What excellent timing.

Over the past week, two very inspiring stories have made their way to me. The first is about Sami Stoner, an Ohio cross-country runner who almost didn’t get to race. The second details the training regimen of Simon Wheatcroft, who’s preparing for his first ultra marathon.

Though these athletes, and their struggles, are unique, they’ve had to overcome the same handicap. Sami Stoner and Simon Wheatcroft are both blind.

To discover their stories now seems felicitous because tomorrow holds the Philadelphia chapter of Visionwalk. I’ll be walking with my own wife, a marathoner and year-round runner. Like Sami, she suffers from Stargardt’s, a juvenile form of macular degeneration.

Having watched Mrs. Turtlerunner adapt to her deteriorating vision, I felt personally affected by these stories; Simon and Sami, like my wife, refuse to let their handicap keep them from the sport they love. But the hope they’ve inspired isn’t just for those affected by vision disorders, or runners, or even athletes. When they run, they demonstrate an ability inherent in all of us.

They deny limitation.

(If you would like to help fight vision disorders, please consider donating to The Foundation Fighting Blindness)

Today’s post was originally going to be about my preparations for next weekend(!)’s ultra. But then, this afternoon, in my favorite city, a bit of running history was made.

Today’s Rock n’ Roll Philly Half saw not one, but two records made. Matthew Kisorio and Kim Smith each broke the US record for their respective sex.

Kim deserves honor here for performing so well after recovering from an injury. Apparently she had hurt herself while competing in April’s Boston Marathon. Though she’s had plenty of time to recover, running injuries tend to linger in the mind longer than on the body. In her words, “I was struggling with Boston. Physically, it didn’t take me long to recover, but mentally it did” (iaaf.org). To run with that burden, and so well, shows amazing bravery.

Congratulations to the new recordholders.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

—Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

This excerpt reminds me (as all things do) of running. More specifically, it reminds me of the line where I started my first 50 mile run. I didn’t know if I could split an 8-minute mile like I had planned. I didn’t know if I could run the entire thing. Hell, I didn’t even know if I could put one foot in front of the other that many times in one day. But I had to try.

Running is my arena, and probably yours too. It is where we go to struggle, to win, to fail, to dare greatly.

Runner’s World recently posted some Dean Karnazes quotes, in a playful homage to Sh*t My Dad Says (which is an excellent addition to any toiletside library, by the way). These quotes come out of RUN! 26.2 Stories of Blisters and Bliss, Dean’s most recent book. Going by the excerpts, this books lacks a bit of the profundity of Ultramarathon Man. A few quotes, however, stood out to me.

“We runners don’t need a lot. It is not what we have but what we enjoy that constitutes our abundance.”

This is absolutely beautiful. Running won’t make you rich, and it probably won’t make you famous. Luckily, we don’t run for those. We run for satisfaction (that is, those who aren’t running to stay skinny).

“Never, under any circumstances, argue with a woman. She is always right.”

Amen.

“Returning from my daily run the other morning, I came upon my neighbor, out in his slippers collecting the morning paper. He looked at me in my running gear and asked, ‘Doesn’t running hurt?’ I thought about his question. ‘It does if you’re doing it right,’ I said.”

I mentioned before the runners who run to stay skinny. There’s nothing wrong with that, nor with the fair weather joggers. I respect anyone who makes sacrifices for their health. But jogging in the sun doesn’t HURT. It doesn’t bring the kind of pain that comes with racing or ultramarathon distances. And I think that it’s this pain, this deprivation, that leads to real growth. And that is how you know you’re doing it right.

Pretty hardcore, right? My big brother sent it a few days back.

So when I found this article yesterday, a certain phrase came floating back into my head.

Ed McDaniel had been a runner for years before he started to go blind. Now, some twenty years later, about five percent of his central vision remains (…Money for the Blind). He is still apparently an intrepid trail trekker. Last October, he competed in his first marathon– running the entirety behind his white cane.

And here I’ve been holding back because of the snow and ice. Kind of makes me feel like a wimp.