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Rosalie Fish Steps Up Advocacy for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

POM Administrator — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 15:59:47 +0000

When Rosalie Fish was running as in 2019, she drew attention for competing with red paint in the shape of a handprint over her mouth and “MMIW” on her leg as she ran for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIW/MMIWP). She had seen Jordan Marie Whetstone run with the same red handprint and MMIW and asked if she could follow her lead.

The has affected Fish personally. She is a survivor of violence and has run for specific women in her community who were murdered or missing.

Indigenous people face disproportionately high rates of murder, rape, and violent crime. A reports that 27 percent of U.S. women have been raped in their lifetimes. Among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) women, that number is 43 percent. In 2019, was the seventh leading cause of death for AI/AN girls and women (ages 1–54) and the fifth leading cause of death for boys and men.

Rosalie Fish and her University of Washington teammates at the Pac-12 Cross-Country Championships on October 27, 2023 (Photo: Red Box Photography )

Running for Justice

Fish is a member of the Cowlitz tribe and attended the Muckleshoot Tribal High School on the Muckleshoot Reservation. Running with paint was “my first big leap into athletic activism,” says Fish, a 22-year-old senior on the University of Washington cross-country team. “Over time, I’ve been able to develop and adjust the way that I advocate for Indigenous people through my platform as an athlete.”

After dealing with a few injuries, Fish was happy to be healthy enough to compete for the Huskies this fall. She concluded her cross-country season as part of the Pac-12 Conference championship team and placed 48th out of 106 runners in the conference meet, covering the 6K course at Chambers Creek Regional Park near Tacoma in 20:45.7. She will continue to compete for the Huskies during the upcoming indoor and outdoor track seasons.

��ԹϺ�� of running, Fish has been recognized for the impact she’s made as an advocate. This fall, she accepted the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Wilma Rudolph Courage Award.

Rosalie Fish accepts the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award from the Women’s Sports Foundation. (Photo: Getty Images for the Women’s Sports Foundation)

From Athlete to Advocate

After transferring to the University of Washington from Iowa Central Community College, Fish says, “I put a lot of pressure on myself, like if I wasn’t able to run competitively, it would mean that I was letting my community down as far as advocacy goes.” But then, she adds, “Experiencing injuries when I did pushed me in a way that I was actually able to explore: How can I continue to advocate for my community in the ways that I’m physically not allowed to right now?”

Fish steered her advocacy into direct service. She is finishing up her bachelor’s degree in social work and, as her practicum, is working as a MMIWP family advocate intern with , a social services nonprofit for Native women. She plans to return after she graduates. Her goal is to “create connections with the people that I’m hoping to represent and to get them the mics and the platforms to share their stories.”

She also worked as an intern at the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Fish supported the creation of Washington State Patrol’s , which launched last year. People can sign up for alerts, similar to AMBER alerts.

Fish has been speaking publicly, including leading and visiting high schools and middle schools, particularly in areas with significant Native populations. “Normally, I go there just to connect with youth in general, especially those who might relate to any mental health issues that they’ve faced, being young students of color,” she says. She also talks about the complexities of gender-based violence for students of color. “I understand just how debilitating these societal issues are on youth self-image, and I try to connect with that shared experience in a way that can be empowering for them,” she says.

Like many survivors of violence, Fish has post-traumatic stress disorder. “Trying to navigate that as an athlete, as a student, and especially as an activist and advocate has a huge impact on my life,” she says.

Fish continues to run with paint on her face and body, but not every time she competes, because she wants to make sure it’s meaningful when she does. When she ran 12 miles as part of at the Downtown Yakima Mile, she ran with paint, and raised about $36,000 for the YWCA Yakima and survivors of domestic violence.

Access and Inclusion

As a Brooks Run Happy Advocate, Fish visits high schools across the state of Washington, especially tribal schools, spending time with track teams and giving each runner a free pair of running shoes.

“Running shoes are very inaccessible, especially in low-income communities of color, who are not able to spend $200 on a pair of high-quality shoes,” Fish says. “Being able to engage with Native youth in that way and give them the opportunity or the tools they need to give running a shot—it’s really rewarding.”

Fish wants to make running more accessible and inclusive, particularly for Indigenous and LGBTQ people. “Unfortunately, I always felt like I was alone as a Native runner, let alone a queer native runner,” she says. She hopes that “being unapologetically Indigenous and queer in everything that I do can send the message that not only do queer women of color belong in these spaces, but we deserve to be there, and we’re needed there because we bring so much to the table.”

Courage and Leadership

The news that she’d been chosen for the Wilma Rudolph Courage Award came as a surprise to Fish.

“I was very humbled and very flattered,” she says, adding that she has admired the Women’s Sports Foundation’s community service.

The award recognizes “someone who exhibits extraordinary courage in their athletic performance, demonstrates the ability to overcome adversity, makes significant contributions to sports, and serves as a role model.” Fish plans to pursue a master’s degree in social work.

“What makes Rosalie deserving of one of WSF’s highest honors is her persistence, resilience and bold determination to get society to pay attention to a crisis often cast to the shadows—the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic—as well as her desire to be a face of change for a safer, more just world,” says Women’s Sports Foundation CEO Danette Leighton. “Rosalie is an inspiration on the track, the classroom and beyond, and WSF is proud to support her and the remarkable work she is doing.”

