Beating the Odds

Carrie Bradshaw barely made it down the block of her West University neighborhood when she felt a sharp pain erupt in her left hip. 

It was Halloween night in 2022, and Carrie was dressed in her cozy skeleton onesie – the same one she wears every spooky season when she goes trick-or-treating with her family, an annual tradition for the mom of two. That night, Carrie’s husband Ben and son Theo wore matching Michael Myers costumes while her daughter Poppy opted for a firefighter getup. 

As the Bradshaws continued down the street, Carrie felt the pain in her hip intensify. It was a pain that Carrie, then 40 years old, had grown accustomed to over the past two years. But this time, the discomfort was even worse. It felt like bone was grinding against bone. And as much as Carrie wanted to ignore the feeling and press on with her family, she simply couldn’t. 

As Carrie hobbled her way back home, she lamented that she couldn’t celebrate Halloween with her family. She wondered: Is this the kind of life I want to live? 

Carrie and her son Theo celebrate after Carrie completed a 10-mile run in The Woodlands in 2017. 

Almost a year earlier, Carrie was diagnosed with congenital hip dysplasia in both hips, a developmental abnormality where the hip joint does not properly fit into the socket. Severe cases of hip dysplasia are often diagnosed in the first few months of a baby's life and can be treated using a harness. Less severe cases can go unnoticed for years. But when it goes untreated, dysplasia often causes arthritis. 

That’s what had happened to Carrie, who said she had no idea what hip dysplasia was when she was diagnosed with it in December 2021, when the pain was so bad she decided to see a specialist. Since then, Carrie had spent hours researching the condition on the internet. She had visited numerous doctors and taken their advice: physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medications, platelet rich plasma therapy. Those treatments were like band-aids. They were short-term fixes that failed to get at the root of the problem. As the arthritis worsened, Carrie was running out of options. 

While hip-replacement surgery had always been on the table, Carrie felt apprehensive about the invasive procedure. Doctors advised her to wait as long as possible to do the surgery, because the research was not clear on how long hip replacements would last. Doctors also told her that if she opted for surgery, she might never run again. 

A marathon runner, Carrie could hardly imagine her life without running. 

“I think the lowest I’ve ever seen Carrie is when doctors were telling her she might not be able to run,” Ben recalled.

She was willing to suffer some amount of pain to continue with her passion. So while Carrie tentatively scheduled surgery for November 7, she was not yet sure she’d actually go through with it. She was considering canceling it. 

“It felt like I was getting a piece of my identity stolen from me,” Carrie said. “I was willing to work on accepting the fact that I might never run long-distance again, but I wasn’t going to give up on it.”

Late into the night, Carrie would scour the internet trying to find other women runners who had had hip surgery and successfully gone back to marathon running. She couldn’t find anyone like her. And so as November 7 approached, she wasn’t quite sure she’d follow through. 

“Carrie is someone who always does her due diligence,” Ben said. “She’s not someone who makes rash decisions.”

Back at home on Halloween night, Carrie suddenly realized that it was time for her to take action. She’d have the surgery she had been weighing for months. 

“I took it as a sign from God that I just needed to do it.” 

Ben and Carrie enjoy running together. Here, they're pictured after completing the Aramco Houston Half Marathon in 2015.

Born and raised in Houston, Carrie has always been a determined athlete. She played Varsity soccer for all four years of high school at Klein – even after tearing her ACL – and she ran her first marathon while in college at The University of Texas at Austin. 

At first, running was a hobby that kept her active after she stopped playing sports competitively. Eventually, Carrie became hooked on racing, and it became more of a lifestyle. She ran with her partner Ben, a fellow UT alum whom she met in her late 20s at a New Year’s Eve party. The couple moved to Brisbane, Australia in 2010, where Ben got a job in oil and gas, and Carrie took her fitness regimen to a new level. 

Though she studied accounting in college, Carrie always wanted to be a personal trainer and help others reach their fitness goals. In Australia, she took a course to get certified, and she started running bootcamps for women. She launched her own company called “Sweat in the City,” a play off of Sex and the City, the popular television series whose lead character is also named Carrie Bradshaw. In the meantime, she continued running and set an ambitious goal to qualify for the Boston Marathon, one of the most well-known marathons in the world. 

