The Fall And Rise Of Dave Mackey

The ultrarunner who decided that to be the man he was, he’d have to lose his leg

The astonishing story of how an ultrarunner lost his leg so he could live – and run – again

DAVE MACKEY’S LEFT LEG NEVER

had a chance. While he was scrambling down from a local peak on May 23, 2015, a loose rock sent him crashing 50 feet down a wall of scree before it landed on his left leg and smashed his tibia into eight pieces. That was just the first strike against it.

The second was that the 140kg rock that had snapped his tibia like kindling also tore his skin open as it landed. A friend at the scene described it as ‘ bones sticking out everywhere’. Muscle and bone were open to the elements, which led to a string of infections and brutal rounds of antibiotics. Surgery after surgery, the leg wouldn’t, couldn’t, heal. The third strike against the leg was Dave Mackey himself. Rocks may be tough, but Dave Mackey is tougher.

Just after dawn on August 18, 2018, 48-year-old Mackey emerges from a trail in the San Isabel National Forest. He runs up a wide, dirt road at roughly 3,200m above sea level in Leadville, Colorado, US, with a slight hitch in his stride.

It’s Mackey’s third race in eight days. He finished a 100mile mountain bike event a week earlier and ran a trail 10K the next day. Earlier in July, he paired a 50-mile mountain bike race on a Saturday with a 50-mile ultrarun on a Sunday. And he started the summer by running a trail marathon with nearly 2,000m of elevation gain. Now, he’s about 20 miles into one of the toughest trail ultras on the planet, the Leadville Trail 100-Mile Run.

This barrage of events is the Leadman and Leadwoman Race Series. All six races start and

IN HIS EYES THERE’S NO HINT OF PAIN, SUFFERING OR SCARRING

finish in rugged, thin-aired Leadville (elevation 3,094m). Only about 100 hardened endurance athletes even attempt the challenge each year and fewer than half finish. Mackey’s done it before, in 2014. Before the accident. He came second. This year is very different. ‘Just 80 more to go,’ he quips as passes the aid station.

Mackey has the kind of ability that never leaves. Even during his 15 months of post-fall recovery, he wasn’t slow – he was just on a break.

In one way, he’s faster now. He finished 2018’s Leadville Trail 100 MTB race almost 18 minutes quicker than when he raced it in 2014, four years younger and on two good legs.

But these days, descents cost him time. It’s where he used to excel, his edge in races. As competitors picked their way down anklebreaking trails, Mackey danced over them with the skill and speed of an ibex. Now down to just one nimble foot, he steps more cautiously; but to be clear, it’s not slow.

But even a slower Mackey is fast, because finishing a 100-mile ultra to cap off a series of events all at above 2,700m requires – more than anything – that you keep moving forward. That’s never stopped being his greatest strength.

Almost two years after his amputation, you can’t say he’s moved on – part of his leg will always be missing – but he has absolutely moved forward. See him off the trails and it’s difficult to tell it even happened, at least when trousers cover the prosthetic.

In his eyes there’s no hint of pain, suffering or scarring. His stance is comfortable and relaxed. And he talks about his accident with the logic of an actuary. If he’d had his accident in his 20s, he says, he’d be devastated. His 70s or 80s would be better, he adds, but 40s isn’t bad. Is he joking? Yes, and no.

His experience working as a doctor’s assistant provides vital context. From his job, Mackey knows bad. Losing a leg is a challenge, he says, but not bad, especially if it's below the knee. A stroke, he says, is bad. A freak accident, such as becoming a quadriplegic, is bad. He, on the other hand, has a challenge.

The accident freed Mackey from the requirements of fighting to be the fastest at every event. No longer gunning for wins and records, he doesn’t do speed workouts anymore. That’s fine by him, as he never liked them anyway. Now he revels in what he considers junk miles. Running for running’s sake, he says, smiling. But he is still fast.

Mackey’s hindsight about that May day is crystal clear. He could have noticed that the recent spring rains had softened the mountain scree. He could have seen that other rocks had moved. And he could have used two hands, instead of one, to steady himself.

Mackey had left his home in Boulder, Colorado, on a damp morning to run to the summit of South Boulder Peak, follow a ridgeline to the top of Bear Peak, and then tag the Green Mountain summit. The route, he estimates, ‘is probably a 15-17-mile loop. I don’t track any of that stuff.’

As he began his descent of Bear Peak, Mackey stepped on a giant rock – one he says he’d stepped on hundreds of times before. The rock moved and the ground shifted, caving in beneath him. He clawed at stones and brush to stop the fall, but nothing held. He tumbled down the steep, rocky slope. When he finally came to a stop, he was on his back, and the enormous rock was pinning that left leg to the ground.

Later, Mackey will say that the rock landing on his leg was lucky: it could have crushed his head or chest. He’s earnest, but after a pause, his dry humour adds, ‘Or it could have missed me entirely.’