In 2022, Fish was one of 58 college students nationwide named a for her leadership, public service, and academic achievement. She was the first UW student-athlete to receive that scholarship.

Fish also gets recognized on a smaller scale. When she originally signed with Iowa Central Community College, she became the first student from her high school to sign a letter of intent for college athletics. Recently, while attending her brother’s high school football game, she says, “One of the middle schoolers came up to me and asked me if I was Rosalie Fish. And I said, ‘Yes I am.’ And she said, ‘You’re my idol.’ It was just that moment where I realized I could be doing something as simple as cheering on my brother at a football game—which is not a moment where I feel like I’m being a leader—but girls like her remind me that every single step and every action that I take matters, because whether I can see it or not, I am leading.”

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Alison Mariella Désir Leads BIPOC-Only Running Retreat in Alaska

ntriolo — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 16:39:42 +0000

Ever since she founded in 2013, Alison Mariella Désir has been building community in the world of running—and uplifting people who are underrepresented in it. She also co-founded the (RIDC) and the book .

In August, she led a running retreat exclusively for Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in Alaska. This retreat took 12 people of various ethnic backgrounds, 10 of whom were women, to Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. The participants’ previous running experience varied, from a D1 collegiate runner to someone who identifies more as a walker than a runner. Together, they ran trails through forests and wildflowers, along shorelines to a river where they watched salmon jumping upstream, and more than 2,200 feet up to the top of a mountain.

On the trails where they ran and hiked, nearly all the other people around were white. “There was no doubt that we were hyper-visible,” Désir said. Sometimes, when a person of color is “the only” in an otherwise white space, they feel pressure because they’re hyper-visible, but this all-BIPOC group was different, she explained. The retreat created “a space where none of us was going to be the only one there,” and no one was going to have to speak for their entire population, she said.

(Photo: Allison Torres Burtka)

“In instances when I’m in a group and I’m feeling good about myself, I don’t mind being hyper-visible, because it’s like, ‘Yeah, guess what? We are here,’” she said.

A few times during the retreat, people in Alaska recognized Désir. While the group was waiting in line in a coffee shop in Anchorage, a white, red-haired woman walked up to Désir and said, “I’m a fan of yours, and I just want you to know that it’s great that you have brought all these people up to Alaska.”

“We’re Going to Continue to Build Spaces”

Désir hosted the retreat through , which handled all the logistics. The fact that Alaska was unfamiliar to almost all the participants added to the excitement of the group experiencing its natural beauty together.

“In my mind, Alaska was never a place where Black people go. It was like this beautiful opportunity to give us all permission to go someplace that we didn’t think was for us,” Désir said. “It was just so much fun—it was like a summer camp for all of us, and the only things that mattered on those days were seeing beautiful things, moving our bodies, and sharing time and space with each other.”

Creating space where BIPOC feel included and comfortable is important, particularly in trail running, which many BIPOC runners say . A recent running study conducted by the RIDC found that BIPOC runners are concerned about barriers to access, safety, and inclusion in the sport.

The brand Altra recently posted a on Instagram with a caption about progress on equity in trail running, but it included only white people. The video “starts with a white woman saying how you have to see it to be it, and then the entire video is all white people. The video is making the case for gender equity, but gender equity only from a position of whiteness and white supremacy, where the gender equity piece is for white women,” Désir said.

After Désir and others commented on this discrepancy, Altra changed the caption to say: “We posted this video attempting to celebrate the progress High Lonesome has made in increasing female participation in ultra-trail racing. When featuring the women who participated in the race, our video did not feature any women of color. Unfortunately, this contributed to the erasure of BIPOC women in the trail running space. This moment further highlights the need to accelerate the work for our brand and the industry as a whole.”

“I’m just so excited to be part of building this next generation of women of color in trail.”

This points to some running industry decision-makers’ lack of awareness of racial inequity, Désir said. Sometimes industry leaders “will say, ‘Well, Black people just don’t like trail running, or Black people are afraid to do this,’ and it’s like—no, actually, when given the space and the conditions that we deserve, we do all things. We like all things.”

Désir explained, “I do make critiques of the industry, but I also build space, like my retreat, like . We—and it’s not just me—we’re going to continue to build spaces and build power, whether you’ve understood it or not.”

The Ripple Effect of Representation

One woman in the Alaska group, a cross-country and track coach, came to the retreat without ever having run trails. “Come to find out, she’s such a talented trail runner,” Désir said. “She is somebody who I could see lining up and doing really well at these races. And now she might. But without this experience, it might not have ever become available to her. So this retreat really does have implications for how you create confidence, community, and space for people to step into this.”

The experience may open doors and shift perspectives for the runners on the retreat. But it can also affect “all the other people who see this, know they can do it, and decide to take up space,” Désir said. She added that she hopes it causes a ripple effect that reaches the industry, too.

“I hope that it serves as an example of what can be done,” Désir said. “If you want to build future trail runners, if you want to build comfort in the outdoors, well, you have to create spaces for us to be in the outdoors.”

While this retreat was open only to people who identify as BIPOC, Désir and Run Alaska Trails are planning two retreats in Alaska for next year, one for BIPOC and one for anyone. But even in spaces designated for BIPOC, “there is room for allies to be supportive,” Désir said.

