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| New leg helps amputee to first race victory |
| CORONA, Calif. (May 11, 2004) |
Published May 11, 2004 in the Lansing State Journal
Hoekstra: New leg helps amputee to first race victory
Amy Dodson was optimistic that she could run a personal record time in Sunday's Nokomis Drum Run 5K in Okemos.
"Because I run with a prosthetic leg, it's usually a big deal if I can place (among the top runners) in my age group," she said.
But she discovered about two miles into the course that makes its way around Meridian Mall that she was the first woman runner among 75 entrants.
"There was a hairpin turn where you could see everybody who was ahead of you," she said. "That's when I first noticed."
The 40-year-old fifth grade teacher at Madison Elementary School in Adrian tried to relax over the last mile and keep from getting too excited.
She not only finished in a best-ever 3.1-mile time of 23 minutes, 22 seconds, Dodson earned the female overall award in a road race for the first time.
"I was thrilled," she said.
She was quick to credit Jan Stokosa of the Stokosa Prosthetic Clinic, who didn't just fit her two weeks ago with a new leg from Freedom Innovations. He also cheered her on to victory on Sunday.
"The leg from this new company is giving me back a tremendous amount of energy," she said. "My training partner is having trouble keeping up with me. We were supposed to be running an LSD (long, slow distance) workout, and I was doing eight-minute miles. That used to be my race pace."
Dodson was 12 years old when she first began battling a rare form of cancer called undifferentiated sarcoma in her left foot. After a series of unsuccessful operations, part of the leg was removed seven years later. Then at age 21, the cancer spread to her chest. The following year, a lung was removed.
Dodson grew up in Tucson, Ariz., and cheered on her father - who was a runner - at road races. But it wasn't until about five years ago that she started running, thanks to a prosthetic leg.
Then, improved prosthetic legs provided by Stokosa enabled her to improve her running to the point where she set world records for a woman amputee in the 5K (23:51) in 2001 and in the marathon (3:53:21) in 2002.
The 5K record has since been lowered to 21:46.
"The record was set by a 19-year-old young lady in Florida," she said. "That has inspired me to run even faster."
Thanks to the new leg from Stokosa.
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