25🇬🇧 | The Summer Chase
After two months of silence and two bone marrow edemas, it's time for an update. What happened, where things stand today, and what remains of the chase for this season.
00. Two months of silence
When things are going well, I always promise myself that I’ll keep writing this blog consistently. I tell myself that this story deserves to be told in full, not just the good parts. It should be told when training is going well, when results are coming and also when nothing seems to be moving in the direction you had planned.
But when things are going well, everything feels easier.
The reality is that since mid-April, those things have stopped going well. And, as a consequence, I stopped telling the story.
Over the last two months, I’ve sat down in front of my computer several times with the intention of writing. I wanted to tell the story of Plan A falling apart and of trying to navigate without a clear map, just figuring things out day by day.
I couldn’t do it.
01. Problem number one
the first issue showed up during the second week of April.
At first, it was just a small discomfort around the first metatarsal of my left foot. It lasted for a few days but it wasn’t particularly concerning. We kept an eye on it and I continued training as usual until, all of a sudden, it got worse after a Saturday lactate session, turning into a much sharper pain.
A quick off-topic note: we’re talking about Saturday - April 5th - and this was the workout in question. In my opinion, it was a very good session and said a lot about the shape I was in at the time, especially considering it was still early April.
Saturday 04.04
- 15' activation, dynamic stretching, and mobility
- 10' easy warm-up run (Z1)
- About 40' of drills and strides
- 3 x 300 aerobic activation in roughly 58", off 1'
Then the workout:
• 2 x 500, off 1’45”
- 3’ break
• 2 x 500, off 2’15”
- 4’ break
• 2 x 500, off 3’
- 10’ break
• 1 x 500
Laps:
• 1’18”73 - 1’19”75
• 1’17”54 - 1’16”86
• 1’16”59 - 1’16”08
• 1’05”60 ( 13”13 - 12”94 - 13”55 - 12”96 - 13”02 )
After that workout, I underwent an MRI scan. The diagnosis was bone edema at the base of the first metatarsal.
Two weeks without running.
Fortunately, we managed the situation without too many setbacks and before long I was back training, gradually building up again between April 24th and May 7th.
And that’s exactly when the second problem showed up. A much more annoying one than the first.
02. Problem number two
On a fairly ordinary day, at the end of a threshold workout — 3'30" blocks, not even wearing carbon-plated shoes — I felt some discomfort on the inside of my ankle. The area was swollen and, honestly, not particularly nice to look at.
My first thought was: this must be inflammation of the flexor hallucis longus tendon sheath, or one of the other toe flexor tendons that run right through that area. It seemed like the most obvious explanation.
Over the following days, however, the symptoms didn’t really match that kind of issue. More importantly, I started feeling that very specific kind of pain associated with bone injuries — something I’ve unfortunately become quite good at recognizing.
Another MRI. Another bone edema. This time, it was located in the posterior process of the talus.
Here I have to mention and thank dr. Diego Gaddi - orthopedic specialist - not only for his outstanding expertise but, even more importantly, for his humanity and the way he works with elite athletes, whose needs are often very different from those of ordinary patients.
The posterior process of the talus is a rather unusual location for a bone edema in a runner. It’s an area more commonly affected in sports that involve repeated impacts while the foot is in extreme plantar flexion. In other words, situations where the foot spends a lot of time in a “dancing” position.
I won’t go into the technical details. What matters is that on May 10th, I stopped running for the second time.
And that’s how we arrive at today.
03. This Was Supposed to Be the All-In Season
Anyone who reads this blog and knows me knows that this was supposed to be — actually, still is — the all-in season.
All or nothing.
Because another year running 1:46 doesn’t really do anything for me.
So, finding myself in this situation at the beginning of June means being a long way from the all-in scenario we had imagined and planned.
To be honest, for the first time I’m not tearing myself apart day after day because of it, and for that I have to thank Federico, my mental coach. We’ve finally managed to become more professional — or maybe more human — in this respect as well.
What does that mean? It means that for the first time I’m dealing with an injury calmly, without those waves of anger, panic, and despair that come when you feel your season and your goals slipping through your fingers like water you can’t hold onto.
I even wondered whether this attitude meant I simply didn’t care as much anymore. Spoiler: the answer is no. I’ve simply learned to embrace a concept that had never truly become mine before: athlete-Jacopo is only one part of human-Jacopo.
I’m doing everything I can to keep moving forward day after day and to control everything that can be controlled: hard cross-training sessions, rehab work, recovery rides on the bike, and so on.
Over the last few months, one sentence has been following me around and slowly becoming a mantra:
It’s not over until it’s over.
There’s also another thought. For now, it’s simply there. I’m not judging it as positive or negative. I’m just acknowledging its existence and, every now and then, trying to examine it. It’s the possibility of walking away from this pursuit of elite athletics if, over the next two months, the all-in season ends up falling apart completely.
For the first time, that thought doesn’t create anxiety or despair. It simply presents an option that I’m willing to consider.
Mostly because I’ve realized that seasons like this one — seasons where reality drifts far away from the original plan — are psychologically exhausting.
It’s exhausting to keep pushing. It’s exhausting to stay motivated. It’s exhausting to keep believing that alternative training will eventually pay off and that the result will come anyway. It’s exhausting to pay for one MRI, then another, then another specialist appointment. It’s exhausting to watch everyone else racing while you’re standing still. And it’s exhausting to make sure that problems in athletics don’t spill over into the rest of your life, flatten your emotions, and turn the world around you gray when sport is going badly and HDR-bright when it’s going well.
At thirty years old, I can honestly say that I’m tired of spending so much energy trying to keep all the pieces of the puzzle together. Especially in a sport where it’s never enough, a discipline where even dropping two seconds and running 1:44 would probably change nothing. Because the world keeps running faster, and the cycle keeps feeding itself.
It’s not a pleasant thing to say. Maybe it even goes against the very essence of sport. But I think I’ve almost run out of patience for injuries and setbacks.
I’ve been through too many of them and I’m realizing that there’s so much beauty around me, so much worth experiencing and building with my wife, my family and my friends, that I’m no longer willing to keep going through this over and over again.
Either things work smoothly for the next two or three seasons leading up to 2028, or I think I’m getting close to the limit of my patience. I’m no longer willing to keep trying to stay afloat in the mess that injuries bring.
Don’t get me wrong. When things work and everything falls into place, I still believe track and field is the most beautiful thing in the world. The problem is being willing to live with the other side of the coin. The dark side.
And for the first time, that’s exactly what I’m questioning.
Thank you!
This blog is the diary of my attempt to live athletics — and to live from athletics — to run two laps as fast as I possibly can. I share it with transparency, no filters.
All of this is possible thanks to those who believe in the project and choose to stand by my side, taking this leap with me. Thank you from the heart!
04. Books
I’ll just leave this period’s book here, without any description or commentary. I devoured it.
05. Quick thoughts before they slip away
01 | Trail Meets Track
Andrea Barra and I have launched a new podcast. Have you listened to it yet?
Track athletes rarely venture into the world of ultrarunning. Trail runners often look at track and field as something distant, highly technical, almost alien. And yet, they’re two sides of the same obsession: running, suffering and spending years building something with no guarantees.
Trail Meets Track was born from a simple question: What happens when these two worlds sit down and talk?
We’ll explore the differences and similarities between track and trail running: training, mindset, culture and the people who shape these sports.
The idea is simple: to give ultrarunning fans a window into the world of track and field and track fans a doorway into the trails.
Two sports that don’t know each other well enough and that probably have far more to say to each other than it might seem.
06. The bell lap
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Thanks for reading!
Jacopo
🫀