In Alaska, these allies included white women who were key to the retreat’s success, like Kim Ryals, owner and operator of Run Alaska Trails, and some of her guides.

“Without Kim facilitating this trip and making sure that we were going to spaces where we weren’t going to face vitriol, this trip wouldn’t have worked,” Désir said. Ryals made sure “that we felt safe, that we got the trip that we wanted, and that we weren’t put in danger. Allyship really does matter, and this work can’t be done alone.”

The guides (both white and BIPOC) are strong runners who came equipped with bear spray and deep knowledge of Alaska, and they helped the group feel comfortable in these unfamiliar spaces. Some of the women on the retreat said the experience gave them more confidence as trail runners.

“There’s such an opportunity for women of color in this trail space,” Désir said. “I’m just so excited to be part of building this next generation of women of color in trail.”

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Patti Catalano Dillon Becomes Head Coach of Wings Elite Team for Native Runners

ntriolo — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 17:50:45 +0000

The nonprofit organization has been supporting Native youth in running for decades, and now it has launched an elite team. The Wings Elite Program for Native athletes is the first of its kind, and Patti Catalano Dillon has been appointed as the team’s head coach.

Dillon, a pioneer in women’s running who is Mi’kmaq, has long wanted to see an elite team of Native runners. “It’s a dream come true,” she said. “I’ve been waiting decades for this. Decades!” She has been a member of Wings of America’s board for the past few years.

In 1980, Dillon became the first American woman to break 2:30 in the marathon. She is a three-time Boston Marathon runner-up and held multiple American and world records. She was one of the first American women to sign a contract with Nike. And she is the first Native woman to do all these things.

Patti Catalano became the first American woman to break 2:30 in the marathon. (Photo: Jonathan Wiggs/Getty Images)

The Wings Elite Program’s first professional runner is Santiago Hardy, a former Wings National Team member who is Diné. He has moved into the program’s home base, a building Wings purchased near the mouth of Tijeras Canyon in New Mexico. The program will sponsor more athletes in the future, as it identifies promising runners who meet the program’s standards.

“For as long as I can remember, Wings has been talking about the next Billy Mills, or the next Patti Dillon, or the next Louis Tewanima,” says Wings Executive Director Dustin Martin. “But anyone who knows competitive running understands that caliber of athlete, in this day and age, is not really fostered without a very concerted investment and effort not only from that runner, but from their community.”

Martin shares that “in our community, parents and families, first, don’t necessarily have a full understanding of the commitment it takes to be a professional-level runner, and second, don’t have the resources that others do.” But the Wings Elite Program aims to help fill that gap.

Running is central to many Native cultures. Although these cultures and practices vary, the elite team offers “a training program and a community for elite-level Native runners that really honors their heritage and their history and the communities that they come from and is sensitive to that, in a way that allows them to take part in their culture and traditions and have it be seen as a way to bolster their competitive prowess,” Martin says. “Non-Native teams and non-Native coaches sometimes see that as a distraction or as a detriment to what an athlete can achieve.”

A Holistic Approach

“I’m coaching not to just get an Olympian or something like that. I’m really coaching the whole person,” Dillon says. This includes things like breathing exercises, meditation, and “educating the athlete to be healthy from the inside out.”

Dillon has been coaching Hardy since the summer. Because Dillon lives in Connecticut, most of her coaching will be through Zoom and text. But her coaching is responsive to the athlete’s needs. “I just don’t write out a program and say, OK, here, do this for the next month,” she says. “It’s more like a week at a time.” Then, she says, “It’s like, see how you feel. What’s your pulse? Any aches or pains? This is what we need to do.”

Santiago Hardy leads the Wings’ 2021 summer Running and Fitness Camp participants in Gallup, New Mexico. (Photo: Dustin Martin)

She’s a believer in building general physical fitness through activities like rock climbing, rope climbing, and trail running. “I think what people miss is it’s more than just running hard or packing in the miles,” she says.

Dillon’s approach makes her a good fit for this elite team, Martin says. “Obviously, she understands what it takes and what is necessary, not just physically but mentally and spiritually, to be a world-class runner. But I think her intuition as a runner and as a coach, as I’ve gotten to know her since 2016, just really sticks out to me. And the way that she listens and pays attention to her athletes is just second to none,” he says.

“This is a fledgling project,” Martin says. “With that in mind, we’re not trying to hurriedly create a champion in a matter of months. We understand that this is going to take years, so her philosophy of training, when it comes to slow and calculated builds, makes sense.”

The Wings Elite Program is building community around this team. Hardy helps out with a Wings youth program twice a week. “The kids love him to death,” Dillon says. “And that’s really good for his spirits, to be able to mentor the other kids, and have the kids see we have a pro athlete.”

Martin agrees. The elite athletes’ involvement in helping “lead games and just fun movement for other Native youth twice a week provides an intangible source of inspiration and encouragement that certainly not all elite athletes are concerned with or get the opportunity to engage in,” he says.

Some coaches might see the extra time an athlete spends on their feet leading youth programs as, “‘Well, you’re skimping on rest, or you’re not doing what you need to be doing to recover.’ But the philosophy of Patti and the philosophy of our training group really would say, no, that provides a spiritual and a moral strength that is more important,” Martin says.

