In each monthly issue, Inside Texas Running will publish one chapter from the new book "First Marathons." This month's story begins in the February 2002 issue of ITR.

To order your copy of "First Marathons: Personal Encounters witht he 26.2-Mile Monster," send $23 per copy (plus $2.95 per order for shipping/handling) to Inside Texas Running, P.O. Box 19909, Houston, TX 77224. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.

In August of that same year I was ready for a half marathon. It was a hot day and again, I finished last in three and a half hours. Bob Glover, our trainer at the Y, ran with me and to cool me off, he kept pouring water over my head. As the race progressed, my leg felt heavier and heavier, but I attributed that to the distance and my fatigue. After the race, when I took off my prosthesis, a quart of water poured out, the run-off of Bob's attempts to keep me cool.

Again, the story of the man with the artificial leg running races made the headlines. I was deemed an inspiration. I suppose that was nice, but I wasn't trying to be inspirational, I was being normal. Every disabled person who does more than get out of bed in the morning and brush his teeth gets a large amount of support. On one level, we are just the same as any able-bodied person who undertakes the same activity. Disabled golfers are just trying to play golf, the same as a disabled skier wants to ski or a disabled runner wants to run. I didn't want to be the official inspirator. That role tends to make the person an outsider, larger than life, and I wasn't.

My next race was a 30K (18.7 miles) in Central Park. By now I was geared up for running the New York City Marathon that fall. I was doing two two-hour runs and one three-hour run a week on the Y's track. The 30K route winds through the park on the same roads shared by cyclists. The police did their best to keep the groups apart, but I got whacked by a cyclist and my prosthesis, which is held on by suction, was knocked off and skidded along the pavement. The cyclist spent a horrible few seconds thinking he had severed my leg. As I sat there reattaching it, he apologized profusely and took off as fast as he could.

After the 30K, I was ready for the marathon. This was the first year of the five-borough route and Fred had asked Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers to run it, along with 2,090 other runners. For safety reasons, Fred decided I should start earlier than the main pack so that I wouldn't end up late at night at a deserted finish line, since my anticipated time was somewhere around eight hours. I spent so much time preparing and anticipating that it was no longer fun, it was nerve racking. I just wanted to get it over with and started at 6:50 a.m. My support group, which included my wife and brother-in-law followed me in the car. They brought along a pair of crutches just in case I needed them. The problem with running long distance with a prosthetic leg is that, eventually, the stump starts to bleed. No matter how much you train, there are places on the stump that won't callus over, particularly on the back of the leg. The bleeding itself isn't a big deal, although it does look gruesome when the blood starts dripping down the leg. The danger is of infection setting in if the wound doesn't have time to heal.

Once I got under way, I started to have fun. I didn't have the pressure of any other goal than to finish. I couldn't fail, as no other amputee had attempted to run a marathon before. The norms of society, and of sport, dictated that it was an impossible event, but I was soon to let it be known that it was, indeed, possible.

When I arrived at the ten-mile marker, we came to an intersection with three crossways, and I chose the wrong one, going about a half mile out of my way before realizing the error. I thought about getting into the car to drive the distance back to the right roadway, but thought if someone saw me in a car I could be accused of cheating, so I ran an extra mile to ensure a valid win.

At eighteen miles the lead runners began to catch up with me, whizzing by as if I was going backward. Bill Rodgers passed me by, yelling, "Thataboy, Dick." That had to be one of the most exciting thrills of my life. Now that the entire race was in full swing, the crowds were lining the streets, something I missed by starting early. The last time I heard the roar of a crowd was at a wrestling match in college, but this was even better. I was hurting from sheer physical exhaustion, but when I heard the cheering, it carried me along. I wasn't going to stop now. The last quarter mile, when the crowds were at their peak, they roared as if I was running down a football field for the winning touchdown.

I finished in 7:24, breaking my own prediction by half an hour. I was more tired than happy when I crossed the finish line, but the excitement wasn't over yet. The Road Runners Club was holding an awards ceremony at Avery Fisher Hall and after the top runners received their medals, I was called up. After a prolonged standing ovation, my medal was hung around my neck, and the air was electric. It was something I had never felt before and never expect to feel again. It was just unbelievable. The sound of the clapping continues to echo in my ears. That day remains very special to me and if I had one day to live over in my lifetime, it would be my first marathon.

The papers went crazy with the story. It even made the International Tribune. One spectator summed it up best: "I was amazed to see a man running with a wooden leg. I couldn't believe a person with a handicap could work up the nerve and strength to compete. It says our troubles aren't so great. If he has enough stamina to do that, we have enough stamina to do what we have to do." The media had turned me into Rocky.

I continued to run, but not as much as I had while training for the marathon. A son was added to our family, and he would accompany me on his bike while I did a few laps around Central Park. I decided I wanted to try the granddaddy marathon of them all, Boston. But when I made inquiries, I was told I wouldn't be welcome at Boston. They told me it was a serious race for serious runners, not a three-ring circus. I was upset by their reaction, not as much by the insult as by the fact that I was being excluded. None of this really bothered me much, after all, I had New York.

