to the god of rush this is well sanchez this is a very special episode of gotta run with well it is my fifty f recording so there are a few people i really want to thank st manhattan neighborhood network for making these facilities available to us and to my wonderful crew in the control room to controlling everything that to see tonight especially gloria messer who has been with the said show number one thank you guys i love you very miley she is to central park jogger tonight we're going to be concentrating on a story of hope and possibility to share welcome thank you will so great to be here all the malls i lived in paramus till i was about twelve years old and then my dad worked for westinghouse and we were transferred out to pittsburgh and so i went through through high school there and  in the in the northeast you know all my life kind of i went to school up in boston and then graduate school in connecticut and and so i consider myself  brothers and i wanted to participate in everything that they were doing so i played you know touch football even tackle football with them you know up to a period of time and in baseball depending on whatever the season was we played whatever sport was you know what the professionals were playing so i would oftentimes you know i'd be out on the football field and then run back home you know turn and change into my graduate schools when i was an economics major at wellesley college which is in wellesley the halfway point of the boston marathon on boston wants to know the best loudest cheerleaders they are for part to reasons one is a holiday it's a state holiday patriots day so there's a lot of people watching and there are a ton of schools in boston so you get a lot of twenty year olds out cheering people on and having a grand time to want to put on a great well what were you running in those days i did i had started running just before i went to college nothing serious at all one of my older brothers you know took me down to the track to the high school track and he said oh i'm going to you know go running do you want to come so i thought all right let me try and so i remember going i think a quarter of a mile around the track and and i really enjoyed it and and then when i got to school it was a wonderful release for me and i love to be outside and and then seeing the enthusiasm and excitement around the boston marathon and you know when i saw that my freshman year april of my freshman year i thought to myself you know maybe maybe i can do this in the following year i did it as an unqualified i had a limited unqualified you know you know through that halfway point through wellesley college and because i you know i was a student there and had a wellesley t shirt people were right one of the five years ago ok next and so after graduate school what happened to go get a good real job well after college i went to work in boston for a year or two and then i went to graduate school compulsive about my running and about exercise and so as much as i loved it i was compulsive about it and it was an unhealthy come yet i think it it was unhealthy because you know no matter what else happened i you know needed to run or exercise in some way by the way i'm rereading a book i have to central park jogger and i think and mention to know you were injured your thirteen i i actually i broke my shoulder and from that i had to wear sling for a while and i couldn't dance i was very serious about dancing and you know and in part with dance there's such an emphasis on your body in being thin and you know thinking about how you know what what am i going to do because i can't keep that you know i can exercise and and so you know what i do developed into an eating disorder i thought well i was twenty eight and so that was very unhealthy and and what then came you know a few years later was starting to you know be compulsive about the running because that was a way just to keep moving and was a weight although i've you know it doesn't make any any rational sense because i've night after work i had gotten home from work you know a bit after eight o'clock at night and i had to go running and i would you know go in central park and sometimes i would go with other people but a lot of times i just went on my own and i went on my own and and that night was a horrible night in central park there were almost forty teenagers who were roaming the park and beating people up and and i ended up being attacked and  gagged and raped and from the beating suffered traumatic brain injury and i have no memory of it because of the brain injury i'd say almost one hundred percent of people who have a severe brain injury have no memory of the actual event and depending on you know where they're hit and how they're hit the extent of the amnesia before it you know varies and then also afterwards so i have no memory it was so horrific the whole country was pulling for you the whole world i tell you you know from from all that i i think i never ever felt alone even though at the time i didn't consciously know that there were all these people the world out there you know thinking about me and praying for me and saying good intentions and and and really they were part of my recovery but but somehow i horrible and it was a crime that nearly killed me but that healing process is something that i'm so grateful for and showed me just what the body and the mind can do and that that all of us whatever our challenges are can do so much more than we ever thought possible especially with you know the kind of love and support there provides that hope provides the hope it's physical therapy department up again hospital which is a rehab hospital in connecticut and i casually asked me if i wanted to join a group of people who met on saturday mornings to run and if ur so i was a little hesitant you know can i do this i don't know you know and because i was thinking a little bit about what i used to do and can i do it i wasn't sure but i thought you know what i trust him and so one day one saturday morning i joined them and it turns out it was a chapter of the achilles track club an achilles now known as achilles international is an international organization that encourages people with all kinds of challenges and disabilities to participate in mainstream athletics and primarily running and that st day that saturday morning when we started out and it was this quarter mile loop that wasn't even a track it just went right through the hospital parking lot you know i was wobbly and but it felt so good i felt like i could conquer the world and it really filled me with such hope and i got a sense of what was possible and i felt really proud of what i could do even if it was you know barely a quarter a mile and i was you know kind of wobbly and such that didn't matter i just felt good about what i could do and and and so you know with that same spirit i killie's and i because i then became you know affiliated with them when i moved back to new york city we started the hope and possibility right anything but yet over five thousand people have registered and that's the limit and and so we've we started this tradition of offering a sense of hope and possibility through the raise that that you know with exercise both able bodied and those with what ever challenges it is can can you know work together and set goals and focus on those goals and then achieve them and that's what wheelchair i believe that you know setting a physical goal is so powerful because you can then see yourself but she that and that helps build the self confidence build your self confidence and and your self esteem and and when that starts to happen you know you feel like you've achieved something