��ԹϺ�� of Hardy’s running, Dillon asked him to watch inspirational movies and attend high school cross-country meets, she explains, “because you see these kids just run. They try, and it’s new to them, and they finish, and they look at you like they went to a place they’ve never been before.”

In the long term, Dillon would like to see camps for Native Americans that are similar to those of elite runners in Kenya and Ethiopia. She drew parallels between the ways running fits into these different cultures.

Along with nurturing promising Native athletes’ talent, Martin says a long-term goal is “coalescing and rebuilding the network of Wings runners and former national team members to provide support for these young talents,” Martin says. This includes “connecting them with former Wings runners and people within our support network all along the way, so that when they are done with competitive running, they feel empowered in a job or a career that they’ve been introduced to through the help of the Wings network.”

Patti Catalano Dillon is comforted by her sisters after the finish in the Boston Marathon in 1981. (Photo: Ulrike Welsch/Getty Images)

A Running Pioneer

As a coach, Dillon wants to cultivate the love of running that she found in an unlikely place when she was 22. It began in a cemetery, where she tried running laps for the first time and made it nearly 7 miles. Although she was in pain, she had never felt anything like it, and she was hooked. She won the first 5-miler she entered. Then, when she signed up for her first marathon, it seemed so daunting that she felt compelled to say goodbye to her family.

Dillon explains that her family was not a hugging family, so she went to her little sister Maureen and asked if she could hug her. Dillon recalls, “She said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ And I said, ‘I’m gonna do a marathon.’ ‘What’s a marathon?’ ‘Oh, it’s a race, and it’s 26 miles.’ ‘Why are you doing that?’ ‘I have to.’ And she said ‘OK.’ I looked right at her and said, ‘Just to let you know, I may die.’”

Dillon laughs while remembering it now, but she was serious at the time—she thought she might die of a heart attack, but she had to do it. “It was like a quest or something,” she says.

“But I didn’t die. I won,” she says. She won her first-ever marathon, the 1976 Ocean State Marathon in Rhode Island.

In recent years, Dillon has been coaching individuals privately. She once coached high school runners, and about 15 years ago, she formed a team for homeschoolers, including her daughter and son. It grew to 65 kids and was the first homeschool running club in the country.

She would tell the kids: “You earn it, you own it. And what you get, nobody can take this away from you,” she says. “That’s what I got out of it the first time I ran.” And ever since, running has been her lifeline.

Dillon’s mother was Mi’kmaq and raised her not to identify as Native, so she didn’t until later in life. She also realized later, after talking with her daughter, the generational trauma she carried, including seeing her mother beaten regularly.

A movie about Dillon’s life is in the works, with filming starting next year. “I’m hoping that when I share my story, when the movie comes out, that they will see I’m no special talent, but I did it. And it was out of sheer will and then determination. And then I broke through to something, and it was wondrous,” she says.

Dillon wants people to see that breakthrough and be able to “parlay it into other things—it doesn’t have to just be sports,” she says. “If I can help with Native American women, because a lot of us are traumatized, and we carry it on from generation to generation, then so be it. That would be great.”

Last year, Dillon tried to offer coaching to Native Americans who wanted to make it to the Olympic Trials. She received some interest from potential athletes and sponsors, but it didn’t pan out. So she kept coaching her private clients. And when she was chosen to coach the Wings Elite Program, it felt like what she had been waiting for.

“I feel that her contributions to the sport, and especially Native country’s awareness of her contributions to the sport, are still very unsung,” Martin says. “And I hope that with her serving as coach, all of us will be able to appreciate those a little bit more.”

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This Team of Adaptive Athletes Finished the Hood to Coast Relay—and Is Fighting for Kids With Disabilities

mmitchell — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 22:47:55 +0000

On August 26 and 27, 1,046 teams finished the Hood to Coast relay race in Oregon, one of the most popular running relays in the world. The race starts at Mount Hood and goes west for 198 miles, finishing along the Pacific Ocean at Seaside.

One of these 1,046 teams featured 12 adaptive athletes: Several are amputees who run on prosthetic legs, one is blind, two have spinal cord injuries and race in push-rim wheelchairs, and others have different physical challenges. The 12 of them took turns covering the 198 miles from Mount Hood to the coast.

Each athlete’s road to Mount Hood—and to sports in the first place—is different. While growing up, some of them had no idea that becoming runners and endurance athletes could be an option for them, and they got the equipment and support they need to do so relatively recently. Others have been competing in sports since they were young kids. They include professional athletes, Paralympians, triathletes, and beginners to running, plus one guide and one prosthetist.

About 20,000 people participate in Hood to Coast, and about 1% of them are athletes with disabilities, estimates Dan Floyd, COO of the Hood to Coast Race Series. Athletes with disabilities who participate in the event often have teammates who don’t have disabilities. In some years, the race has one or two teams of blind athletes, but this team may be the first consisting completely of athletes with a mix of disabilities. Floyd says he’s unaware of any other team like them.

