Stephen and Erik

I first had the opportunity to push my disabled son, Stephen, who is currently 10 years old, in a 10K in December 2014. We used a modified wheelchair owned by the Landrunners, the Oklahoma City running club. Stephen enjoyed it so much, that we purchased a multi-purpose adaptive wheelchair. Since that arrived in May 2015, we have run multiple races together, and every Saturday we go running around the neighborhood. Stephen has almost outgrown his current chair, and we are hoping to have a Hoyt Blade II by the end of the calendar year.

Once I learned that running with Stephen was a possibility, I wanted to give him every opportunity to enjoy the freedom of have the sun and wind in his face as he moved; he can walk, but due to low muscle tone, can only run about 25 meters at a time. Stephen is at his happiest when we are running. His joy brings me joy. Our new goal is to run a sub-20:00 5K together; our current PR is 21:30. Our time spent running is our special time together, our father-son bonding time. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The attached photo is of us running the 2016 Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon.