She is a single mother of two teenagers, 15 and 13, intensely driven, remarkably persevering. Her lower left leg was amputated below the knee in 1997 after a motorcycle accident. This was the first attempt at the Marathon des Sables for Palmiero-Winters or any female amputee in the 34 years of the race, organizers said. Each had his or her own motivation: to reconsider a bad marriage to kick a habit of sloth and cigarettes to plot a new career after the military to find a new challenge after rowing across the Arctic Ocean. She was free to continue her attempt to become the first female amputee to complete the Marathon des Sables, a stage race roughly equivalent to running 23.5 miles a day for six days in relentless heat over sand dunes, rocks, dry valleys, stony plateaus and salt flats in southern Morocco.Įach runner carried in a backpack everything needed for a week in the desert: food, sleeping bag, compass, headlamp, venom pump to minimize any bites from snakes and scorpions. Finally, the runner behind her reached and pulled the leg backward, and Palmiero-Winters swung her foot over the impediment. Each time she tried to lift the carbon fiber leg, her shoe bounced against the rock, unable to clear it. The runners, by now walking, began a steep climb up a 25 percent grade, which required many of them to use fixed ropes to reach the summit.Īs Amy Palmiero-Winters, 46, of Hicksville, N.Y., began the sharp ascent, her prosthetic left leg became stuck beneath a rocky outcropping. THE SAHARA - It was the last difficult stage of one of the world’s most punishing races. An Amputee’s Toughest Challenge Yet: Her 140-Mile Run in the Desertīy JERÉ LONGMAN Photographs by Ryan Christopher Jones
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