Mallorie Hoyos, team member of Forrest Stump (Photo: Patrick Pressgrove)

The team’s name is Forrest Stump, named after a that one member of the team, triathlete and amputee Nicole Ver Kuilen, founded with prosthetist Natalie Harold to advocate for amputees. Along with Ver Kuilen, includes Jamie Brown, Mary Kate Callahan, Scott Davidson, Ashley Eisenmenger, Lina Garada, Josh George, Mallorie Hoyos, Leah Kaplan, Dee Palagi, Patrick Pressgrove, and Travis Ricks, plus prosthetist Harold and guide Anna Griessler.

Most of these athletes were either born with their disability or acquired it as children or young adults. Some lacked the equipment they needed to play sports and be active as kids, because insurance companies typically don’t cover it—they deem it not medically necessary. For a kid whose leg has been amputated, for example, most insurance companies cover a walking leg but not one made for swimming, biking, or running.

These athletes know the physical and mental benefits of being active and participating in sports. So, in conjunction with their race, they partnered with the American Orthotic and Prosthetic Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Orthotics and Prosthetics, and the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists to launch a campaign called “So Kids Can Move,” to get states to require insurance companies to cover recreational prostheses for kids.

In May, Maine enacted a law requiring insurance companies to cover prosthetic devices for kids’ recreational purposes, such as running, biking, and swimming. It’s the first state to do so, at the urging of amputee Jordan Simpson and Maine state Rep. Colleen Madigan. Now, the So Kids Can Move campaign is working to get similar legislation passed in Washington and Oregon and then expand to other states.

When Access Is Out of Reach

Nearly half of adults with disabilities get no aerobic physical activity, and adults with disabilities are three times more likely to have heart disease, stroke, diabetes, or cancer than adults without disabilities, according to the. So Kids Can Move wants to spread the message that people with disabilities deserve the right to exercise, but lack of insurance coverage for medically necessary assistive devices and care prevents equitable access to participation in physical activity.

The cost of adaptive equipment like prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs varies, especially because prosthetic limbs must be highly customized for and fitted to the individual. Ver Kuilen says that, as a below-the-knee amputee, her running prosthesis costs between $12,000 and $15,000. The Veterans Administration typically covers prostheses like running blades, but most health insurers do not. Most athletes with a running blade have funded it themselves or received a grant from a nonprofit like, which is how Ver Kuilen received her running blade.

Nicole Ver Kuilen and Leah Kaplan of team Forrest Stump (Photo: Patrick Pressgrove)

For years, Ver Kuilen ran on a prosthesis made for walking, which broke frequently and caused her back pain. In 2017, she completed her own along the West Coast on her walking leg to raise awareness for amputee rights. Upon completing the triathlon, the Challenged Athletes Foundation gave her her first running blade at age 26.

Ver Kuilen lost her left leg below the knee to cancer at age 10, which made it hard to be the active kid she had been before that. “The confidence that came from having access to a running prosthesis has completely changed my trajectory as both an individual personally and professionally,” she says. She has since summited Cotopaxi, a volcano in Ecuador; become a Paratriathlon National Champion in 2019; and been named to the USA Paralympic Development Team in 2020.

Although nonprofits like the Challenged Athletes Foundation are essential in getting many people the devices and care they need to be active, people shouldn’t have to rely on nonprofits for that, Ver Kuilen says. And many people with disabilities don’t know these nonprofits exist, she says. “This is a system level issue, and it’s not something that nonprofits can just solve.”

Patrick Pressgrove agrees. He was born with a rare genetic disorder that affected the development of his legs and feet and resulted in a cleft lip and palate. “I had a lot of operations to help me walk. I couldn’t walk until I was six, and even then, my legs were malformed, so I could never really get around normally. And by the time I was 13, I had severe arthritis in both of my knees,” Pressgrove says. “So when I hit the age of 14, it was either continue like that or have elective amputations.” He decided to have his legs amputated above the knee to preserve his health and quality of life.

“I wasn’t even aware that running as an amputee was possible until I was in my mid-20s,” Pressgrove says. “If my family had known that insurance would have stepped in to help cover the costs, if not the full cost, they may have pursued that a lot sooner for me in my childhood.”

Patrick Pressgrove on course at the Hood To Coast 2022 running for team Forrest Stump (Photo: Patrick Pressgrove)

Pressgrove received his running prostheses from the Challenged Athletes Foundation in 2015 and ran his first race in 2016, after joining, a nonprofit that supports physically challenged people in endurance sports. Since then, he has run half-marathons, marathons, and a triathlon and has become a leader in the Houston running community. He founded Freaks Run Club in Houston, is now COO of Team Catapult, and has run the 200-mile Texas Independence Relay with teams of adaptive athletes.

Pressgrove ran Hood to Coast in 2021 and didn’t notice any athletes with visible disabilities. At their race this year, the team noticed two other adaptive athletes.

A common thread with many of these athletes is that sports boosted their confidence. Leah Kaplan was born in China with a congenital limb difference—she is missing her left arm below the elbow, and she was abandoned when she was two days old because of it. When she was a kid, her mother encouraged her to try swimming, and she loved it. But, she says, “I would hide my arm during some sporting events, just because other people were uncomfortable.”

She stopped hiding her arm and competed around the country in para swimming in high school, appreciating the community she found in other athletes with disabilities. More recently, Kaplan also started competing in triathlons, and this past summer, she received her first-ever prosthesis, which makes it easier for her to bike safely. “Sports have taught me how to embrace my own uniqueness,” she says. “And don’t quit until you’re proud of yourself.”

