Interview with Amanda McGrory

By Brooke Edwards

Amanda McGrory received an allergy shot at age 5, and her spinal cord became inflamed. She developed a rare condition called transverse myelitis; within a day, she was paralyzed from the waist down.

Though it meant the end of one chapter in McGrory’s young life, it was the beginning of her path to becoming a champion athlete.

In 2004, McGrory left her hometown of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, to study psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since wheelchair racing is not a collegiate sport, McGrory races on the professional circuit with the world’s top athletes.

Just 19 months after her marathon debut, McGrory has won nearly every major race in the country. She won the inaugural ING Georgia Half-Marathon in March with a time of 58:09, the Colorado Marathon in May in 1:55.32, the Oensingen Marathon in Switzerland this June in 1:39.20, and the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon in October with a time of 1:45.27. And that’s just to name a few.

McGrory also had strong showings at last year’s IPC Athletics World Championships in the Netherlands and this year’s IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan.

During her first appearance at the ING New York City Marathon last year, McGrory edged out Great Britain’s Shelly Woods to win with a time of 1:54.17. As she prepares to defend her title, McGrory spoke with Fast-Women.com about how she was bribed into her first 26-mile push and her plans to break the world record.

Fast-women.com: Can you tell us about your first race?

Amanda McGrory: My first time racing ever, actually, I was 5. And it was right after I had gotten out of the hospital. I went to finish my rehab after my injury, and I didn’t have a racing chair. I just did it in a regular, everyday chair. And the longest race I did was the 100 meters [laughs].

FW: And you won?

AM: I did. I was probably the youngest person there, too. And then I took a couple years off from it. The race that I had done lost funding. And so I didn’t hear anything about it for a while, until I was about 10. That’s when I got seriously into racing and I bought a racing chair and started competing.

FW: How did your parents feel when you started to get so involved in athletics and competing at such a young age?

AM: They were especially supportive of me being involved in athletics mostly because, at the beginning, it was a great opportunity for me to get to know other kids with disabilities. I lived in an area where I never got to meet anyone else in a wheelchair. It was just me. So it began really as just a social, recreational thing that was just fun. I could go and meet other kids, play some sports, try some things out. And then as I got older, it became more and more serious. My parents were amazing, dedicating time to driving me to practice, taking me to track meets and basketball games. Yeah, they were fantastic.

FW: What about your first marathon? When was that?

AM: My first marathon was in Denver. It was the Colfax Marathon, and I was actually bribed into doing it. I wanted no part in doing a marathon whatsoever. I had no desire to push 26 miles. But there was a track camp going on a couple weeks before that I wanted to go to. And so the deal was, the director of the camp told me he would let me go to the camp if I did the race for him. So that’s how I did my first marathon.

FW: Oh, how funny! And how did you finish in that race?

AM: I finished third in that one. And then two weeks later, he called me up and talked me into doing another marathon. He talked me into doing Grandma’s [in Duluth, Minnesota]. And I won Grandma’s.

FW: So third place in your first marathon and first place in your second?

AM: Yeah, not too bad!

FW: Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty good! And do you know how many marathons you’ve completed since then?

AM: I don’t know exactly, but I’m going to estimate around 10 to 12. I’ve been packing them in for the past year.

FW: Looking at your results it seems like you’ve been doing them pretty close together. Is that unusual? Are you an exception with how often you’ve been competing?

AM: I’ve definitely been doing them closer together. Wheelchair athletes in general, we can do marathons back-to-back weekends or a few marathons a month because it’s not as high-impact and it’s not as tolling on our bodies. So there’ve been a couple times where I’ve done a marathon and then flown somewhere else and done one the next weekend.

FW: Is there a particular victory, marathon or other, that has meant the most to you?

AM: Yeah, it was New York City last year, for sure! It’s the most competitive wheelchair race in the U.S., by far. And I wasn’t even going to do the race. I got talked into doing that one, too, by Bob Laufer, the wheelchair race director. He needed another athlete and I decided I would go and just have fun and see how it was. I didn’t think I was ready for the level of competition at that race, and it didn’t start out too well. I was dropped by the lead pack, but I ended up catching up. It wasn’t until mile 20 that I started thinking that maybe I had a shot at winning it. It was just an amazing experience.

FW: It looks to be quite a stacked race, with much being made of the fact that every winner since the wheelchair division began in 2000 is set to compete. How are you feeling about the competition this year?

AM: Maybe a little bit more nervous than I would be normally. But I’m excited. I’ve never raced against this many elite wheelchair racers at one time before. I think we’ll all be able to push each other and play off each other’s strengths. And I think it’ll be great!

FW: You’ve said that this course was the most difficult you’ve raced. Do you still think that’s true?

AM: It’s definitely one of the toughest courses. It’s a lot hillier than most marathons are. And then on the downhill there’s lots of sharp turns. So that’s tricky. It’s a very, very technical course, which makes it more fun, too.

FW: Speaking of the downhills, you’ve said that’s actually your least favorite part of the race. Can you talk a little bit about that?

AM: Yes, downhills are my weakest. I’m not a very big person. I only weigh probably about 85 pounds, and so I don’t have enough weight to really coast down the hill. And most people I’m racing against, even though they’re not big, most of them have at least another 20 pounds or so on me. So they get coasting down the hills faster than I can. And once your wheels get spinning to a certain point and you’re going so fast, your hands just can’t keep up anymore. So that’s around 26 or 27 miles an hour for me. And then it just does no good to push. I’m just slowing myself down. So once we reach that point we just have to let gravity take us. I’ve been working on that, a little bit. I’m a strong climber, so my climbing balances it out a bit. It’s where I make up all of my time.