Not long after my headline event, I met a woman who had lost her leg in a mountain-climbing accident and had just been fitted with a prosthesis. She asked me to give her some advice on running with it, so we spent the day in the park running the reservoir until she felt comfortable. A while later, I got a call from another amputee who also wanted advice on running with a prosthesis. Soon I was getting numerous calls from amputees all over wanting advice and I found myself coaching by phone. I also began noticing more disabled people entering road races and an idea began to germinate: helping disabled people get involved in running through the New York Road Runners Club.

With the backing of Fred Lebow, I sent out a letter to eleven hundred doctors and other medical professionals on the club's mailing list, figuring they might have disabled patients or know of some. We set a forty-dollar fee for an eight-week series of training sessions, taught by Bob Glover. Back then, I only thought of amputees as being disabled since I knew nothing of the range of the disabled community. I didn't expect much at the first meeting, but only when only two people showed up, I thought Fred would pull out of the program, but instead he said, "It's a success."

Linda Down was one of our first members, a bright young woman born with cerebral palsy. Before she started running, she couldn't do ten sit-ups, but was soon navigating the streets of Manhattan. Running was slow and painful for her. She needed crutches to navigate and would lead with her left leg, swinging her right leg in a big, awkward arc that would scrape her toes along the pavement. With each footfall, her toes were mashed inside her running shoes. But she persevered with her training and finished the 1982 marathon in eleven hours, crossing the finish line at 9:30 p.m. Her gutsy performance won her a visit to the White House with the other winners. She never did pay her forty-dollar fee, but we never asked for it and ultimately decided to make membership free.

Despite Linda's performance at the marathon and my constant mailings, membership was scant. The classes built slowly and by the end of eight weeks we had eight more or less regular members. We decided to change the weekly training sessions into a running team, dubbed "Achilles" after the Greek hero whose mother dipped him into the River Styx at birth, making his entire body invulnerable except the little spot on his heel where she held him. We were on our way.

Those first initial weeks were awkward for me because although I am disabled, I don't think of myself that way and really didn't know anything about other disabled people. I didn't know if it was proper to ask them about their disability, whether or not it was appropriate to help them or offer assistance. One woman in a wheelchair would scream at our volunteers if they so much as touched her wheelchair. She thought of her chair as an extension of herself and felt personally violated if someone touched it. As word about the club spread, more disabled people started showing up, but not just amputees. We had blind people, stroke victims, cancer patients, people in wheelchairs, MS, cerebral palsy, and one member who was born without legs and only short stumps as arms. He had been in foster care as a child. When he got into high school, we recruited him, trained him, and he completed a marathon by propelling his wheelchair laboriously with the stumps of his arms. Even he had doubts that he would finish, but when they hung the medal around his neck, he was happier than he had ever been in his life. We have another member who is also in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy. His condition is so severe he can't use his arms to move his wheelchair so he has to push his chair backward with his feet to move. When he first came to Achilles he couldn't go a quarter mile but within eighteen months of training he completed a marathon, kicking backward the entire 26.2 miles.

Cathy Bulboca is another Achilles case in point. She came to us with a double hit -- first there was the stroke on the left side of her body, then there was the liver cancer, and then a series of four ministrokes. None of her doctors advised exercise, but she had been active most of her life and a fencer in college. Every time she brought up the idea of exercise, her doctors said no. Finally she met with a psychiatrist who said, "Go for it." She showed up and told us her goal was to run a four-mile race. "When you have a chronic illness, your goals are taken away," she said. "Setting a goal of a four-mile race may not be much, but it gives you motivation. And psychologically, it gives you a break from your real life."

She completed the race, and to her it might as well have been a hundred miles. It was the best feeling she ever had. Cathy has gone on to be an outspoken advocate for the benefits of exercise in disabled people.

Our training is done with a group of very dedicated volunteers, who become like family. They are assigned to a disabled person and stay with them through the marathon. In some cases that means running at a painfully slow pace, but at other times our disabled runners, such as some of the blind runners, are faster than the volunteers. These dedicated people aren't paid and come from all walks of life. They are a very noble, selfless group and there would not be a club without them.

Slowly, chapters started to develop in other states by original members who moved or by others hearing about the program and being inspired to start one. Then we started going international with our first overseas break in Poland, in 1987. We now have over 120 chapters in more than fifty-one countries. The one I am most proud of is Japan, which has a history of hiding its less- than-perfect lineage from the world. Disabled people in Japan are treated like lepers, shielded from the public eye with practically no government assistance programs. Getting a chapter of Achilles open and having their disabled people come out from hiding was a major feat for us and for their disabled population. Their Tokyo chapter now equals New York City in membership. We have fifteen chapters in the former Soviet Union, including four in Siberia, where the number one reason for having an amputated limb is severe frostbite from falling asleep in the snow after a night out at the local bar.

Our goal at Achilles has never changed. We treat our members like athletes, not objects. In the beginning, the idea was to get them out and moving. We were initially afraid of hurting them and pushing too hard. Now they get speed work and hill work. The training is based on the same principles as for all runners. Linda Down sums it up best: "I discovered I can stress my worst aspects -- my legs and my body -- and still be successful. And if I can take my worst aspects and be a success, then imagine what I can do with my best aspects. The focus now is what I am able to do rather then what I can't do."

We need to show them what is inside, not necessarily what is seen on the outside. Only then, can we truly drink in what life has to offer. Every time human beings realize more of their potential, whether they are disabled or able-bodied, all of society benefits.