Making a Team for Hood to Coast

The idea to put together a team of adaptive athletes to participate in Hood to Coast originated with Ver Kuilen and Palagi, both lower-limb amputees, in 2019. “We wanted to assemble a team of people with all different types of disabilities, and showcase what it is that we can do when we have access to appropriate prosthetics, orthotics, and wheelchairs—and all the adaptive equipment that’s necessary specifically for physical activity,” Ver Kuilen says. They registered a team, but the 2020 race was canceled because of COVID-19, and then they deferred in 2021 because of the ongoing pandemic.

But 2022 was a go. So they started planning. An overnight relay that requires vans is a logistical challenge for any team, but Forrest Stump needed an extra van for their push-rim wheelchairs and bike guides, Ver Kuilen says. “You just add on another layer of complexity, figuring out which exchanges are accessible, which ones aren’t, how we’re going to coordinate handoffs and getting people their equipment.”

They pulled it off. “We essentially set a precedent for what was possible at that race, as far as people with disabilities or just the logistics around it, because it was a lot of work. And we showed that it can be done,” Pressgrove says. Their race might serve as an example for Hood to Coast officials and for future participants with disabilities to follow.

They also forged a bond among athletes with disparate experiences, supporting each other along the way. “I already knew I loved everyone in this community, and I knew what we were capable of,” Pressgrove says. “It was fun to watch people realize that about themselves.” When one of the athletes completed a leg of the race, it was his longest run ever, he says. “So that was really cool, to watch them realize what they’re capable of.”

Kaplan says she appreciates the camaraderie and the way the team motivated each other. “Being part of the team felt very empowering,” she says. “I just loved walking around with the team and kind of repping Forrest Stump. I feel like we’re kind of like our own Avengers team.”

Because the team included people with different levels of athleticism, their participation also shows “that these types of events aren’t just for Paralympic athletes—they’re for anybody with a disability that wants to be involved in an adventure that is Hood to Coast,” Ver Kuilen says.

Ashley Eisenmenger with her guide Anna Griessler (Photo: Patrick Pressgrove)

Meeting Other Competitors

On the second day of the race, Pressgrove says, “All the teams kind of catch up to each other, so you run into a whole lot of people at all the handoffs, so the last four or five handoffs were just like a party every time you stop. It’s a really fun atmosphere.”

Many of the people the team encountered on the course were encouraging and supportive, and some asked about So Kids Can Move. The Forrest Stump team met some people whose family members have disabilities, so they made some connections with the nonprofits that they’re involved in and that might be able to help.

“Overall, it was an enormously positive and uplifting event,” Ver Kuilen says.

But not all their encounters were positive. On the course, some other competitors stared at the team, laughed, and yelled at three of the athletes. Someone called a wheelchair racer a cheater because she wasn’t running. Someone else yelled that they couldn’t believe they were being passed by a blind person.

“One guy I passed up in the middle of the night yelled out, ‘What the f—?’” Pressgrove says. “I don’t think he understood what he was looking at. We were running in a pitch black, and I ran past him pretty fast.” “There were a number of comments that were made that made our team feel very ‘other’ and like we weren’t expected to be there,” Ver Kuilen says. “People just were so startled by our presence.”

These reactions from fellow athletes may show that they lack awareness about adaptive athletes. But they solidified the team’s determination to show up and try to ease the way for others. They have been through much bigger challenges than ignorant comments.

Athletes with disabilities are often told they’re inspiring, and some people said so to the Forrest Stump team. “We were like, ‘Oh, thank you. But you know, we’re doing the run just like you guys,’” Kaplan says. “I’ve been told I was inspiring for even ordering food at a restaurant.”

Pressgrove agrees. “It’s great to inspire people, but we’re not out there for that. We’re just trying to be a part of the same community,” he says. He appreciates when people share positive comments, but he hopes they take it further—by spreading awareness of So Kids Can Move, for example. “And the next time you come across someone that could benefit from any of these nonprofits, or just meeting another athlete that has a similar disability, hopefully take that moment and say, ‘Hey, I know someone I can connect you to.’”

Jamie Brown takes on a segment of the Hood to Coast relay. (Photo: Patrick Pressgrove)

Identifying and Removing Barriers

The Forrest Stump team praised the Hood to Coast staff for being accommodating and responsive when problems arose. But the team ran into some obstacles, including not having an ADA accessible porta potty or bathroom anywhere on the course, which one of the athletes needed. So she had to restrict her water intake. Also, the race ended on the beach in the sand, which was not accessible for some of the athletes. “So our team ended up having to leave Seaside early and just kind of had our own celebration party,” Ver Kuilen says.

Since the relay, Ver Kuilen has joined Hood to Coast’s Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement Advisory Committee, where she looks forward to representing the disability community and helping to make the race more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

Floyd says that the Forrest Stump team pointed out some areas where the race can make improvements. “And we will definitely make changes. We invite it,” he says. Having Ver Kuilen on the committee gives her and the disability community “a voice within our event, which means she has a voice within the race industry,” he says.

“Our number-one message is to get the world to move,” Floyd says. “We want everybody to move, participate any way they can,” so he sees it as Hood to Coast’s responsibility to help show that adaptive athletes can participate. “We have to create an inclusive environment where people know that,” he says.

