Heroes of Running

THE LEADER: ROBYN BENINCASA

This elite adventure racer has helped women beat the odds and live out their athletic dreams.

World-class adventure racer Robyn Benincasa has climbed the Himalayas in Nepal and trekked across lava fields in Fiji. So in 2007, when she was diagnosed with osteoarthritis and told she may never run again, Benincasa wasn't about to let a bad health report destroy her adventurous spirit. She underwent hip resurfacing surgery, and 16 weeks later, ran theSedona Marathon with her friend Melissa Cleary by her side. "That made me think of how great it would be to bring that kind of confidence and support to other women," she says. Months later, she launched Project Athena, a nonprofit that helps women who have suffered a medical setback live out their athletic dreams. Benincasa, a 42-year-old San Diego firefighter, recruited a team of accomplished female athletes to serve as coaches and mentors to the women who apply for and receive the foundation's "Athenaships." (Four have been awarded so far.) Sara Jones, a breast-cancer survivor, was one of the first recipients. In February, she raced a six-day ultramarathon in Costa Rica with the Project Athena team. "During the race I realized that the cancer can't stop me," she says. "I came away feeling powerful." Seeing that transformation is more rewarding for Benincasa and her team than medals and PRs. "All of our lives, we've been racing for spots on podiums," she says. "But now it's for something so different, so life-affirming. For some women who are battling a medical condition, being alive is not enough. They want their juju back! Doctors can cure their bodies, but we can cure their spirits."

THE WARRIOR: KEITH ZEIER

This marine ran a 100-mile race to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

Wasn't it enough that a sniper bullet missed, by centimeters, his head on an Easter morning in Fallujah? And wasn't it enough that weeks later he had to watch two of his fellow Marines get blown up when their Humvee ran over an IED, the same IED that his Humvee had avoided, seconds earlier? And wasn't it enough that he was nearly killed two months later when the Humvee he was in this time didn't miss an IED, and Keith Zeier—a perpetual-motion 20-year-old—was left with a left leg with virtually no sensation from knee to hip? Wasn't that enough anguish and pain?

No, Keith Zeier, will tell you, that wasn't enough. "Survivor's guilt," he says. "I'm alive and a bunch of my friends aren't. That keeps me motivated."

So last May, Zeier ran a 100-mile race from Key Largo to Key West, Florida. His mission: to raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides financial assistance to wounded soldiers and college tuition to children of service men and women killed in action. Twenty-four hours aft er Zeier announced his attempt online, the foundation received $50,000 in pledges, the most ever in a one-day span. In total, Zeier, now 23, has raised $85,000, all with a leg he may have amputated one day.

Denise Zeier, Keith's mom, remembers her son was always in a rush as a kid. To soccer practice. To track meets. And to graduate from his Long Island high school so he could join the Marines. "He was 17, and he needed me to sign his papers," says Denise, a single mom. "Otherwise, the Marines won't take you until you're 18." But ever since September 11, 2001, all Keith wanted to be was a Marine. On that day, Lt. John Crisci of the New York City Fire Department, his best friend's dad and a father figure to Zeier, died in the World Trade Center. "Mr. Crisci would always be there for me," says Zeier, who's now hoping to join the FDNY. "He invited me wherever he and his sons went—soccer games, hockey games. After he died, I decided I wanted to be in the Special Operations. It was the least I could do."

Members of Special Operations are trained to undertake the most challenging operations. Zeier made Special Ops on his first attempt. But on July 17, 2006, less than five months into his Iraq deployment, his military career came to a crippling end with the roadside bombing. Shrapnel tore through his upper left thigh, severing nerves and causing massive bleeding. He had three operations in Fallujah, and then was transported to National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, for more surgery. A 12-inch scar is the external remnant of his troubles. Internally, "even though I have no sensation in my thigh," he says, "the rest of my leg hurts 24 hours a day."

Doctors told him to expect to use a cane the rest of his life. But after 20 months of physical therapy, Zeier attempted his 100-miler. By mile 75, following 21 hours of running, he lay on a Florida road being treated for dehydration and exhaustion. EMT officials recommended that he be taken to a hospital. Zeier wouldn't hear of it, signing a waiver refusing such treatment. Moments later, he started back up again. "Even if my legs weren't working," he recalls, "I was going to crawl to the finish." He finished the race in 31 hours, three minutes. "The mental aspects that got me through that day are the ones my buddies portray every day," he says. Then, remembering his buddies who will never return from Iraq, Zeier adds, "How could I quit on my friends who made the ultimate sacrifice?"

THE MENTOR: DICK TRAUM

This amputee has given disabled people the empowering experience of crossing a finish line.

There's a lot of groaning at the Saturday morning workouts of the Achilles Track Club in New York's Central Park, but it's not from physical exertion. No, the runners are rolling their eyes at Dick Traum's silly one-liners. When one athlete mentions she's heading to the salon after the workout, Traum, an above-the-knee amputee, deadpans, "Think they'd give me half price on a pedicure?" Another says he needs a new wheelchair. Traum doesn't miss a beat. "It does look like it's on its last leg." And all the amputees have heard Traum suggest they refuel at the pancake establishment whose name mirrors their running motion: IHOP.