Paul Gross, a friend, was out for his own trail run when he heard Mackey yelling. ‘ I saw Dave, on his back, with his head on the edge of a drop- off,’ says Gross. ‘And then I saw the massive rock.’

After calling the emergency services, Gross used a branch as a lever to lift the rock off Mackey’s shattered leg. Mackey saw bone everywhere, and exposed muscle. Nonetheless, the grim sight was reassuring. A medical professional, he noted a lack of pooling blood. That told him he was going to live.

Lucid despite the fall and the pain, Mackey told Gross to hold the leg in traction. That required pulling the leg down from below the fracture to realign the bones and relax the muscles. ‘ I could feel the bones grinding,’ says Gross. ‘ Dave was screaming in pain.’

More runners and rescuers, including 24 volunteer members of the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group, arrived at the scene. They administered IV painkillers and ketamine before Gross straightened Mackey’s leg. The team placed the leg in an extremity splint, and then put Mackey in a full-body vacuum splint, secured to a steel litter.

A precarious evacuation ensued, with anchored ropes and careful hands carrying Mackey’s stretcher away from the drop-off and down the steep, rocky slopes to the trailhead. Mackey describes this part as surreal. Packaged in the litter and covered with a heat blanket and sleeping bag, he remembers watching the sky and trees pass above.

‘ I would call it a calming experience,’ he says. ‘Compared with the prior hours, it was pretty soothing.’

Four hours after his fall, Mackey reached the trailhead, where his wife, Ellen, was waiting for him. ‘ I was so surprised he was talking,’ she says. ‘ You could see the exposed muscle and bone...the way he was so calm was odd to me.’

Mackey was then rushed to the Boulder Community Hospital, where he was stabilised and sent on to a specialist hospital in Denver, where he underwent his first of 14 surgeries.

IN THE BALANCE

DESPITE EXCELLING at a sport that requires hours of silent, solo training, Dave Mackey is by no means a self- obsessed athlete. Before the accident, he would wake up at 4am to train on the bike or on foot to be back in time to walk the kids to school.

And when asked about his desire to return to running, Mackey clarifies that ‘running isn’t everything’. Though he admits it is in his Top Five. Also in his Top Five are his daughter Ava, 10, son Connor, 8, wife Ellen, 48, and his career.

Mackey once competed in a six-day, 300km snowshoe race in –37C temperatures. The prize was a winner-takes-all one-carat diamond worth about £8,500. He describes his motivation to win as not to test himself or prove himself the fastest, but to justify his time away from his family. He understands he owes them for

this absence. When he returned, the prize was added to Ellen’s wedding bands.

One of Mackey’s biggest finishline smiles came on Father’s Day weekend, in 2018. As he approached the end of the first Leadman event, the trail marathon, Ava and Connor emerged from the crowd to pace him home. Mackey is usually smiling in race pictures. But it’s a hybrid grin-grimace, like he’s laughing at himself in acknowledgment of the grand absurdity of what he’s doing. With Ava and Connor beside him, his face relaxes and his eyes brighten. He’s really smiling.

He’s not one to focus on himself, says Ellen. Although he is the definition of a winner, a textbook champion, ‘he’s always rooted for the underdog’.

He gravitates toward jobs that help other people, she says. When he moved to Colorado, 26 years ago, Mackey worked at the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center, teaching athletes with disabilities how to ski. He’s also led wilderness courses for Outward Bound, worked as a rock-climbing guide and taught science and social studies at a high school in an underprivileged Denver neighbourhood.

Mackey consistently downplays his race achievements when he is interviewed. For every course record, he says, there was a DNF – Did Not Finish – which is probably an overstatement. Of course, his DNFS are not from a failing of will or strength. It’s a failing stomach, he says. Mackey always raced hard, but occasionally his stomach would shut down, close up, leaving liquid to slosh about and nutrients to sit unabsorbed.

Since he won’t crow over them, it’s worth noting that his course records have included the Quad Dipsea (28 miles, 2,800m of ascent), Waldo 100K, Headlands 50K, Bandera 100K, and a fastest-known-time for the Rim-to-rim-to-rim, crossing the Grand Canyon and back in just under seven hours. He has also won US trail-running championships at 50K and 50 miles.

Without meaning to, Mackey downplays his amputation, calling it ‘a hassle’. Following up for emphasis, he elevates it to ‘a real pain in the ass’.

His initial surgery wasn’t successful, owing to infection, so doctors removed pieces of bone and attached an external fixator, an unwieldy medical contraption that surrounded his entire lower leg, with screws extending from inside his leg bones to the framework of the device. He wore the cumbersome ‘ex-fix’ for the next three months, walking with crutches and a heavy limp, and often in pain.

