David Goggins Thought He'd Never Run Again

People think that my knees are bad from a lot of running. And they're wrong. I wasn't born healthy. I wasn't born with some great body alignment, some great, you know, I have sickle cell, I have all kind of shit. I have all kind of health issues, you know, all kind of, I'm fucked up. So I had a choice to make. And the choice was, you know, growing up, you know, okay, this hurts, that hurts. We can just sit down and do nothing. Or we can see how far we can push the human body. So on that journey, as I started getting more and more into my mind and started realizing that while, what I'm capable of doing, my mind got stronger. So the pain in my knees, while it sucked, I've been doing it for so long. It was like it became my new norm. Like, okay, my knees hurt, fuck it. Stop, you know, and I call it like, stop feeling sorry for yourself. But you sometimes have to ignore your feelings. I'm not sending Jamie a picture of your knee. Oh, no, dude, I think Jamie has some. Do you have a picture of his knee, Jamie? Did I ever send it to you, Jamie? I have it here, hold on. Let me just, but keep going. No, so it's like, for me, I made the decision. And my decision was to be the best person I could. And I basically, a lot more is I wake up and say, fuck your feelings. And that doesn't mean like, you know, don't take it literally, fuck your feelings. But sometimes you have to go beyond what you're feeling. And my knees were fucked, but guess what? I wanted to run. And I knew that, okay, you can get knee replacements, this and that. Like I said, it wasn't because of I ran too much. People always want to say, oh, man, you ran so much, so you fucked up your body. You know, you don't want to be like David Goggins. I hit it all the time. You don't want to be like David Goggins. So there's your knee. Yeah, there it is. So that's the place. Look at the fact that there's zero space between those bones. Yes, sir. From the top, from your tibia to your femur, there's zero space. It's just knee cap covering two bones that are rubbing against each other. And so this was after surgery where they had to cut your knee, slice your shin like in half, and then take a chunk out of it because it had deformed so much from you running with bone on bone that it was starting to swell out in one direction. It was changing the alignment of your leg. Right. This happened back in 2000. 2001 was going through buds. So this happened for a long. This right here has been going on for a long time. And it got to a point where it's like, okay, I'm done. And I have to play this in there right now. So as you see the wedge, that part right there in the bone that's opened up. So then to cut it, realign it, and then now the alignment's better. But this is now about 17 months ago, 17, 18 months ago when this happened. So could I get some screws that fit? Go back to that real quick. What's up? The one that sticks right out of the fucking bone. Hey, cut that shit off. Yeah, fire that shit down. Is that thing sticking in your leg? No, I don't. Well, I feel the plate every single time I move. Yeah. So every time. So because it's like connected to the hamstring. So whenever I fucking, whenever I move, that plate is very irritating. So every step, even like when I walk, when I run, it's this very irritating thing. And then you got to wait for so long for that leg to start getting back into place. And if you see that other picture I sent of the foam, my foam leg that I put my hand in, I think Jennifer sent it to you, Jamie, with the foam leg. You'll see this in a second. This is fucked up. So like the swelling in that leg was fucking nuts. Oh, when you had edema? Yeah. You showed it to me in Vegas. Yeah. You were sticking your thumb into your shoe. I grabbed it. Yeah. Yeah, so it was pretty nuts. But you know, once again, it's just things you, things I was willing to endure to get, yeah, I see it right there. So that's just all post-surgery swelling. Yeah. So when the doctor said this to you and he said, look, this is how fucked up your knee is, did he say you need a replacement? What was he saying? Basically, I had two options. So I went to the first guy, had the surgery done. That's in the book. I talked about that. But then the second guy, so after the first surgery, I was done. So this is the first surgery after Buds? No. So this is like back in, looking at 2000. So me and Cameron, this is recently. So I didn't have any surgery going through Buds. Really? I didn't have any surgery at all. So I went through, in 2001, I fucked up. 2000, 2001, whatever it was, I messed up my leg real bad and hell week, kept on going on it. Just kept on going. What did you do to it in hell week? It was like, I fucked it up somehow, like running or whatever, I happened and it can't hurt me. But it was, I think the