In the spirit of the Grand Rapids Metro Health Marathon that is coming up this weekend I wanted to share some unusual information about an interesting fellow who once ran, or should I say walked, the marathon! In 2007 a 24-year-old Grand Valley graduate, Neil Sauter, completed all 26.1 miles of Grand Rapids on a pair of 3-foot-fall wooden STILTS. Neil was born with a mild case of cerebral palsy and he decided to take this adventure as an awareness campaign while raising money for the United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan's Assistive Technology Loan Fund!
When asked by a reporter what his inspiration was Neil replied:
After I graduated from college I wanted to do something adventurous and productive before settling into a career.
Are you serious? When I graduated college I wanted to do something 'adventurous' before I settled into a career too, yet somehow I ended up taking a road trip and then settling in at an unpaid internship... to be fair though, I would chose that any day over a marathon on stilts, or even a marathon in general! (Sidenote: I actually really loved my internship, and I'm not just saying that because my boss's husband may or may not read my blog, haha!)
Neil completed the marathon AGAIN in 2008 in 6 hours and 32 minutes - landing him a full TWO HOURS ahead of the previous world record for stilts-walkers in the Guinness Book of World Records! (Maybe the long legs help!)
An extra shout out goes to my sister Amanda & my cousin Laura - good luck on the half marathon this weekend! And to Ms. Jen Crowley - good luck on the full (oh, and great job doing the advertising)!!