‘ Wearing it was like an iron lung for the leg,’ he says. ‘Not pleasant to walk around in.’ More surgeries followed, with multiple bone, muscle and skin grafts. ‘ He wasn’t himself all that time,’ says Ellen. ‘ It was hard on all of us.’ Hard is relative. ‘Moments were hard,’ Mackey counters. ‘ It was definitely a funk during that first summer. In the autumn, the scar tissue in my leg was painful.’ He quickly adds, ‘ It wasn’t constant pain, on my back in agony. But it was frustrating, for sure.’

His friend and fellow racer Bob Africa saw Mackey’s frustration. ‘This guy who was always strong and durable, happy-go-lucky and goofy, is just hurting,’ he says. ‘There was a sadness. You could feel that he just wanted to get back to a sense of normality.’

More than a year after the fall, Mackey’s leg still wouldn’t heal, hampered by incessant infection. He couldn’t run, ski, climb or even walk his kids to school without limping in pain. The only future he saw for his leg was more hurt.

At around 4pm Mackey reaches Winfield Aid Station, the halfway turnaround point of the Leadville Trail 100. He doesn’t want to leave. But he’s blown, he tells Africa, his pacer. His quads, his hip flexors, they’re gone. He’s done, he’s not going to finish.

Africa knows Mackey and he knows he’s not done. So Africa begins a magic act, passing him ibuprofen, rubbing his legs, feeding him, getting him rehydrated. Body sated, Africa moves on to Mackey’s mind. ‘Just walk out of the aid station so everyone can cheer for you,’ he says, ‘and when we get around the corner, you can call it.’

Mackey agrees and starts walking. There’s a massive climb ahead, but uphills are easier, putting less pressure on his good leg. Mackey is building momentum at the Mile 55.5 Hope Pass Summit (elevation 3,840m) aid station, and they stop only long enough for Africa to refill their water.

At Mile 60, he’s rolling and there’s a cheering section staked out. Ellen, Ava, Connor and friends clap, hoot and cheer for him. And right there, 10 miles after begging to quit, he feels as if he has won the whole thing.

‘I WANTED TO BE AS FUNCTIONAL AS POSSIBLE AND NOT IN PAIN, FOR MY FAMILY’

The descents still hurt. His stump rubs with every step down the steep, rutted, loose-dirt roads. But over the climbs back to downtown Leadville, Mackey’s revival continues. At Mile 69 he’s passed 107 runners since Winfield, and by Mile 87, another 41 are behind him.

THE BIG DECISION

FIFTEEN MONTHS AFTER the accident, he didn’t have a left leg, he had an anchor. Whenever he tried to do something, he was met with pain holding him back. Under attack from infection, bone and muscle grafts couldn’t take. Scar tissue brought more hurt. Even the rod holding his tibia together failed. In September, 2016, after consulting surgical specialists and amputees, Mackey decided to have his left leg amputated below the knee. It wasn’t about running, he says. ‘ I wanted to be as functional as possible and not in pain, for my family.’

Ellen says, ‘As soon as he made the decision, I could see the relief on his face.’ Mackey agrees, saying it was a weight off his shoulders.

The night before surgery was Halloween. With his spirits and his humour returning, Mackey had a going-away party for his leg. He dressed as an old man with a cane and had friends sign his skin.

After the surgery, it took Mackey a year to relearn how to run. When asked about this challenge, he emphasises figuring out where his stump would blister, taping it just like he learned to tape his feet for ultras. He likens adapting from his 46-year- old lower left leg to a carbon prosthetic to swapping your old running shoes for a new pair that have a different heel drop. With practice, he says, muscles become used to it. He lost a quad muscle above the amputation, too, but his remaining muscles did adapt. ‘ I’d be a little more wobbly without it,’ he jokes.

The prosthetic is built for running; it’s a triangular carbon blade with an outsole glued to the bottom. To go for a run, he tapes up and then pulls a mesh sock over the rounded point below the knee. Over that, he slides a neoprene sleeve with the attachment socket. His cycling and walking prosthetics attach here, too. When he stands, the blade compresses under his weight. This is his leg now.

At 4:55:14am, on August 19, Mackey becomes the last runner to finish the 2018 Leadville Trail 100 in under 25 hours. That earns him the big finishers’ belt buckle. He smiles. He hugs Ellen. When the emcee asks for a few words about the race, he gives just that, grinning but deadpan: ‘ It was brutal.’

Hours later Mackey says, ‘ Well, I got my qualifier to Western States.’ He’s joking, but he will, in fact, later sign up for the California 100-miler. Days later, in interviews, he doesn’t downplay Leadman, calling his finish his ‘hugest achievement’. But he quickly adds that he hopes there’s something greater to come.

When asked why Leadman didn’t produce a teary finish-line moment, he does the emotional maths and replies, ‘ Death is something to cry over. Leadman is not, for me.’

He finished 12th in the Leadman series, far better than he expected, but he doesn’t act impressed with himself. He says his second-place Leadman in 2014 was more painful. His perception of pain, he tries to explain, is more abstract.

Anyway, he says, he’s a get-it-doneand-move-on kind of guy.