boat, I fell, it twisted, but over a period of time, it got worse and worse and worse. I tore it all shots every day and then this got worse. But I'm like, fucking, I'm good. So I kept going on it. So it kind of healed all fucked up. So this kept going, kept going, kept going years later, years later, it's kept going on it. So I stopped squatting. So it became like, okay, my knees fucked up, my limous messed up, my hips are messed up, I can't squat. So I can still run. So okay, I started running because running doesn't require you to bend down and shit. So I'm running a lot and they got to 20 years later pretty much. And it was 2020. I don't get this right. Cameron Haynes came down, we went for a 20 mile run. My knees were fucked up for like 10 years. Long story short, it was like, okay, man, I got to get this thing looked at. So when God looked at the dock was like, oh, we can go in there and just do a quick little fucking cleanup job. And the cleanup job went so quick. I was breaking tools and shit, fucking up, like literally broke tools and I have it in there. He was breaking tools. I talked to him. I know. He told me your meniscus was the hardest meniscus he's ever experienced in his life. He's like, dude, he goes, I didn't know that meniscus could get that way. He goes like, he's not human. He goes when I was cutting into meniscus, it broke the scalpel. Yep. Wolf's lost in joke. He said, Wolf's lost something. Yeah. Normally when you cut into meniscus, it just slices right through like butter. He's like, I couldn't cut it. Yeah, mine went butter. Mine went butter. So all those motherfuckers who think I'm going to put them hundred mile weeks, go fuck yourself, bitch. You don't get no shit like that, baby, by sitting on the fucking couch. No, I mean, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard. Like you've hardened your meniscus just through constant pressure and pounding. Yeah. So he went in there to clean it up. And then what happened? So basically that little meniscus, that whatever the fuck was in there. My alignment was so bad. The only thing that was keeping me able to do anything was that little fucked up messed up meniscus. It was all jarred up and jacked up. But the second that thing got out, dude, it was like I was, have you seen Star Wars, those storm things, those big fucking things that they called, they have wobbly legs and they hit like logs. The robot things. Yeah, the robot things. I saw my leg was, it had nothing. It was just like a little dangling fucking like so from my knee down, the shin, the tip fib, it just dangled. Like there was nothing. And I was like, okay, man, this is. So it was worse after the cleanup. Much worse. Like I was done. I went from running 200 miles to, I did 240 mile race in 2020, October of 2020. It was Moab. Went out there, got second place, 62 hours, knee was fucked up, getting it drained before the fucking race. But I still ran 240 miles. Literally five or six days before the race, I'm getting it drained. And it was a baseball size fucking, it's called a baker's assist. So they drained it and I went in there and did the race, finished it. And I was like, okay, here we go. Went on to do some more races. I did like another 200 miler, did a couple more races. And then I could say a camp came down. But after that, I went and got this surgery done. I went from running every day to now I have some fucking legs that just dangles. And after that surgery, this fucking dangle. And I was like, okay, man, I'm fucked. And just from that little piece of meniscus. Just that little piece of meniscus. And I'm still thinking, okay, man, this is not, this doesn't make any sense to me. This is something fucked. I don't understand why. I can't, I can't put any pressure on my leg. The amount of blood they were taking out was unbelievable. So there was the blood right there. Jesus Christ. That's the blood, dude. Oh my God, it was one, two, three, four, five, six. And you see the black blood? Yeah. That is deoxygenated blood. So whatever was going on, whatever the fuck was going on. That's why it looks different colors. So the red blood is the blood that has oxygen. That's right. And that was just like coagulated, just fucked up blood. Yep. Jesus. Yeah. So after surgery, I'm like seven days out of whatever the fuck it was. And once again, I don't know the exact times, but I have them in the book. I have everything fucking dialed in. I went back and I was like, man, I'm fucked up. I mean, it's a simple meniscus surgery, man. Like people go back a week later, they're playing two weeks, three weeks tops. I'm like, man, I'm never going to fucking run again. I'm going to walk with a fucking limp. So I'm going back and I'm getting fucking like literally getting my knee drained every week, getting PRP. I'm like, man, but in the back of my mind, I know how far I can push myself. I know my body so fucking well, so well. And I'm like, this is, this is wrong. I go, I'm never going to run again. I'm never going to run again. I walk with a limp. So this went off about six, six months. So I had the surgery done in February. It was February, March, April, May, June, about four months, four months after surgery, four or five months. I'm like, hey, Jennifer, I got to find another, you know, somebody else looking at my fucking knee. So I try to keep my shit together. But imagine when you go from every day of your fucking life grinding and you go to nothing, like literally like 90 minute surgery done. That's crazy that it was just a little meniscus scope. 