Larimer News

Greeley Tribune recently issued the following announcement.

For most of the 25 years Katie Lyons has been alive, she hasn’t had to question how she might move forward.

Rather, she has only questioned how quickly she can move forward.

Whether running or skiing, Lyons has been in constant competition with other high-level athletes.

But for much of the past few years, her most daunting challenger was her own mind and body.

Lyons — a 2014 Greeley West High School graduate — tore her anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in March 2020.

She wasn’t able to have surgery immediately, as elective surgeries were on hold because of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. But in May 2020, she returned to Greeley from Crested Butte — where she now lives — and was operated on by Banner Health orthopedic surgeon Dr. Steven Sides.

By October 2021 — after about nine months of intense rehabilitation — Lyons was back to racing at a high level, as she competed in the Crested Butte UltraMarathon. She completed the 47-mile race in less than nine hours, placing 11th overall and becoming the first female finisher in the event’s history.

However, Lyons’ 16-month trek from having ACL surgery to making history at the Crested Butte UltraMarathon was far from a simple Point-A-to-Point-B journey.

“As far as mental hurdles, the toughest thing for me was just being forced to be still and not running every day or skiing every day,” Lyons said. “It was really difficult for me to just focus on trying to bend my knee at 90 degrees 10 times in a row, and just doing all the exercises that my physical therapist gave to me.

“Physical activity has always been such an outlet for not just physical health but also for mental health. So it was really tough during those first few weeks when I was being told, literally, ‘We don’t even want you to walk down the block.'”

The moment Lyons tore her ACL could best be described as a freak accident — often the case for this type of injury.

She suffered the injury during a backcountry skiing and avalanche safety course.

“I was just skiing,” Lyons recalls. “Unfortunately, the snow that we were on was really kind of crusty and icy. In the backcountry ski world, we just call that ‘breakable crust snow.’ I took a really sharp turn, and my skis kind of punched through the snow, and I twisted at the knee. That’s when I knew it happened.”

And in that moment the injury occurred, a myriad of thoughts rushed through Lyons’ mind.

“After it happened, I was kind of just shocked about it,” she said. “But I wasn’t upset until I realized I wouldn’t have a summer of running and training in the mountains that year. That’s when I was a lot more upset about it — just realizing the injury had happened but what was going to take a really long time was the rehabilitation and getting back to that point of just being able to run super far and ski in the mountains.”

Lyons was a talented cross country and track runner at Greeley West High School. She went on to compete in college at Western Colorado University in Gunnison.

She has engineered a successful career as a competitive runner and skier, while also serving as an assistant and an interim director of marketing communications at Western Colorado.

Even with all her experience finishing toward the front of the pack in races, when the injury first occurred, Lyons questioned whether she would ever be able to move quite the same again.

Some athletes return from ACL injuries faster and stronger than ever. Others are never quite the same.

Lyons was hoping she wouldn’t fall into the latter group.

“I did have a couple of days where I was kind of mopey about it. … It was almost something I thought would be career-ending,” she said. “But then, I just told myself, ‘I’m gonna get back to it. I want to go even further than where I’m at right now. It’s going to take some time. It’s going to take a lot of effort. But I’m ready to put in that work.'”

In the months between first injuring her knee and having Sides perform the surgery, Lyons received permission from her doctor to continue to run — with no ACL in her left knee — as long as she wore a leg brace.

She strengthened the knee as much as possible to prepare for the surgery and the road back to complete health.

She overcame a sizable mental hurdle when she was able to get back on skis again nine months after the surgery.

Now, just more than two years after first sustaining the injury, Lyons has no doubt elevated her performances, running and skiing through majestic, mountainous terrains.

A year after the injury, Lyons and her boyfriend, Garrett Eggers, hiked the Colorado Trail, 500 miles through the mountains from Denver to Durango — a hike that took about a month.

After that, Lyons competed, and excelled, in the nearly 50-mile Crested Butte UltraMarathon.

A couple weeks ago, Lyons and Eggers completed a 40-mile backcountry ski race from Crested Butte to Aspen.

“I’ve just been very cautious in the backcountry since the injury happened,” Lyons said. “But being able to complete that race and have my knee feel great the whole time just really confirmed to me that I’m back. I’ve made it back to the level that I want to be at. And it just makes me want to set my goals higher.”

Original source can be found here.