Sometimes you have to do whatever it takes to cross the finish line, even if it means a broken bone or two. That’s exactly what happened to German runner Sam Parsons this past weekend at the German Athletics Championships in Kassel.
Parsons took a tumble and landed on his hand while attempting to lean at the men’s 5,000-meter finish line to fend off competitor Aaron Bienenfeld. An X-ray later revealed that Parsons broke his scaphoid, a tiny bone located below the base of the thumb that is crucial for both motion and stability of the wrist.
A photo shared on social media shows Parsons’ outstretched arm as he attempted to cross the finish line before stumbling and landing awkwardly on the hand. As the old saying goes, no pain, no gain, because Parsons managed to take home third place in the event, besting Bienenfeld by .01 seconds and finishing the race in 13:37.99.
“Fractured my scaphoid at the end of the event last weekend,” Parsons captioned a photo of the X-ray on his Twitter. “Frustrating, but it is what it is.”
While many runners experience injuries like stress fractures in their feet, knee injuries, and hamstring pulls, hand injuries are a little less common but can be no less impairing. Typically, the recovery timeframe for a scaphoid fracture is around three months, but in some cases, surgery is needed to place a screw to help hold the bone in place.
“I really left it all out there today in the heat—so I’m proud of that effort. I know I have a lot to improve upon before the long summer of racing ahead,” Parsons said in an Instagram post recapping the race.
Laura Ratliff is a New York City-based writer, editor, and runner. Laura's writing expertise spans numerous topics, ranging from travel and food and drink to reported pieces covering political and human rights issues. She has previously worked at Architectural Digest, Bloomberg News, and Condé Nast Traveler and was most recently the senior editorial director at TripSavvy. Like many of us, Laura was bitten by the running bug later in life, after years of claiming to "hate running." Her favorite marathon is Big Sur.