For all his jokes, Traum, 68, who founded Achilles 26 years ago and is its president, couldn't be more serious about his work. He gets people with any kind of challenge—missing limbs, multiple sclerosis, visual impairments—and coaches them to finish races. Traum formed the club in 1983 with less than $1,000, mostly from his own pocket. That year, six disabled athletes finished the New York City Marathon. Today, there are about 150 Achilles chapters in more than 60 countries operating on a $1.7 million budget. More than 500 Achilles participants will finish marathons this year, and thousands will race shorter distances, like the Hope & Possibility Five-Milers in Central Park, Atlanta, and Madison, Wisconsin.

The purpose of Achilles has always been to integrate disabled athletes into mainstream events. "When an able-bodied runner gets passed by someone who is blind or on one leg, it changes their perception of what the disabled can do," Traum says.

Traum has a tried-and-true method for motivating Achilles newcomers. He gets them focused on a race. On an August morning, after a young man tries a handcrank wheelchair for the first time, Traum tells him to "mark November 7, 2010, on your calendar—that's when you'll be doing the New York City Marathon." The athlete sits silent, momentarily stunned by the idea, but Traum, the first amputee to run a marathon (New York City in 1976), has made similar pronouncements thousands of times. "We're trying to set up something for them to think about, a goal for them to meditate on," he says.

Traum has traveled to global hot spots like Chechnya and South Africa to set up chapters. A group has even formed in Kabul, Afghanistan. And he's always looking for new challenges. Can running help Alzheimer's patients? Kids with autism? Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy? Traum has recruited members with all those afflictions—and gotten them racing.

When he was 24, Traum was crushed between two cars at a gas station; his right leg later had to be amputated. He completed 11 marathons on his prosthetic, but when he needed his left knee replaced 10 years ago, doctors advised him to use it sparingly. So the handcrank became his racing vehicle (in it, he's done 25 marathons). He lifts his sleeve to show off his biceps, which look like they belong in the dugout of Yankee Stadium.

But Traum is a coach first. He counts among his athletes people like Donald Arthur, who first walked the New York City Marathon in 1997, 15 months after a heart transplant. Arthur has since completed marathons in 30 states. "Our first conversation, I'm thinking this guy is crazy," Arthur says. "I just had a heart transplant and he's talking about a marathon." As Arthur, and thousands of others have learned, doing a marathon can transform a life. And even Traum would admit that's nothing to joke about.

THE HUMANITARIANS: PHIL CARLITZ & ANDREW HUDIS

These teens organized a race in Thailand to benefit refugee children.

It's the question they dread most: What did you do on your summer vacation? Not because Phil Carlitz and Andrew Hudis, both 16, spent their time slacking off or honing their Guitar Hero skills. No, the problem is conveying the magnitude of what they accomplished: Organizing a marathon in a remote province in Thailand, more than 8,000 miles from their homes in southeastern Pennsylvania, to raise money and awareness for a group of Myanmarese refugees.

"I took a driving lesson the other day, and the instructor asked me what I did for the summer," says Hudis. "I thought to myself, oh no. Even by the end of the lesson I don't think he understood."

The boys' transformation into running humanitarians began in the summer of 2008, when they signed up for Rustic Pathways, a global community service program for students. While traveling along the border of Thailand and Myanmar (formerly Burma), they met Karen people, a minority group persecuted by Myanmar's dictatorial government and forced to flee into Thailand where many are trapped in refugee camps, with little hope of an education, a job, or a future. Hudis and Carlitz were moved by the circumstances they saw Karen kids their own age facing: Many live in bamboo huts. With no money, they're forced to make their own clothes and grow their own food. And with their parents dead or stuck across the border, they basically raise themselves.

"In America, kids always complain about school," Hudis says. "But these refugees told us, 'All we want to do is go to university and learn.' You realize that we have it a lot easier than we think."

While still in Thailand, the passionate runners discussed running a marathon to raise money for an orphanage in Mae Sariang. But when they presented their notion to Rustic Pathways' founder, David Venning, he pushed them to think bigger. "Don't just run a marathon," he told them. "Run a marathon—right there in Mae Sariang."

It says something about the teenage mind—or at least about these particular teenage minds—that they didn't need any other encouragement than that. The boys started laying the groundwork for a race they would hold the following summer. They returned to the States for their sophomore years and continued their race preparations between student-council and debate-team meetings.

Finally, this past July, they traveled back to oversee the Rustic Pathways Tribe-to-Tribe Marathon. They had hoped for a few dozen runners, but 500 people—including people from Australia, Japan, England, and the United States—raced in the marathon, half, and 5-K. About $10,000 was raised for the orphanage. "In a country where a shirt costs 60 cents and you can eat for a quarter, that money goes pretty far," Hudis says. "We are putting 25 teenage refugees through high school." Just as important, the race raised awareness about the plight of the Karen people.

And they are going to do it again—Carlitz and Hudis have committed to the event for a decade, and hope to turn Tribe-to-Tribe into a destination race that raises $250,000 annually for the refugees. Of course, the two are not too young to realize they themselves may be the biggest beneficiaries. "It showed me how helping people really makes you feel," Carlitz says. "If I could do that for a living, you know, that's the job for me."