanics built to support 200 or more pounds, how could something not go wrong once you’ve broken it, drilled through it or added hardware to it?

On June 2, 2018, I over rotated while doing a front flip on a trampoline and sustained a moderate Lisfranc fracture that merited open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) surgery. This is the story of my journey from injury to recovery: how I planned, what I learned, and how I stayed motivated to overcome this potentially debilitating foot fracture.