First Female Amputee to Run Grueling Desert Ultra Explains Why She’ll Never Stop – runnersworld.com

Amy Palmiero-Winters seems to have an endless battery charge. Seven days a week, the 45-year-old mom of two runs from her home on Long Island, New York, to an hour-long CrossFit class, then runs back afterwards. She also heads to the track to do 400- and 800-meter intervals once a week, and logs 19 to 20 miles on Saturday or Sunday.

Every few months, she races ultramarathons—the latest of which was the brutal Marathon des Sables, a six-day, 156-mile trek through Southern Morocco, which she finished in April.

She does this all with a prosthetic on her left leg, which was amputated after a motorcycle accident in her 20s. The device can make running difficult. When it’s wet outside, it sinks and sticks in the ground. It makes balancing difficult, especially when running on a slant, like the side of a cliff. And after too many miles in it, the skin-on-plastic friction causes chunks of skin to rip off from the back of her leg, leaving behind large, gaping wounds.

Really, if anyone has an excuse not to run ultramarathons—or not to run at all, for that matter—Palmiero-Winters surely has one. And yet, she dismisses it.

“I’m only human. In the middle of a race, there are so many times I want to stop,” she told Runner’s World. “But you don’t have the opportunity to stop. When it gets dark, you have to keep moving forward. The worst thing you can do is give something less than your best, because you have to live with that forever.”

Palmiero-Winters’s performance at Marathon Des Sables was especially impressive, because was the first below-knee female amputee to finish in the race’s history. In the past, she was also the first in that category to complete the Western States 100-Mile, Badwater 135-Mile, and 50-mile Spartan Death Race. She’s also made history on the road: In 2006, she broke the marathon records for female below-knee amputees in both the New York City Marathon and the Chicago Marathon (in Chicago, she broke the men’s record, too).

With every medal she earns and record she breaks, she hopes that she can inspire someone else out there who’s dealing with a handicap, she said.

“I try to stay as positive as I can, because the last thing I want is for them to lose hope,” she said. “But running with a prosthetic is not easy. I might make it look that way, but it’s not. Running on two legs is absolutely easier. I remember what it’s like.”

Finding Running, Losing It, Then Finding It Again

One of Palmiero-Winters biggest regrets is taking running for granted before the accident. She grew up in Meadville, Pennsylvania, near the border of Lake Eerie, and she began running as a kid mainly because of economical reasons.

“We didn’t have the financial means to participate in other sports, and running didn’t require much,” she said. “Anyone was able to do it.”

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But she ended up falling in love with the sport, especially during her teenage years. The miles helped her clear her head and feel strong and capable, even in the rough patches of young adulthood. In high school, she excelled in the 300-meter hurdles, 400 and 800 meters, as well as the 4×800- and 4×400-meter relays. She finished an 800 in the low 2:20s, which won her the district championship.

“I never took it for what it was worth,” Palmiero-Winters said. “Like my dad used to say, ‘You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.’”

In 1994, Palmiero-Winters’s life changed. She was 20 at the time, working full-time in her hometown, and had plans to go into the military and join the police force. Then one night, as she was riding motorcycles with her friends, she crested a hill near her neighborhood and was hit from the side by a car crossing the intersection. Her left foot, which had carried her through the Boston Marathon earlier that spring, was crushed instantly.

She was airlifted to a hospital in Pittsburgh, where a sympathetic surgeon did everything in his power to save her foot, though the damage was so severe that it should have been amputated right away.

After two months of surgeries, she left with a remodeled foot that had shrunk from a size 7 to size 4. Three years and many medical complications later, she had to have amputation surgery.

“When you lose your leg, there’s no handbook to it,” Palmiero-Winters said. “I didn’t understand the process.”

She was simultaneously grieving her lost limb and figuring out how to live life with a prosthetic. Her first order of business was learning to run again, which was a disaster.

Since her first prosthetic didn’t have a blade that absorbed impact forces, she ended up with a bone infection. Later, after another surgery, she was fitted with a device made by A Step Ahead, the prosthetic company Palmiero-Winters now works for as director of operations. “The new prosthetic made running possible again,” she said.

Becoming an Untraditional Ultramarathoner

By 2000, about three years after her surgery, Palmiero-Winters was getting back into the swing of running. She began competing in marathons again, but because the impact took such a toll on her, she didn’t run at all during the week, instead saving up her miles for the race.

Over the years, she grew stronger and more durable, and her weekly mileage ticked upwards. She began contemplating the mega-distance races she’d read about, like Badwater and Western States.

“I love a good challenge,” she said. “And I tend to get fixated on things.”

To prepare for Badwater in 2010, she went all-in on the training—to an unhealthy level, she admitted. On weeknights during this time, she’d hire a babysitter to watch her children, then she’d leave the house at 8 or 9 p.m. to go for an all-night run that lasted anywhere from 60 to 80 miles, split up between neighborhood roads and—when she felt unsafe in the dark—a Planet Fitness treadmill.

She’d finish around sunrise, then head to work. “I just didn’t sleep,” she said.

Predictably, that regime wasn’t sustainable. She finished Badwater, but her body ached with fatigue.

“A crew member said to me, ‘Why would you run a marathon the day before running a marathon? Your body doesn’t gain any strength if you never rest.’ That sunk in,” she said.

So in 2011, Palmiero-Winters adapted a new philosophy: Run less, get stronger. She cut out her intense all-nighters and replaced them with a more streamlined training diet of CrossFit, speedwork, and just one long run a week. Even though she wasn’t putting in as many miles as before, she gained plenty of endurance through circuit training and fast efforts; and most importantly, she was giving her body the sleep and downtime it needed.

As a result, she shaved five hours off of her 2011 Badwater time, finishing the 135 miles in 41 hours, 26 minutes, and 42 seconds. Since then, Palmiero-Winters has kept up her CrossFit-running routine, which certainly helped her push through the many tough parts of her latest challenge.

Enduring the Desert

Marathon des Sables, which takes place six hours into the heart of the Morroccan desert, is the type of ultramarathon that even the most seasoned ultrarunner might hesitate jumping into: nearly a week of running with no aid stations, pit crew, nor respite from the elements other than the bivouac you carry on your back.

“We had to carry all we needed for six days on our backs, so you had to make some sacrifices,” said Palmiero-Winters, who ran with a group of five. “You couldn’t eat a lot, because you didn’t want to carry that much food weight. And even though it was freezing at night, you couldn’t pack more than a pair of thin wool pants.”

Her primary fuel sources during the trek were Blow Pops—she’d have one when she crossed periodic checkpoints—and a space age-sounding gel containing wasp venom, which she said boosted her ability to burn fat as energy. Twice a day, she’d have a banana bread-flavored Pro Bar, and she’d chow on a stick of pepperoni at night. Once, another runner left her a Honey Stinger waffle along the course. “It was like the heavens opened up,” she said.

By the time Palmiero-Winters officially finished Marathon des Sables in 52 hours, 23 minutes, and 21 seconds, she could barely walk, due to the prosthetic-inflicted wound on the back of her leg. As soon as she landed in New York, she had to have it mended by a plastic surgeon.

“Ultimately, the race wasn’t what I wanted it to be,” she said. “But I’ve learned that the outcome is more than just your time and place. I did my best. I’ll keep doing my best.”