Discussion: Does antone else think this is normal?

Turtle Girl (Paulette) won't be able to adventure race at least until late next year. They keep finding more broken vertebra. So she has decided to do a 100 mile trail race. Her reasoning is that, 1 it is only 30 hours 2the trail is marked and 3 you don't have to carry any thing with you. How hard can it be?
The weird thing is that makes sense to me.

It makes sense if the docs don't think all that trail running (not just the race but the training too) will be too risky as her vertebrae heal. Trail running involves the occasional face plant after tripping over a tree root or rock, especially at night. I can totally understand her motivation but when the spinal cord is so close, I'd be cautious and get a medical OK first. I'd choose a physician who does outdoor sports, of course!

In spite of it being an upper body/core thing, I wonder if a long kayak race would be less risky? No impact.

A kayak race would be just as risky, the rotation of the torso could cause problems. The IDEA of doing any race with this sort of problem for this crowd of people I think is somewhat normal, the ultra athlete tends to have a few screws loose somewhere! But doing anything extreme with any sort of fractured vertebrae is probably not the wisest thing.

If the pieces are off or are around the transverse processes (sides) then that will cause problems with side bending. If closer to the spine then rotation, flexion and extension. And that is just movement, never mind the risk to the cord...

If she was my patient I'd probably tell her to volunteer. :(

Lots of luck. She is a nurse practitioner and knows whats what. But not doing anything is worse. She just goes until she is sore and stops,
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Looking for a good HQ staff-member to add to the Untamed team next June, Randy...