Running toward inclusion
 |
Special Olympics Virginia athlete Karen Dickerson ran her second Boston Marathon in 2008, finishing in 3:43:06. |
Special Olympics Virginia athlete Karen Dickerson is most at home when her running shoes are pounding the pavement — six days a week, several miles a day, all year long. Dickerson, who lives in Springfield, Virginia, is a runner, a marathon runner.
She has laced up her running shoes everywhere from Richmond, Virginia, for the Richmond Marathon, to Dublin, Ireland, for the 2003 Special Olympics World Games, to Shanghai, China, for the 2007 World Games Law Enforcement Torch Run Final Leg. In April 2008, Dickerson laced them up again for her second run in the Boston Marathon. Wearing bib number 9713, she was racing to beat last year’s time: 3 hours, 24 minutes and 58 seconds.
The Boston Marathon is one of the elite distance runs in the world. The world’s oldest annual marathon requires that participants qualify by meeting time standards set in other marathons.
Dickerson, clad in a bright white and yellow DC Road Runners jersey, crossed the finish line in 3 hours, 43 minutes and 6 seconds. Although she finished ahead of 60 percent of the 25,000 runners in this elite event, from her perspective, her time was 20 minutes shy of her goal.
“I can do a lot better,” she e-mailed her coach, Nancy Julia, after the race. Two days after, in fact, she already was planning her strategy for coming in at 3:20 or under this fall when she runs in the Wichita Marathon in Kansas.
When it comes down to it, though, she has already won. In her 14 years with Special Olympics, Dickerson, 22, has broken the most difficult barrier – rising above the misperceptions placed on her and the millions of others with intellectual disabilities by society every day.
Each time she laces up her running shoes, each time she crosses the finish line, Dickerson is a winner, because she demonstrates that everyone is capable of achievement, as long as you give them the chance.
 |
Karen Dickerson and Special Olympics China athlete Qiao Meili carried the Flame of Hope to the White House Rose Garden to meet with U.S. President Bush prior to the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games. |
Dickerson’s parents, Ernestine and Joe, gave Karen her first chance 21 years ago, when at age 1, she weighed only 12 pounds. “She didn’t eat, she didn’t really grow at all that first year,” Ernestine said. “She didn’t even start walking until after she turned 2.” Years later, after many other hurdles, she found her niche on the track.
In the summer of 2007, she proudly stood in the White House Rose Garden in Washington, D.C., and presented the Special Olympics Flame of Hope to U.S. President George W. Bush. Several weeks later, she ran across China with the Law Enforcement Torch Run for the 2007 World Games, sharing the impact Special Olympics has had on her life with thousands.
“Karen is a tireless advocate for her fellow athletes,” President Bush said during the Rose Garden ceremony. “She's what we call a fierce competitor. In the 2003 World Games in Ireland, Karen was told that she had a stress fracture in her leg. Yet, through sheer willpower, she won the bronze medal. Karen should serve as an inspiration for a lot of folks in our country.”
|