FW: Can you tell us a little about the chair you’ll be racing in?

AM: Oh, sure! It is 70 inches long, it has 3 wheels and it’s made out of aluminum. My back wheels are carbon fiber. They’re cyclist wheels. And it’s super light, probably 20 pounds with the wheels on it. They’re designed to be an aerodynamic shape. So they’re light, they’re fast. And they’re custom made completely to each racer.

FW: What type of training have you been doing leading up to this race?

AM: We’ve been doing a lot of training. We train pretty much year round here at the University of Illinois. We have a wheelchair track program. So I’ve been training with another athlete who’s coming to do the wheelchair race for the men and our coach. We train six days a week and we put in probably about 100 miles a week. And we switch it up.

Our training is probably more similar to what cyclists would do, as opposed to a runner. So we do some sprint work and some long runs. We went off today for just an easy 18-mile push. Yesterday we did a hard 20 miles. We’ve been concentrating a lot on climbing and on the hills, because New York is such a hilly course.

FW: Do you also put in time weightlifting, doing some upper-body work? Or is your time in your chair sufficient?

AM: I’m not doing any weight training right now. We do a lot of weight training in the off-season. So after New York City I’ll be back in the gym and I’ll probably only be pushing maybe three times a week instead of six. So we use that time to build our strength, especially because it gets so cold here that we can’t push outside in most of the winter. Then, once the track season starts up again, and the marathon season—probably April or May—then we’re pretty much on the road all the time.

FW: And are you a senior there at the University of Illinois right now?

AM: I am a junior. I took some time off last year. The first semester I took off to go to world championships and race, and then I did a marathon in Japan and New York City. And so I’m a junior right now in psychology.

FW: Do you hope to use your psychology degree at some point in the future?

AM: I’m not quite sure exactly what I want to do with it yet. I’m thinking about maybe taking some time off after I graduate from undergrad to pursue a career in wheelchair racing. And then I’d like to pick it back up again and go to grad school for something psychology related.

FW: Is that something you think you would do at the University of Illinois too, or would you want to try a different school?

AM: I haven’t decided quite yet. We have such a great wheelchair track program here that I think while I’m racing I would definitely like to stay around here.

FW: Are you’re still being coached there by Adam Bleakney?

AM: Yeah.

FW: And he participates in some of the same races as you, is that right?

AM: He does. We actually did the [LaSalle Bank] Chicago Marathon a couple weeks ago, and that was great. And it’s a lot of fun. It’s great to have a coach who also races because he sees things from a different perspective. It’s different sometimes having an able-bodied person coach disabled athletes because sometimes they just can’t relate because it’s different. Running is similar to wheelchair racing, but there are little things he can pick up on that a runner wouldn’t be able to.

FW: Can you explain some of those little things that would be particular to wheelchair racing?

AM: Well, there’s a stroke you use to push your chair, which is obviously different than running. And there are technical things that are different too, especially with the coasting down hills and climbing hills. We’ve also been working a lot on cornering and taking turns. And that’s something you don’t have to worry about at all really when you’re running. It’s just natural.

FW: Are you still competing on the basketball team at your school as well?

AM: I am. I’m going to start playing basketball right after New York. I’ve been taking some time off. I didn’t want to risk an injury or anything before a big race. But yeah, I’m excited about that. It should be good.

We play in the inter-collegiate wheelchair basketball division. So we go around and play different colleges all throughout the winter. And then in February we’re hosting the women’s Division III Collegiate Wheelchair Basketball Nationals here at the University of Illinois. So that’s really exciting, too.

FW: You’ve traveled so many places now with all the races you’ve done. Do you have any particular place that you would like to go back to, either to race or just to visit?

AM: Yeah, definitely. We were in Switzerland both this past summer and the one before, and it was just absolutely gorgeous. I would love to go back for a longer period of time. Both times we were there, we were racing almost the entire time. This summer we had two track meets and a marathon, so we had hardly any time off. So I would love to go and race for a bit and have some time to travel around.

FW: You’ve said that it’s a goal to race in the Paralympic Games in Beijing next year

AM: I do have a goal for that. I would love to go to Paralympics. It would be my first one. I was talking recently with my coach about the events that I think I’m going to run. So I think that I’m going to race the 800, 1500, 5000, and the marathon in Beijing.

FW: What do you have to do to qualify? Have you already qualified or do you still have some times that you need to make?

AM: We have standards that we have to hit. But I’ve hit them the past two summers, so I feel like it’s pretty likely that I’ll hit them again. Trying not to be too confident [laughs]! But we’ll run a qualifying meet I believe sometime in early June. And then the U.S. Paralympic committee will compile all the times and they’ll rank everyone and then take those with elite standards to Beijing.

FW: Do you have any other specific goals either on or off the track that you could share?

AM: Definitely, I would love to break a world record in the marathon. I was close this summer. I missed it by 30 seconds in Switzerland. And so I’d love to do that. And then racing in Beijing is a big goal. And also graduating. That’s big, too!

Interview conducted October 20, 2007, and posted October 25, 2007.