90 minute surgery done. And I was like, okay, man, this is anyway. So I found this guy named Dr. Gamal out of New York and we fly there, but I'm like, he can't fix this man because I knew it was a lot more than knees. It was all kind of this fucked up body shit. And I walk in the office and he decides to see me and me and Jennifer and Jennifer's happy. She's happy as shit. It's like, oh my God, man, this guy's going to be able to get you a fucking meniscus replacement. He was all kind of gurued out. But I'm a realist, bro. I will push myself and I will go as far as I can. But I also am a realist. I also knew the back of my mind, I'm not going to try to ruin your fucking party, Jennifer. I'm saying myself, but this shit's done. It's over. So I went just to pretty much appease her and just see if we know there's anything left. So I walk in the office and the doc's like, uh, yeah, I'm looking at your x-rays. And that's the doctor who's like, I don't know how this is when the Dr. Gamal looking up world renowned motherfucker dude. And this guy looked at me straight faced. He said, man, I don't know how you did anything with those knees, anything, let a little run 200 miles back to back 240 miles. Where the fuck you did? I don't know how you did it. And so I'm like, okay, whatever. Can we get it fixed? And he didn't want to get there because he knew I was fucked. He's like, no, you know, we, we can maybe try and unload a brace. Maybe an unload a brace will help you out. What's an unload a brace? So basically my knee went in on the meniscus side on the inside. So it was like jamming on the inside. So this brace kind of like, it kind of helps realign the knee a little bit so then you cannot have so much pressure on the inside of your leg. So that's it right there. So on one side. Yeah. So basically I'm like, man, I'm like, okay, I'm not. So this is all you have for me. I'm like, you can't do shit for me. And he was like, um, no. And he was walking out of the office and he could tell. I was like, I wasn't too fucked up, but I was like, cause I kind of was preparing myself for the next part of my journey. I don't like to lay in my shit too long. And I give myself a couple of minutes to, okay, we got man to fuck up. We got to get back in this fucking like, what's next? You know, let's go, let's go see what, you know, let's, let's go back to college. Let's do something cause you're, you're running and your athletic career is done. So he got the door, you opened it. And as he was literally, he was shouldered out the motherfucking door. And I'm looking at Jennifer. I'm like, well, you know, we'll go back to fucking, you know, go back to Nevada and fucking start again. And he was like, try the unload a brace out and there's one more thing we could possibly do for you. And I'm like, motherfucker, like, get your little muck your fucking ass back in here, bro. Like, what is it? Like, like, like what the fuck's going on? So he was like, yeah, there's this surgery called HTO. He was like, you can go in, we can fucking, you know, pretty much break your tibia. It's called high tibia otheotomy. They go in and they break your tibia. They slice into it and they wedge it to the point where they realign your leg back up. It's a very painful surgery. It's very painful afterwards, painful as fuck afterwards. And they put that plate, the plate you saw back on and then your leg is so so your knee is still where it was because this doesn't get fixed. So it takes several months for that knee to start working its way back into where the alignment is. So now my leg is just now. So here it is. See it on the image. Yeah. So they take a slice out of it because it's deformed. Yep. And that slice lowers the part that's deformed and tries to make it a more natural shape. But you're still dealing with bone on bone. So you're still dealing with the pain of arthritis, essentially. Because do you have any cartilage in your knees? Not much. Not much at all, if any. So the thing about it, it takes that pressure off of that. So it was complete bone on bone. Right. What that surgery does is it takes it over to the lateral side.