Katie's Story: Cartilage Restoration Surgery and the Road Back to Marathons

Katie is a mom of four and a serious runner — multiple Boston Marathons, 10-plus mile weekend long runs. Then she stepped out of her car after a run near Palisades and found her knee swollen to double its normal size.

An MRI sent her to Dr. Nathan Rencher, a fellowship-trained sports medicine orthopedic surgeon at Summit Orthopaedics in Idaho Falls. The imaging showed chondral defects — damage to the cartilage inside her knee. He started conservative: X-rays, anti-inflammatories, injections. None of it got her back to the level of activity she wanted.

Hearing that running was off the table hit hard. As Katie puts it, she went back to her car and bawled her eyes out. She was Katie — mom, coach, runner.

Dr. Rencher performed cartilage restoration on her left knee, taking cartilage plugs from another part of the joint and filling the defect. Recovery took months. Then her right knee started bothering her, and the MRI showed worse damage than the first side. That one called for MACI — a procedure where cartilage cells are harvested from the patient's own knee, grown into sheets in a laboratory, and implanted back into the joint, where the cartilage regrows over time.

Recovery took longer than she expected. A year and a half later she was running again. She ran the New York City Marathon in 2023, and Berlin this past fall — three marathons total, with times close to her much younger self.

Katie — Patient [0:00]
A weekend for me typically involves a long run, which would be probably 10-plus miles. I went on a 10-mile run, and I was actually on my way out to Palisades — I was on the board of a race. When I got out of the car, I just noticed that my knee was stiff, and I looked down and it was like double the size that it should have been. So when I got back from that weekend, I contacted another doctor and got an MRI, and she told me I needed to see Dr. Rencher.

Dr. Nathan Rencher, DO — Orthopedic Surgeon, Summit Orthopaedics [0:35]
I first met Katie when she came into my office complaining of knee pain. We talked about her goals, what she wanted to accomplish, and what she was unable to accomplish because of this pain. We did the standard workup. We checked X-rays to see if there was anything going wrong. We tried some anti-inflammatories, injections — and she just could not get to the level of activity that she really wanted. She was an avid runner. She wanted to run marathons. A serious runner.

Katie [0:59]
So when I came in to Dr. Rencher, he saw something in my MRI and told me that running needed to be off the table. Not for good — that I'd be able to get back to it, but that it was going to require surgery to fix it so that I didn't have further complications.

Katie [1:17]
Running at that point pretty much was my life. It was my outlet as a mom of four young kids, and I actually was pretty competitive at it. I'd run the Boston Marathon several times. Hearing that, I went back to my car and I bawled my eyes out. It was going to dramatically change who I was as a person, because I was Katie — mom, coach, runner.

Dr. Rencher [1:39]
Unfortunately, the MRI showed some chondral defects. So we talked to her about her options. We started with easy things, but she still could not obtain that level of function that she wanted.

Dr. Rencher [1:56]
So we decided to do some cartilage restoration for her. We took some cartilage plugs from other parts of her knee and put them in the defect — the pothole — inside of her knee, and she recovered. It took a long time. It took about months for her to recover from that knee, and then she started feeling great.

Katie [2:13]
When my right knee started bothering me, because I'd had such a pretty smooth recovery on my left knee, I decided to contact Dr. Rencher.

Dr. Rencher [2:22]
We got the MRI of the right side after she had failed everything else, and unfortunately that knee was worse than the other knee. So we did what's called a MACI surgery, which is where we actually take cartilage cells from her knee, grow them in sheets in the laboratory, and then put those cells that we grew in the laboratory back into her knee — and then it regrows with time.

Dr. Rencher [2:40]
So we did this surgery, things went great. She did a great job. She rehabbed really well, and now she's back running marathons all over the world.

Katie [2:47]
Post-MACI, it took a lot longer than I thought, but a year and a half after, I was able to start running again — more like myself. I was able to run the New York City Marathon in 2023, and this last fall I went and ran Berlin.

Katie [3:13]
Even a year and a half after my MACI, I didn't know if I would ever marathon again. To be able to go and run three marathons, and almost beat my time from a much younger self — I just can't thank Dr. Rencher enough for getting me back to who I was, and who I am, and who I feel like I am. If you're struggling with some pain or anything that may be bothering you, I promise that Summit will take care of you and get you back to doing what you love.

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