and with that achievement then you're inclined to say well maybe i can do a little more maybe go a little further maybe go a little faster and and the cycle you know just continues and and i believe what i've seen in myself and in others you know with a is that confidence gained in the physical realm can be transferred to other aspects of your life to achievements in other aspects of your life maybe at school or at work or in a relationship and you know maybe your you know your conquering assignment at school or or your you'll do something that you might not have done it work or who knows maybe you'll ask somebody out that you wouldn't have or something that  experiencing homelessness feel empowered to way you describe almost word to word as a complimentary event but still very much overlaps so your your words  universal it's and we didn't rehearse it either to me it's just confirmation that yes this is seeing something in the physical realm really does help change the attitude about yourself and i've seen you know in my own life that when i feel good about myself when i feel proud of what i can i do not you know worrying about you know what i could have done but what looking at what i can do that i feel like i can do anything and anything becomes possible just talk a little bit about the history of the hope and possibility the ten year anniversary is coming up i think last year the heard about achilles and that we had chad a chapter at walter reed medical center and we've been working since two thousand and four with recently injured veterans soldiers saturn's and soldiers from iraq and afghanistan and we have this chapter at walter reed and you know and here are these men and women a lot of whom have lost limbs and oftentimes unfortunately it's more than one limb and the group that goes down to walter reed and dick traum the founder he'll say would you like to run in a marathon and they're like what are you crazy and and you know you get them in a hand crank wheelchair and and they're you know they're able to adapt the chair for the person depending on you know what what their limbs can do and it gives them it's that it's that word empowerment that sense of empowerment to get work at what i can do i can be in this race with everybody else and the great thing about achilles is it it is has it combines or it it invites people who are able bodied to join those who have a challenge and and it's just wonderful how everyone is there together with achilles what i love about the organization is helps people just change their  lives there are so many stories as many killings athletes there's a wonderful story about you know how kill achilles helped give them the support that they needed to take charge of their life again i'll never forget the st time of disability or challenge that you don't know if you know it's not is as obvious as a missing women or so we just accept everyone because i tell you what i've what i've learned over the years in my speaking because i do motivational speaking much after i left the rehab hospital i went back to solomon and that was a big part of my rehabilitation and reentry back into the real world they accepted me and i gradually and then i i you know i just kept thinking about maybe it's time to do something else i wasn't quite sure of what it would be but i ended up running a nonprofit in new york city called the bridge fund of new york in ink that that gave financial aid to people who were threatened with homelessness and it was wonderful organization a great opportunity and part of what it showed me was you know what i i need to get back to what really what what really i guess sets me on fire and that's talking about health and healing you know for those who have a brain injury or who've been sexually assaulted good and and that led to the writing of my book really high end and now i do the motivational speaking not you know not just two groups who've been sexually assaulted or who have brain injuries it's amazing how the story and i get a sense of it from you a bit just really seems to resonate with so many people either they know someone who's been through some kind of a trauma or they have been and i just continue to get the message you've got to keep doing what you're doing  of it did it did and i stood on the pitcher's mound i practiced for a while with my husband in our backyard you know we we he plotted out sixty feet because that's the distance from the from the pitcher's mound to of violence day and and surrounding me were other sexual assault survivors and their families and to you know and to face on the field and to feel that support and you know part of it is raising awareness that this kind of stuff happens and you know it has a switch at all times of day to all ages an ethnic groups and you know but we need to support each the marathon and i thought to myself you know maybe i can do this and the following year i ran it and i i cross that finish line in four and a half hours so that's a great pretty pretty good time other things that were right there are things to worry about i think you know i don't recommend this is a way to get over an eating disorder as you you know get a brain injury and such but i i think i realized that i had put my body through so much not fitting it properly and then you know running it like a mad woman so i needed to you know to him to eat well to heal is part of the healing process and and so that was to me actually probably one of the biggest benefits of of the healing process that related to your faith help you in this process at all i tell you what i fel in a way the god the god from all those people who reached out to me in whatever way they did i felt that in the power of that and that really helped me to feel as if i weren't alone and helped to give me the strength to continue to move forward because it's a struggle that's a great answer to be said came to me when i was reading reading reading your story it was telling about all the special all the prayer and so so that play a big part in your writing and what one particular prayer was i believe it was everything and and there's a chapter in the book called thank you for your prayers that just tell stories of the official prayers that were said but other ways that people reached out that you know that they didn't have to and i also realize how fortunate i am you know often times people don't receive that kind of support so one of the things that i do when i'm out speaking is to encourage people to reach out in what ever way feels appropriate to them to other people who may need it because it does make a difference in helping people heal yes it does it's interesting because i interviewed ready and just before you and he talks about the power of touch what they do when they get together for  babb who would she told me i don't remember this but she would hold me her arms when i became agitated and that's a common reaction for people with brain injuries they get agitated so she would hold me in and to try and calm me down and and i believe that the touch is a powerful factor in the healing process and and my husband and i touch a lot well my the trishna says you can't have too much of congress and kisses that's right that's right what are some of your future challenges in a way athletically i'm going to run the five miles of the hope and possibility race which is you know i don't normally run five miles and and so it's a little bit of a challenge and that central park is hilly so i'm looking forward to that but i continue to you know to speak to all different kinds of groups and and it's part of my healing but it's also it's also a chair and i would love to do it i love to spread that message of hop