Anna’s Prize

My daughter Anna astonished me Saturday by running her first 5K cross-country race.

What makes the feat remarkable is that Anna, a high school freshman, has cerebral palsy, having survived a stroke at birth.

For a mom who sheds tears over all her children’s achievements, her race was a predictably emotional event. I was proud she had succeeded in completing her race, but I was not prepared for the greater prize that awaited her at the finish line.

Anna showing me her racing number before the race.

Even though Anna is remarkably athletic for a teen with a disability, she still has the one-sided weakness and semi-paralysis typical for people who’ve suffered sizable unilateral strokes. However, she loves to run. She says that when she runs she feels strong, and when I watch her run, I believe it.

In middle school, she had considered joining track and cross-country, but she knew many of her classmates ran much faster than she could and she worried they would not want her. This year, though, Anna overcame her fears and decided to give it a go. The coaches welcomed her, and a few weeks before classes started she began training with the others.

When school began, I could tell this was a special group of kids. Anna reported how, when team members passed her in the school halls, they shouted out greetings. They sat with her at lunches. Before and after practices, I could see she was included in their conversations. This is not always the case for kids with obvious disabilities. Such a kid doesn’t want attention that comes with being “special.” What she craves is simply being part of a group.

In the U.S., high school cross-country races are a 5K course – roughly a little more than three miles. It’s one thing to run a mile in gym class a few times a week. It’s quite another to go three. Yet that’s what Anna’s team runs every day (not counting the mile warm-up before they even begin). Anna started out slowly and added a little more distance day by day. By mid-August, she was able to complete the time trials on her team’s home course, the first time she ran the full 5K. Then that week, just before her first meet, her leg brace broke.

Without her leg brace, Anna can barely walk let alone run. After we found and dug out the brace she wore in 7th grade from the back of her closet, she was able to get around and even run the warm-up mile every day. But it was not tall enough to adequately support her for more strenuous running. So every practice, five days a week, Anna trained with injured teammates, riding the stationary bikes and exercising on the elliptical machines. She stretched with her team, exercised her core muscles with her team and lifted weights with her team. When the team ran the meets, she helped record runners’ times along the course. She was disappointed she wasn’t running in the meets, but she was happy.

Anna’s insurance took nearly a month to approve the brace’s replacement, which is considerably longer than normal but not completely unheard of. Finally Anna’s new brace was ready. With only two practices before the next meet, she didn’t have time to prepare for a 5K race. By this past Saturday, though, she thought she could run. Her coach expressed concerns, as Anna still had not completed a full 5K during practice since the time trials. She asked me what I thought. I of course couldn’t predict if my daughter would be able to finish the race. But in my experience if Anna wants to do something she usually rises to the occasion. I voted for letting her run.

About 2 miles into the race.

Anna’s race, the JV girls’ race, was scheduled last for the day. She had no trouble with the first mile. The second was difficult, but she kept up. However, by the third mile she was in tears (although still putting one foot in front of the other and running at the back of the pack). When she passed me, I heard the coach tell the varsity girls watching near us that she was having trouble. Without any prompting, these girls – the fastest runners on the team – spread themselves out along the course and shouted out encouragement. These were girls who understood where a runner finds untapped reserves within herself. They were also kids who had been on this very course earlier in the day. They knew the dips in the path, the hills, and the sandy spots. When Anna pulled out of the woods and into a grassy section of the course, the girls ran alongside her just outside the path’s boundaries, continuing to cheer for her in this final stretch.

As Anna approached the end of the race, some of the JV girls who had just completed the race saw her coming and joined in. By the time she crossed the finish line, there was a cadre of teammates meeting her on the other side.

Throughout this season, I have been to every meet, keeping a close eye on the runners at the end of the pack where I knew my daughter would be running. Writers have long understood that the greatest sports stories often can be found at the bottom of the roster. I have watched many other equally courageous runners fighting their own obstacles. Some run with asthma. Others are significantly overweight. Some run fighting a lifelong absence of self-confidence. Having witnessed the solitude these other runners faced at their races’ end, I fully expected Anna and I would be left celebrate her victory alone. The triumph would have been just as satisfying, but it was so much sweeter sharing it with others.

Had there been one false note in her teammates’ excitement, one hint of insincerity in the team’s clamor to celebrate, Anna would have hated the attention it brought. There was none of that, only genuine thrill that she had gotten to run and that she had successfully finished.

What Anna found as she crossed that finish line on Saturday was far more valuable than a successful run of a 5K race. Her prize was the friendship of her teammates and the sense of truly belonging to a team.

A team, I might add, that really knows how to finish a race.

After the race.

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