Section B·Page 4
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, April 15. 1998
Boston race makes room for disabled athletes
The Associated Press
LONG BEACH, N.Y. — Helen Hines was sitting in a chair, telling high school students about her 20-year battle with multiple sclerosis. Suddenly, her legs went numb.
As she was speaking, the degenerative nerve disease robbed her of all feeling below her thighs.
And the Boston Marathon was only a month away.
with the determination that led her across the finish line of 24 previous marathons, Hines brushed aside self pity: Two days later she went out for a run.
"When you have MS you do these things while you can," she said.
Hines, whose legs still work although she can't feel them, and about 20 other disabled athletes will join 11,500 other runners Monday for the 102nd annual Boston Marathon.
"My doctor lets me do two marathons a year. Boston will be my third, but there is no way I'm going to miss it," said Hines, a 50-year-old former physical education teacher.
Boston did not always have room for runners like Hines. Unlike the New York City Marathon, which resembles a huge, sweaty party, Boston traditionally has been a race for elite athletes, a race unreceptive to runners with disabilities.
When two disabled athletes tried to have Boston's stringent qualifying requirements waived 20 years ago, their requests were dismissed.
"I don't want to be cruel, but this is a marathon race for runners. It's not a three-ring circus," said
Boston Athletic Association official Jock Semple at the time.
About five years ago, with a surge in the number of disabled runners, Boston began to waive the time requirement for a few of competitors under an agreement with the Achilles Track Club, a New York-based international organization for disabled runners.
"We still are the most elite of the races, and that's very important," said Guy Morse, Boston's race director. "But we do try to have a heart."
About 20 Achilles members are allowed to run this year with the recommendation that they be able to finish in about 4:20. After a minor controversy this year, several slower disabled runners were allowed to begin the marathon two hours before the start.
Boston also stages a 22-year-old wheelchair marathon that this year will include 60 of the world's top wheelchair racers.
"Boston has always had the fastest runners, and I hope it always will, but it becomes more of a people's race that spectators can relate to when there are some interesting and unusual stories in the middle and back of the pack," said Amby Burfoot, editor of Runner's World magazine and the winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon.
Hines' story began when she developed multiple sclerosis two decades ago. She found herself paralyzed from the waist down and was given little hope of walking again.
After nearly 10 years of rehabilitation and exercise, she ran her
Things have changed.
first marathon. And though she stakes gingerly and drags her left leg slightly, she still goes out for a long run every day.
For a recent run along the boardwalk in Long Beach, she wore knee straps and an ankle brace. She wore a large plastic collar to immobilize her neck during six months of training. She has finished several marathons with volunteers holding up her head because her neck muscles simply gave out.
"You don't know at what point you're going to get to where you're going to say, 'I shouldn't have done that,'" she said.
Some of the Achilles runners see the marathon as a challenge to overcome disabilities; others just want to get in shape.
Mass., on Monday for the sheer thrill of willing his body to run 26.2 miles. Glaucoma made him legally blind since birth.
Richard Chen will take off from the starting line in Hopkinton.
"I just don't want to trip over anything." he said.
During the race, Chen will be tethered to a friend with a shoelace.
During training, however, the 60-year-old Harvard law student ran alone. After several close encounters with lamp poles, Chen abandoned his route along Boston's Charles River in favor of Harvard's running track. But no place is completely safe — Chen crashed into a blurry line of hurdles on the track.
Hines once broke her wrist falling during a training run, and she ripped ankle tendons in the middle of a marathon. She finished anyway.
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