Congratulations to Barbara Buchan, the inspirational winner of the individual 3000-meter cycling gold medal in this year’s Special Olympics. I hadn’t seen her name in print for 32 years, since the day she and I went running together.
It was 1976, when Barbara was 20 and I was 9. We were running in Idaho’s first marathon, held just outside of Boise. And we were an unlikely pair, a woman distance runner and a little boy. Someone shot a photo of us that was on the front of the Idaho Statesman’s sports page. I still have the article in my files. The article was about me, the son of an assistant basketball coach for Boise State. She was a student there.
That’s pretty much all I’ve heard about her for three decades, until I found the featured article “From Death’s Door to the Medal Podium” on the New York Times website. I find that even through physical disabilty and age, she has remained an incredible competitor. Congratulations Barbara!
Here’s a video I compiled recently of my childhood marathons. You’ll see Barbara, too, from 0:58-1:51. I remember that she waited for me many times as I struggled through that race, where I eventually dropped out at 20 miles.
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