Mary Kate Callahan finding joy in the Hood to Coast journey. (Photo: Patrick Pressgrove)

Ver Kuilen notes that more triathlons have been made accessible to paratriathletes. “There’s a checklist that race directors can go through to make sure that things are accessible,” she says. And some races are adding adaptive or para divisions. The was the first of any of the Abbott World Marathon Majors to include a competitive para athletics division for ambulatory para athletes, alongside its wheelchair division. Zachary Friedley created a trail run for adaptive athletes, as part of the Born to Run Ultra festival.

The Forrest Stump team is proud of what they accomplished—and the space they hope they created for more adaptive athletes to come after them.

“When I think of my journey as a person with a disability, I did not have this community or this camaraderie growing up. I really was the only person with a disability I ever knew,” Ver Kuilen says. “So being able to do this race alongside people who’ve had a similar life experience and trajectory, and just that community, is really special.”

Being in vans with people for 36 hours, while pushing yourself physically and supporting each other through challenges, is a special kind of experience. “You might not be family when you go in, but you are when you’re done,” Pressgrove says.

Supporting Adaptive Athletes

Learn more about the campaign ‘‘ from the National Association for the Advancement of Orthotics & Prosthetics in collaboration with Ver Kuilen’s organization. Their work focuses physical activity being a basic human right. They works aims to raise money and awareness to increase access to the medical equipment and care needed for adaptive athletes of all levels.

Other organizations are also doing their part to make the outdoors and sport more accessible. For example, Paradox Sports helps expand the adaptive community’s access to climbing and mountaineering by funding group trips, giving athlete grants, and training guides, gym staff, and veterans organizations in adaptive climbing practices.

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Pursuing Excellence in Parallel: World Class Paralympic Athletes

matt — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 04:40:50 +0000

The Tokyo Summer Paralympics includes 22 sports, including track and field and triathlon. range from the 100m to 5,000m, plus a road marathon, and begin on the morning of August 27 (Tokyo time – Thursday evening in the U.S.). Triathlon events will be run on August 28 (Tokyo a.m., Friday night p.m. in the U.S.)

Runners in the Paralympics are world-class athletes (in Rio, for example, did to win Olympic gold). But Paralympics have challenges that Olympians generally don’t.

One of those athletes is Dani Aravich, who ran Division 1 track and cross-country at Butler University. She is running the 400m in the T47 classification, which includes athletes with upper-limb impairment on one side.

Aravich was born without her left hand and forearm. At the Paralympic Trials, she ran a 1:02.84.

“Since my category of Paralympic track has an arm impairment, we are most impacted by the imbalances of our body,” Aravich explains. “There is a lot of wasted energy, since our chest rotates due to the weight imbalance, and sprinting involves quite a bit of arm swing.”

400m runner Dani Aravich competing on the track. Photo: Dupont Photo

Aravich grew up playing soccer and then started running in high school. “I had early success in the sport and was recruited by colleges to run,” she says. “I started running competitively again two years after graduating from college, when someone reached out to me about looking into competing in the Paralympics.”

Aravich has volunteered to coach limb-different kids through the (CAF), which has supported her athletic career. She now volunteers for as a coach. “I love seeing kids who are also amputees excel in sports,” she says.

She is also an adaptive model. “I never really grew up knowing anyone with disabilities…. I have learned how to accept and understand other people’s disabilities,” Aravich says. “I see how much work the world has to do to be more accepting of people with disabilities.”

Aravich’s 400m event is Saturday, August 28. “I am nervous yet excited — this will be the biggest track race of my life,” Aravich says.

As soon as the Summer Paralympics are over, though, Aravich will shift her focus to qualifying for the Beijing Winter Paralympics in Nordic skiing and biathlon.

Challenges You Likely Don’t Have to Consider

The International Paralympic Committee based on impairment, which includes various types of physical impairment, vision impairment, and certain types of intellectual impairment. For example, different classifications for lower-limb amputees include double amputees, single-limb amputees, with amputations below the knee and above the knee. And athletes with different degrees of vision impairment have designated classifications.

“For track and field in the Paralympics, there is a variety of categories based on the impairment to ensure equal play, and you only compete against those with the same disability,” Aravich explains.

Para athletes negotiate challenges in their training that their counterparts without impairments might not face. For example, while the pandemic cancelled races and complicated training for everyone, blind runners who need to run with guides had extra challenges figuring out how to train safely within social distancing mandates.

Paralympian triathlete Amy Dixon with guide dog Photo: CAF

Amy Dixon lost 98% of her vision because of a rare autoimmune disorder. She became a triathlete after losing her vision and has won several international paratriathlon competitions, and she was the first blind female athlete to compete in an XTERRA race. In 2017, she founded Camp ‘No Sight No Limits’ for elite blind triathletes in San Diego. She also serves as a patient advocate.

During the triathlon, Dixon swims, bikes, and runs with a guide. Although she’s an experienced international competitor, this will be her first Paralympics, at age 45. Her classification is PTVI. She competes on Saturday, August 28.

