This also happened at Bandera last weekend.

Thank you to Chuck Seligman for the guest post.  And thank you Eduard Lychik for being awesome — in the full sense of the word.

“An Extraordinary Race, Requires an Extraordinary Runner”

Every race is full of runners, yet every runner runs his own race. This is the story of my race ran with Michelle Hey and Eduard Lychik at the hills of Bandera, TX on a soggy wet Saturday morning on January 12, 2013. Eduard was one of my wounded warriors who I met while working at the Center for the Intrepid (CFI). I kept up with him via Facebook which is where I learned of his philosophy of life to live every moment of every day to its fullest. He got my attention when I saw he ran a trail race in Hawaii while wearing a gas mask. I knew he had something special inside and invited him to run with me if he was ever interested in getting involved in local racing. After a meeting together it was clear Eduard would accept my challenge to run the Austin marathon and I believed he would be ready, but what I didn’t realize was that he would peak an interest in the Bandera 25K trail race I was set to run a month earlier. …

Making our way to the starting line Eduard was already inspiring runners just stepping up to this course. We got our usual starting line pictures, and people were in awe of Eduard asking for their picture with him and he was patiently gracious with every one posing with them as we all started our journey on the muddy terrain that misty morning. Entering the woods on the wide trail we had a great pace. Eduard was insisting that we run our own race and should not feel like we needed to hang back with him. While I appreciated his remarks I was also very comfortable with his pace and realizing Eduard was new at trail running interested in making sure he was going to be able to make it on this toughest of courses. It only took a half mile for Eduard to show us that he could run this course on his own. Nothing was going to get in his way today. But Michelle and I agreed today’s race was something special that we would do together as a team and we would not leave this course until the three of us crossed the finish line together.

To watch a man with a full prosthetic leg that has been custom made just for him run across terrain where many of our fellow runners quit by mile six was impressive, to say the least.

Grappling steep terrain full of slippery mud, loose rock, while avoiding cactus and other dangers that resided along the edge of the trail waiting for one errant step off the path. Everything was going great until mile four. That’s where Eduard let us know a bolt had fallen off the back of his prosthetic that held his shoulder strap to the waist portion, but that he could fix it with a strap he had wrapped around it. That seemed to be a good fix, only requiring minor adjustments from that point forward throughout the remainder of the race.

Eduard was using a Nike sole as a tread on his prosthetic blade that could no longer endure the rocks at Bandera and we “had a flat.” The clip on the toe of the tread broke off and the tread was free to slide up and down the blade making the carbon fiber blade prone to damage. There was no way to fix the tread so we began to rummage through what we had to try to find a fix. The tread was very worn and chewed away. Bandera had really taken a toll on this piece of equipment. The decision was made to “borrow” these convenient clothespins that were naturally growing in the trees. Tying the reflective tape back in the tree we broke the clothespins in two and used them as wedges in the clips of the tread and blade and under the blade to wedge enough pressure to keep the tread in place. While we had to continue collecting clothespins and replace the wet clothespins a few times and adjust the rubber foam liner on the tread so that it doubled over in front of the blade at one point we were again able to make some good time down the trail for about two miles.

At mile eight, the clothespins were no longer effective and the tread would not stay in place. About every 50 feet we were stopping to fix the tread. Conveniently enough, we were at a place on the trail where there was an inordinate amount of bright yellow caution tape naturally occurring in the trees and so we “borrowed” a length of the tape to try and tie the tread in place and by this time we also noticed the rubber foam we were using was beginning to crack and split in two so it had to be repositioned.

This worked for about a half mile and it became obvious the tape was not holding the tread in place like we hoped so we stopped to figure out another solution. Something you have to understand about this. Every time we stop to work on this tread it means that Eduard is holding on to one of us while the other shovels thick casings of mud off the blade and tread just to be able to work on it. All of us had mud on us because of this. Water could not be wasted to wash our hands or anywhere else the mud found its way onto.