Ben, also a runner, thought Carrie was being overzealous. He felt that Carrie still had a long way to go before she would be fast enough to qualify for Boston. He encouraged her to take things slower. 

“I was like whoa, baby steps,” Ben said. “I remember thinking to myself that she had set herself up for disappointment.” 

But Carrie defied Ben’s expectations. She created a training plan and stuck to it. Soon, she was winning local 10K races, accepting medals right and left. Ben could no longer keep up with his wife, and he watched in awe as she ran the Houston marathon in 2014 – fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon. 

“She trained her butt off and turned herself into an elite runner in a matter of a year,” Ben said. 

Over the past two decades, Carrie has run a total of 10 marathons and more than 50 half marathons. She’s run across multiple continents, from Vietnam to New York City, and she even ran a full marathon while she was seven months pregnant with Theo, now 7. She qualified for the Boston Marathon a second time in 2017, but she got pregnant with Poppy, who is now 5, while training for it. Hip dysplasia has prevented her from running a full marathon ever since. 

“It’s been affecting her demeanor and her soul,” Ben said. “Fitness releases endorphins and puts you in a good mood – it’s kind of like her medicine. You take that away and she doesn’t have that release.” Carrie says the activity has shown her what she is capable of and helped her develop the confidence and fortitude to navigate life’s challenges – including the two hip surgeries she’d eventually have to endure. 

THE BEST CHEERLEADERS Carrie’s family has supported her through two intense surgeries, and they are often cheering her on from the sidelines during her races. Poppy, Carrie, Ben, and Theo enjoy family time in the park. (Photo: lawellphoto.com)

Leading up to her surgery in November 2022, Carrie visited the clinic for pre-operative testing. She recalls seeing other patients, all of whom were decades older than her. Their goals for post-surgery seemed so far off from her own. They wanted to return to low-impact activities like gardening or playing with their grandchildren. Carrie, meanwhile, wanted to qualify for the Boston Marathon again. And she still had Theo and Poppy to take care of at home. She felt out of place and wondered if she was making the right decision. 

She followed through with the surgery, though, and afterwards, she stayed in the hospital for three nights. She remembers intense pain and having difficulty with basic activities, like getting in and out of bed in the morning or putting on her shoes. Once she got home, her son Theo was afraid, watching his mom use a walker to get around. 

“It was a shocker for all of us,” Carrie said. “And I got depressed because most people who have hip replacement don’t have young kids.” 

As soon as Carrie started to recover and transition off the walker, she noticed her other hip acting up. She recalls standing in the bathroom feeling a shooting pain down her right leg. This time around, she knew what she was in for.  

Not wanting to wait until she reached a breaking point again, Carrie decided to go ahead and schedule the second surgery. Initially, Carrie and her doctor, Gregory Stocks, thought she would wait a couple of years before the second surgery, but the arthritis seemed to be worsening more quickly than anticipated. 

This time, the surgery was even more challenging. After the procedure, Carrie had excruciating pain in her hip flexor due to tendinitis, which is not uncommon after hip replacement. It was so bad that Ben had to carry her to the car. The recovery was even more arduous than the first time around, but Carrie is finally pain free.  

Since her surgeries, she has run three 10K races and two half marathons, including the Houston Half Marathon in January. Soon, she’ll start training for a marathon. She hopes to build up her speed and stamina to eventually qualify for Boston again. 

READY TO RUN Within six months of receiving two hip replacement surgeries, Carrie Bradshaw, a marathon runner, returned to training. She hopes to qualify for the Boston Marathon again soon. (Photo: lawellphoto.com)

Friends and family say that Carrie is uniquely optimistic, a quality that has carried her through the recovery process. 

“I think going through these tough surgeries and recoveries helped her become stronger,” said Mary Ellen Firat, a close friend of Carrie’s who lives in Houston. “I think she’s realized that since she has overcome these two surgeries with flying colors, she can take on everything.” 

Ben says he’s loved seeing Carrie come home after a run with a grin on her face. It’s like she’s slowly returning to herself and rediscovering the joy of running all over again. 

This time around, Ben has no doubts that his wife will qualify for Boston. 

“I’m expecting it now,” Ben said. “Just let me know when we’re going.”