Lower-limb amputees who run on specialized running blades need to overcome the initial problem of getting the blade — they cost $15,000 or more each, and health insurance generally does not cover them, because sports-specific prostheses are considered not medically necessary. Nonprofits like CAF have stepped in to fill this gap, and the foundation has provided many of the Tokyo Team USA Paralympians with their running prostheses and other support they need.

An amputee who uses a prosthesis has to work closely with a prosthetist to make sure it’s properly fit and continuously adjusted for their body, gait, and running event. If it’s not, it can fall off. “They are fit specifically to you. It’s not like you’re going and getting a size nine in shoes,” says Bob Babbitt, cofounder of CAF. He added that if you gain or lose weight, your leg volume changes, which also changes the fit of the prosthesis.

Femita Ayanbeku aims to become the fastest female amputee in the world. At the Paralympic trials, she ran the 100m in 12.84, breaking the American record for her classification (T64, for athletes with a single below-the-knee amputation and who run with a prosthesis).

Paralympian Femita Ayanbeku training Photo: CAF

When Ayanbeku was 11, she was in a car accident and needed to have her right leg amputated below the knee. She attended a CAF running and mobility clinic in 2015, received her first running prosthesis, and quickly started to excel at sprinting. This is her second Paralympics — she also ran the 200m at Rio in 2016.

Ayanbeku founded the nonprofit Limb-it-Less Creations Inc. to support the amputee community and others with physical disabilities, and she’s also a certified personal trainer. She is running the 100m on Sept. 3.

Parallel Possibilities

The word “Paralympic” comes from combining the Greek “para,” meaning beside or alongside, with “Olympic,” so the Paralympics run in parallel to the Olympics.

Involvement in sports boosts self-esteem, encourages independence, and enhances quality of life — for both elite and everyday athletes. CAF helps people with physical challenges pursue sports and active lifestyles.

In 2017, became the first double amputee to earn a Division 1 scholarship for track and field. “That changed everything,” Babbitt says. “All these other kids out there were like, ‘Well, wait a second, this guy got a scholarship. Why can’t I get a scholarship?’”

Woodhall ran for the University of Arkansas and turned pro earlier this year. At the Rio Paralympics, he won a silver medal in the 200m and bronze in the 400m. At Tokyo, he is running the 100m and the 400m, in the T62 classification.

He was born with fibular hemimelia, a condition that keeps the legs from developing properly, and he had his legs amputated below the knee when he was a baby. CAF has helped support Woodhall, who has volunteered at some CAF events, sometimes with his girlfriend, Olympian Tara Davis. At an adaptive surfing clinic that Woodhall attended, Babbitt recalls, “All these amputee kids — doubles and singles — came running over and knew every time he’d ever run.”

Hunder Woodhall with aspiring young fans at a CAF clinic Photo: Rich Cruse / CAF

Representation matters. A child with a physical challenge might not see anyone in their hometown with a prosthesis or a wheelchair. The Paralympians show what’s possible.

Many amputees were initially told they’d never walk or run again, and they never thought they could become elite athletes. CAF athletes know this, Babbitt says. Especially on a stage as big as the Paralympics, they know that kids with disabilities are at home watching, and thinking, “Wait a second. I can do that. If he can do that, I can do that,” he says. “Our kids understand more than anybody that their role is to help the next kid.”

And times have changed, Babbitt says. “If somebody who’s my age was missing a limb, you would hide it, you’d wear long pants, you would never show people,” he says. “The kids now, they’ve got Batman logos on their leg.” One girl told him that her prosthetic leg makes her different in a good way, because she stands out.

Some “firsts” in recent years have brought para athletes closer in line to their fellow athletes without impairments. The U.S. Olympic Committee became the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee in 2019. In the Paralympics, medalists will now receive the same payments that Olympic medalists receive. For every athlete named to the U.S. Paralympic Team this year, Toyota offered sponsorship opportunities.

The Boston Marathon in October will be the first time any of the World Majors has included a separate competitive para athletics division for ambulatory para athletes that recognizes their achievements. Wheelchair racers have had a separate division, but runners who have prosthetic limbs or impaired vision have not.

The wheelchair racers have become stars. Rio Olympian Daniel Romanchuk won the men’s Boston Marathon wheelchair division in 2019. In Tokyo, he’ll be racing in the 800m, 1,500m, and 5,000m in the T54 division.

Tatyana McFadden of the United States competes at the Women’s 800m – T54 Final during day 10 of the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games on September 17, 2016. Photo: Lucas Uebel/Getty Images

has won Boston’s wheelchair division five times, as well as multiple victories in the Chicago, New York, and London marathons. She has competed at five previous winter and summer Paralympic Games, winning 17 Paralympic medals to her name, including seven golds. In Tokyo, she’ll be racing in the marathon and the 400m, 800m, 1,500m, and 5,000m.

“Seeing what grace our athletes bring to the table, rather than being, ‘Poor me, and I can’t believe this happened to me…’ to ‘I’m just going to go out and have the best life possible,” Babbitt says. “That, to me, is what the Paralympics is a celebration of — every one of these folks who’s there has overcome something pretty major.”

Here’s a full of events at the Paralympics, and here’s a Paralympics.

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About the Author

Allison Torres Burtka is a freelance writer and editor in metro Detroit. You can visit her writing portfolio . She currently serves as a co-lead of the ‘s Media Subgroup.

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