Roy Exum: Amputee Team Wins Relay

  • Tuesday, May 31, 2016
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

As a news junkie there isn’t a lot that gets past me in my morning reading, yet I had no idea there was a relay race in Chattanooga two weekends ago. Maybe that’s why 1,500 people ran away and never came back – the finish line was in Nashville.

How the Ragnar Relays work is pretty simple. The organizers pick two cities that are about 200 miles apart and then 12-to-14 runners each runs three prescribed “legs,” which average out to be 17 miles or so as the teams run through the night.

What just caught my attention is the fact this year’s winning team had half as many feet as the other 127 teams. That’s right; every runner on Team Run Free is an amputee. They came from seven states and ranged in age from 18 to 60. But the most glorious part was 13 of the 14 team members were running on donated blades.

Unlike an artificial leg, blades are shaped like the bottom of the letter “S” and you might remember Oscar Pistorius of South Africa running on blades in the 2012 Olympics. Most blades are special carbon-fiber-enforced polymer prosthetics and a pair cost between $8,000 and $20,000 but that returns us to the best part of the story.

There is a non-profit organization in Nashville that is operated by Team Run Free’s captain, Ryan Fann. His company, Amputee Blades Runners (ABR), donates blades to people so they can still be active. Fann, who lost his leg at age three after getting clobbered by a truck, was a star athlete in high school and then won a bronze in the 2004 Paralympics. Yet he was on the gold medal-winning relay at the 2004 Games and this month’s Ragnar Relay victory might well have been his favorite moment.

Don’t you see, without Ryan Fann and his ABR foundation, 13 of the 14 members of his team wouldn’t have a way to run – much less win the 2016 Ragnar title.

Runner’s World magazine has a great story on Team Run Free and it explained that amputees are plagued with sores, blisters and split skin on the residual limbs. Most Ragnar teams have 12 runners but the all-amputee team was allowed two extra due to the fact several members had not gotten used to their blades and no one was certain how well they would perform in the dark on a running prosthesis. Sure enough, two runners could not finish their third portion of the race due to prosthetic injuries.

D.J. Vanderwerf from Sweetwater, the youngest member of the team, played three sports in high school and he was faced with a big decision. So after he ran his second leg, he dove in his car, raced back to his high school graduation and caught up with his teammates, crossing the finish line to the delight of the crowd. Fann’s team ran from Chattanooga to Nashville in 32 hours.

Mollyanne Rhodes, the lone female on the team, is 19 years old and from Bentonville, Ark. “It is such a cool moment to sit back and realize what we’ve done,” she told a Runner’s World reporter. “To have a whole team of amputees, it is encouraging … It shows that we can do whatever we want. It doesn’t matter what physical differences we have.

My sentiments exactly.

Amputee Blade Runners has now outfitted over 75 people with blades so they, too, can hopefully win far more than races. It is a non-profit so those wishing to give donations can contact Ryan Fann, who has become a certified prosthetist so he can help amputees run, at ABR, 356 24th Ave N, Nashville, TN 37203.  For more information call (615) 301-5264 or email his website amputeebladerunners.com.

* * *

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” -- Randy Pausch

royexum@aol.com

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