AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The Boston Marathon is happening on Monday, and this year, the event is marking the anniversary of an important tradition. From member station GBH, Craig LeMoult reports that 50 years ago, Boston became the first major marathon to include a division for wheelchair athletes.
CRAIG LEMOULT, BYLINE: Jason Fowler directs his racing wheelchair out of his parents' driveway in Kingston, Massachusetts...
JASON FOWLER: Yeah, let's do it.
LEMOULT: ...And out onto the quiet neighborhood streets. He's low to the ground, and his chair looks aerodynamic as I ride alongside on a bike.
FOWLER: Everybody always thinks that we're grabbing the wheel or the hand rim.
LEMOULT: But as he speeds down the road, he's actually propelling himself forward by hitting each wheel with a gloved hand.
FOWLER: As you can imagine, just like your feet get sore from running, our knuckles and hands get really sore from punching the hand rim after a couple hours.
LEMOULT: The power of each push forward comes from his upper back and shoulders. He's paralyzed from the bottom of his rib cage down, so he doesn't have abs to help move him forward.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHEELS ROLLING)
LEMOULT: Fowler lives in busy south Boston, where there's a lot more to dodge, so he likes to come out here to his parents' place to train.
FOWLER: On this back road, there's just no cars, which is glorious for a wheelchair racer.
LEMOULT: But he does sometimes get chased by dogs. Fowler's out here getting ready for the Boston Marathon, a spring event that cruelly requires competitors, whether on sneakers or wheels, to train through the winter.
FOWLER: So navigating snow and ice and even sand, it just makes it really unsafe. Not to mention, like, you know, the chances you're going to get a flat go up about 10 times.
LEMOULT: But he does it anyway because he loves it. Growing up, Fowler was a competitive motocross racer, and he broke his back when he was 17.
FOWLER: Six months after my accident, I borrowed a racing wheelchair from a friend of a friend and started doing road races.
LEMOULT: At 18 years old, he competed in his first Boston Marathon, finishing in an hour and 55 minutes, and he hasn't stopped since. He's competed in about 50 marathons and even more triathlons, winning two Iron Man World Championships. And this year, at age 51, Fowler will race in his 21st Boston Marathon. It's a special one, he says, because it's the 50th anniversary of the first wheelchair athlete to compete in the Boston Marathon.
BOB HALL: I always thought I had the ability to do what I set my mind out to, no matter what distance.
LEMOULT: That's Bob Hall, who was the first to do it in 1975.
HALL: I wasn't always good or wasn't always winning, but it was always about the challenge.
LEMOULT: It wasn't Hall's idea to compete in Boston. He heard some other wheelchair athletes talking about maybe doing his hometown marathon, and a mixture of pride and competitiveness took over.
HALL: If I didn't do it, someone, you know, would've shown up and did it. And that would've been like a catastrophe for me.
LEMOULT: The Boston Marathon's race director agreed to award Hall a certificate of completion if he could finish in under three hours.
HALL: I never thought about what I was doing as first or unique. I was really doing it for myself. I never even thought about the time. It was a ride of enjoyment.
LEMOULT: Even so, Hall beat that three-hour goal by two minutes. And he was using a clunky, hospital-style wheelchair, unlike the racing ones used today. Boston became the first major marathon to include a wheelchair division. And since that first race a half century ago, nearly 1,900 wheelchair athletes have competed. Among them is Jason Fowler.
FOWLER: I say competing is in my blood, but for the most part, it just makes me a better human. It used to be about winning and competition. And now I realize how fortunate I am to be healthy enough to do these things.
LEMOULT: On Monday, Fowler will be among 50 wheelchair athletes using every bit of strength they have to make it 26.2 grueling miles to the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
For NPR News, I'm Craig LeMoult in Boston.
(SOUNDBITE OF TAYLOR SWIFT SONG, "FEARLESS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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