As we found the most obvious and only solution a trio of female runners came by and offered assistance; however, they were not carrying much so there was not much they could offer. They turned to leave and we turned to work on our solution when out of the blue they turn back around and yell out, “you can have the string in our shorts, if it’ll help.” Now, it’s not every day people offer you pieces of their clothes that one would think they need to hold their clothes on, but the gesture was appreciated and to this day we are thankful for the kindness of the many runners who as they went by asked if there was anything they could do. First, we thought we might be able to place my water bottle over the blade to protect it, but that just seemed dangerous as the water bottle would not offer any traction. The solution Eduard came up with this time was to remove his shoe from his foot and place it over the blade somehow and he would run in his sock. I reminded Eduard that this was Bandera and running in a sock was going to be nearly impossible, but he was insistent and it did seem to be the only solution at the time. So we put his shoe on the blade, doubling the insole over at the end to keep the blade form ripping through the end of the shoe and tied the shoelaces up and over the pole that attached to the blade portion of the prosthetic. It was solid, but I still wondered how in the world Eduard would finish the final seven miles in his sock. We figured if he could make it to the aid station maybe we could tape it up or figure something out from there. And we were off once again down the trail.

Eduard was having a difficult time on the rocks and many things on the trail that want to pierce through clothing into one’s skin and the sole of his foot was taking a pounding. Not to mention that now his leg and his prosthetic were at very different heights and this was causing a problem for him to walk, much less maneuver over the rocky terrain. That’s when, providentially, the course sweepers happened upon us and offered us some moleskin and if we could make it to the aid station a pair of shoes one of them could have brought there. The mole skin was large enough almost covering the entire bottom of Eduard’s size 10.5/11 foot. So Eduard loosened his prosthetic from his waist and asked me to rip off a gel pad that was in place to prevent chaffing and blistering from the rubbing of the waist harness. Under the gel pad there was some light foam material, but I was worried that Eduard would begin to blister and I asked him what this was for. He said we could put the thick gel pad in the bottom of his sock to serve as a sole, like a shoe. This seemed reasonable enough. The gel pad was very durable and cushioned and would also help with some height under his foot. We placed the gel pad and stuck it on with the moleskin to his foot and replaced his sock. A great fix for about a mile until the sock wore through and a huge hole began to rip out from under the sock causing us to lose the gel pad. About a half mile from Crossroads aid station we stopped and had to figure something out, the gel pad would not stay in place. The strap on his ankle was a lifesaver. We could wrap the chip strap around his foot to hold the gel pad in place long enough to get us to Crossroads.

It worked. That strap, requiring only one adjustment got us limping in to the aid station where we met with Mitch Allen and Dr. Ficke. How perfect! We told them our story and how we made it this far and what we needed. Mitch took a look at the sock and said hang on just a minute. When he returned he had a new shoe (it was one of Mitch’s that he had been wearing) and a pair of socks. He put the sock and shoe on Eduard’s foot and Eduard stood to his feet with a Salomon on his prosthetic blade and a Brooks on his foot, the funny part being that they were both right shoes.

Eduard took off with a stride and a run out of that aid station like a thoroughbred horse who could not be held back any longer. I looked at Michelle and told her, let’s just keep him in sight and hopefully we will catch up when he runs upon an obstacle or maybe he’ll tire. Thankfully, Eduard did slow down and we were able to catch up and run the final 5 miles with no issues. Somewhere around mile seven I had feared if we did finish we were going to be limping across the finish line, but when Eduard ran across that mat at the finish it was to the cheers of a roaring crowd. The most unique experience in my running history was complete and I was thankful for every inch of trail we shared. Eduard said somewhere in the middle of that race that there’s not an obstacle he couldn’t get passed. He proved it at Bandera. Bandera did not give us anything easily, we had to take what we got. Eduard claimed his finishers medal and nobody has ever deserved one more.