Is it sour grapes that I find this article a little misleading and maybe even a little irresponsible. We learn that people suffer differently with this disease so maybe this person is very lucky. But it is early days in the disease onset for Miss Montgomery and it may be more fair to other people with m.s. to make that situation clear.
For Runner With M.S., No Pain While Racing, No Feeling at the Finish
WINSTON-SALEM,
N.C.
When a pack of whip-thin girls zipped across the finish of the
1,600-meter race at a recent track meet here, the smallest runner’s legs
wobbled like rubber, and she flopped into her waiting coach’s arms.
She
collapses every time she races.
Kayla
Montgomery, 18, was found to have multiple sclerosis three years ago.
Defying most logic, she has gone on to become one of the fastest young
distance runners in the country — one who cannot stay on her feet after
crossing the finish line.
Because
M.S. blocks nerve signals from Montgomery’s legs to her brain,
particularly as her body temperature increases, she can move at steady
speeds that cause other runners pain she cannot sense, creating the
peculiar circumstance in which the symptoms of a disease might confer an
athletic advantage.
But
intense exercise can also trigger weakness and instability; as
Montgomery goes numb in races, she can continue moving forward as if on
autopilot, but any disruption, like stopping, makes her lose control.
“When
I finish, it feels like there’s nothing underneath me,” Montgomery
said. “I start out feeling normal and then my legs gradually go numb.
I’ve trained myself to think about other things while I race, to get
through. But when I break the motion, I can’t control them and I fall.”
At
the finish of every race, she staggers and crumples. Before momentum
sends her flying to the ground, her coach braces to catch her, carrying
her aside as her competitors finish and her parents swoop in to ice her
legs. Minutes later, sensation returns and she rises, ready for another
chance at forestalling a disease that one day may force her to trade the
track for a wheelchair. M.S. has no cure.
Last
month, Montgomery, a senior at Mount Tabor High School, won the North
Carolina state title in the 3,200 meters. Her time of 10 minutes 43
seconds ranks her 21st in the country.
Her next major competition is the
5,000 meters at the national indoor track championships in New York on
March 14, when she hopes to break 17 minutes.
Her trajectory as a distance runner has been unusually ascendant.
“When
she was diagnosed, she said to me, ‘Coach, I don’t know how much time I
have left, so I want to run fast — don’t hold back,’ ” said Patrick
Cromwell, Montgomery’s coach. “That’s when I said, ‘Wow, who are you?’ ”
At
the time, Montgomery was one of the slowest on her team, completing her
first 5-kilometer race in 24:29; by last November, she had run a 17:22,
placing 11th in the regional qualifier for the Foot Locker national
cross-country championships.
The
diagnosis of M.S. came after Montgomery could not feel her legs after
she fell playing soccer and shocks ran up her spine. She was on Mount
Tabor’s junior varsity cross-country team and told her coach that her
legs went numb when she ran.
“I
said, ‘Well, sweetie, that’s kind of how running is, you feel the pain
and then you don’t, you just have to push through,’ ” Cromwell said.
“But she said ‘No, they stay numb.’ I knew that wasn’t normal, and
that’s when the doctor visits started.”
A
magnetic resonance imaging exam revealed six lesions on Montgomery’s
brain and spine. With treatment, she went into remission and resumed
racing.
Because
Montgomery has played down her condition, few people understand her
unusual racing finishes. In the national indoor 5,000-meter championship
last year, officials forgot to catch her and she fell on her face,
lying prostrate on the track until someone carried her away.
Announcers
speculated that she had a seizure. Some assume she is fainting. Others,
she said, have simply called her a wimp.
She dismisses the attention.
“I didn’t want to be treated differently, and I didn’t want to be looked at differently,” she said.
In
many ways, Montgomery’s life resembles that of an ordinary high school
track athlete. Before every race, she puts on the same lucky green
sports bra and size 5 ½ racing flats that carry her 5-foot-1 frame. She
is deeply involved with her Methodist church, along with her younger
sister and her parents, a nursing student and a pesticide salesman. She
carries a 4.70 grade-point average and logs 50 miles a week.
Though
examples of elite athletes with M.S. are scarce, some have speculated
that Montgomery’s racing-induced numbness lends a competitive edge,
especially given the improvement in her times since the diagnosis.
“The
disease has no potential to make her physically more competitive,” said
her neurologist, Lucie Lauve, who also said she did not know precisely
why Montgomery collapsed after races.
“If M.S. has made her a better
athlete, I believe it is a mental edge.”
Cromwell,
Montgomery’s coach, said he thought that insensitivity to the pain of
distance racing could be marginally advantageous.
The
numbness is particularly dire for midrace falls. At her state
cross-country meet last year, she clipped the heel of a fellow runner in
the lead pack and crashed. She could
not get up. Runners sprinted by while she used a nearby
fence to pull herself up and cruise into 10th place.
It
was a lesson in resilience.
Exercise
is commonly recommended for M.S. patients, and Montgomery’s doctor has
cleared her for racing. However, some experts worry pushing to the point
of collapse could have long-term drawbacks.
“When
you push to your limit, your body usually sends pain signals to warn
you that you’re damaging tissues,” said Dr. Peter Calabresi, director of
the Multiple Sclerosis Center at Johns Hopkins. He has not treated
Montgomery.
“Pushing
that limit is what endurance sports are all about. But if you can’t
feel those signals and push from tingling to extreme or prolonged
numbness, you could be doing damage that we won’t even know about until
down the road. It’s a paradox.”
Montgomery is closing out a high school career that is consistently improving.
For Runner With M.S., No Pain While Racing, No Feeling at the Finish
Despite a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis three years ago, Kayla
Montgomery, 18, has gone on to become one of the fastest young distance
runners in the country.
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