Running Full Speed Ahead

Alex and Jamie Schneider are 16-year-old twins who live on Long Island and they are runners—-not in the sense that their parents need to put up fences, but in that they run 5K and 10K races (3.1 and 5.2 miles). Alex finished 25th out of 370 runners in February at the Snowflake four-miler in Long Beach; he recently ran a 10K in 43 minutes and, last month, beat 85 people to win a 5K in Great Neck. Because they have to run in the races unassisted, they wear bracelets that say they are non-verbal and have autism, and that include contact information.

Motion is good for my son Charlie too and we plan to start him running on a track this summer. Notes a story in the June 3rd New York Times:

Like Alex and Jamie, their parents are also racing: in their case to prepare the boys to survive when they can no longer parent them. Running in the real world, the Schneiders hope, will teach their sons about the rewards of discipline and hard work and push them toward more independent mainstream ventures.

As Cindy Thompson says about her 18-year-old son Ian who is graduating with a scholarship from Oskkosh West High School in today’s The Northwestern,

“When he was little, people would always ask me what he couldn’t do,” she said. “The only people that ever got Ian asked what he could do.”

I’d say Alex and Jamie and Ian are off to one fine running start.