Run, Patti, Run

At a young and tender age, Patti Wilson was told by her doctor that she was an
epileptic. Her father, Jim Wilson, is a morning jogger. One day she smiled through her
braces and said, "addy what !"d really lo#e to do is run with you e#ery day, but !"m afraid
!"ll ha#e a sei$ure."
Her father told her, "!f you do, ! %now how to handle it, so let"s start running&"
'hat"s just what they did e#ery day. !t was a wonderful e(perience for them to
share and there were no sei$ures at all while she was running. After a few wee%s, she
told her father, "addy, what !"d really lo#e to do is brea% the world"s long)distance
running record for women."
Her father chec%ed the Guiness Book of World Records and found that the farthest
any woman had run was *+ miles. As a freshman in high school, Patti announced, "!"m
going to run from Orange ,ounty up to -an .rancisco." /A distance of 0++ miles.1 "As a
sophomore," she went on, "!"m going to run to Portland, Oregon." /O#er 23++ miles.1 "As
a junior !"ll run to -t. 4ouis." /About 5+++ miles1 "As a senior !"ll run to the White House."
/6ore than 7+++ miles away.1
!n #iew of her handicap, Patti was as ambitious as she was enthusiastic, but she
said she loo%ed at the handicap of being an epileptic as simply "an incon#enience." -he
focused not on what she had lost, but on what she had left.
'hat year, she completed her run to -an .rancisco wearing a ')shirt that read, "!
4o#e 8pileptics." Her dad ran e#ery mile at her side, and her mom, a nurse, followed in a
motor home behind them in case anything went wrong.
!n her sophomore year, Patti"s classmates got behind her. 'hey built a giant poster
that read, "9un, Patti, 9un&" /'his has since become her motto and the title of a boo% she
has written.1 On her second marathon, en route to Portland, she fractured a bone in her
foot. A doctor told her she had to stop her run. He said, "!"#e got to put a cast on your
an%le so that you don"t sustain permanent damage."
"oc, you don"t understand," she said. "'his isn"t just a whim of mine, it"s a
magnificent obsession& !"m not just doing it for me, !"m doing it to brea% the chains on the
brains that limit so many others. !sn"t there a way ! can %eep running:" He ga#e her one
option. He could wrap it in adhesi#e instead of putting it in a cast. He warned her that it
would be incredibly painful, and he told her, "!t will blister." -he told the doctor to wrap it
up.
-he finished the run to Portland, completing her last mile with the go#ernor of
Oregon. ;ou may ha#e seen the headlines< "-uper 9unner, Patti Wilson 8nds 6arathon
.or 8pilepsy On Her 2=th >irthday."
After four months of almost continuous running from West ,oast to the 8ast ,oast,
Patti arri#ed in Washington and shoo% the hand of the President of ?nited -tates. -he
told him, "! wanted people to %now that epileptics are normal human beings with normal
li#es."
! told this story at one of my seminars not long ago, and afterward a big teary)eyed
man came up to me, stuc% out his big meaty hand and said, "6ar%, my name is Jim
Wilson. ;ou were tal%ing about my daughter, Patti." >ecause of her noble efforts, he told
me, enough money had been raised to open up 2@ multi)million)dollar epileptic centers
around the country.
!f Patti Wilson can do so much with so little, what can you do to outperform
yourself in a state of total wellness:
~ Mark V. Hansen ~