Inclusive running group helps Iowa sisters, regular competitors in Special Olympics, train for 5K
Becca Wunsch’s bright orange windbreaker added a pop of color to an otherwise dreary September Saturday morning in downtown Des Moines.
She swiped rain-soaked bangs out of her face as she ran down the John Pat Dorian Trail along the Des Moines River, only to have her hair fall back in front of her eyes. Breathing hard, her pace slowed.
Wunsch, 29, didn't want to give up — that’s just not like her — but trainers had intensified her workout and she was starting to feel it. Janelle Smith, her running partner and volunteer trainer, noticed the struggle. “You can do it,” she said, “we just have a minute left in this interval.”
Tiffany Wunsch, Becca Wunsch’s 33-year-old sister, walked a few paces down the path with her own volunteer training partner Cain Kremitzki. She had just broken her toe after stubbing it on her bed frame while dancing in her bedroom, but she was still determined to train. She cheered her sister on, letting out a joyous squeal as the rain fell.
The Marshalltown sisters love dancing, doing CrossFit workouts, going on bike rides and cooking macaroni and cheese. They're all-season Special Olympics athletes who have competed in dance, swimming, bowling, skiing and a few short sprint races.
But they didn't love running, or at least they didn't until recently.
Now, thanks to an inclusive training program through Fleet Feet Des Moines, in partnership with the IMT Marathon and Special Olympics Iowa, the sisters, who have cognitive disabilities, are set to race in the Principal 5K Road Race this Sunday, and they're determined to run the entire thing.
More:Here's how to navigate Des Moines during the IMT Marathon this Sunday
Special Olympics bring sisters even closer together
Jody Wunsch said her daughters have always been very close and have always looked out for each other. The trio reminisced a few weeks after that rainy training Sept. 10 about the old days when Becca Wunsch used to drag her older sister around the block in a Radio Flyer wagon until one day she took a sharp turn and Tiffany Wunsch went toppling over.
She wasn't mad or hurt, she just laughed.
That laugh, which comes with a big smile and endless positivity, is what Tiffany Wunsch is known for, Jody Wunsch said.
“She is the most happy person,” her mother said. “That’s one of her strengths ... her happiness and joy that she brings everywhere she goes.”
When Tiffany Wunsch was born, Jody Wunsch said she suffered complications that limited the amount of oxygen to her brain. Doctors never specifically told Jody Wunsch what happened, but by the time Tiffany Wunsch enrolled in preschool, it was clear she was developing differently than her peers and would need extra support.
Tiffany Wunsch found strength in movement. A natural dancer and swimmer, she joined Special Olympics as a child and has tried almost every sport available to her, from basketball and golf to bowling and snow-shoeing, according to her mother.
“She has so many shoeboxes full of medals,” Jody Wunsch said.
Jody Wunsch said Becca Wunsch has always felt protective over her older sister. Becca Wunsch’s “mom-like” qualities tend to come out, Jody Wunsch said, especially when it comes to telling her older sister what to do.
But over time, Jody Wunsch said this mentor-mentee relationship “shifted into a real friendship.” The women often take “sister weekends” to go bowling or stay in to watch movies and football together. Tiffany Wunsch said, albeit with a little smirk, that when Becca Wunsch is not around, she misses having her younger sister boss her around. Becca Wunsch, on the other hand, said when her older sister is not there, she “miss[es] her smile.”
Unlike Tiffany Wunsch, Becca Wunsch discovered Special Olympics later in life. Their mother said Becca Wunsch struggled with learning setbacks and relationship-building growing up, but she has always been determined to work hard and achieve her goals. Becca Wunsch said she is always itching to find new activities and ways to challenge herself.
“I like to do things rather than stick around at home,” she said.
After graduating from high school, Becca Wunsch attended a two-year program at the University of Iowa’s REACH Program, where she lived in the dorms, attended classes and built connections with other students with cognitive and intellectual disabilities. After graduation, she returned home to Marshalltown, moving into her own apartment and starting work at local care centers. But over time, Becca Wunsch said life in Marshalltown became lonely.
“All my friends left and I don’t have anyone to hang out with,” she said.
She joined various social groups through programs such as Optimae and Arc Iowa, both organizations which plan events and help bring together neurodiverse groups of people. Eventually, Becca Wunsch started tagging along with her older sister to Special Olympics events, where her mother said she finally found a space where she could open up and build meaningful connections.
“It was hard for her to truly find some true friendships,” Jody Wunsch said. “Special Olympics has helped her find that.”
Special Olympics offered the sisters the opportunity to bond over their shared passion for exercise and movement.
“They are always cheering each other on,” Jody Wunsch said.
With the help of Special Olympics, and aided by vampire movies and impromptu bedroom dance parties to favorites like Lipps Inc.’s “Funkytown,” Becca Wunsch discovered the greatest friend of all: her sister.
More:Roosevelt students' special friendship leads to Special Olympics trip to United Arab Emirates
Just like any other running group
For the sisters and their running partners, what makes the unified partners running group special is the fact that it is not special at all.
“I think just having unified athletes and the Special Olympics athletes running together, it’s like you’re running with anybody else in any of the other running groups,” Smith, one of the running partners, said.
Bryan Coffey, the former director of unified programming at Special Olympics Iowa, said this perspective allows the program to achieve meaningful inclusion over simple inclusion.
Inclusion would be just inviting someone to a dance, he said. Meaningful inclusion is actually dancing with them.
Inclusion, Coffey said, is about more than just bringing people together.
“It’s important to get people involved, to get them included, to get people of different abilities to the events. But it’s also even more important to get them involved in the event within the abilities that they can achieve,” Coffey said.
According to Fleet Feet co-owner Kathy Roat, the training group is built with that in mind. The eight-week running program, based out of Fleet Feet’s East Village store at 521 E. Locust Street, is tailored to the abilities of each athlete and each training session is guided by the motto that “there is never a person left behind,” Roat said.
Smith said training with the Wunsches and other Special Olympics athletes has reinvigorated her own love of running and shown her the true power of inclusion.
“Disabilities are so vast,” she said. “We all have some sort of disability or something that is different about us. I think coming together and understanding that, it helps you just become more of a compassionate and understanding person.”
Building that compassion has also helped Smith and the other unified partners focus on what is even more important than running — building meaningful and lasting relationships.
Those friendships are what Becca and Tiffany Wunsch said make them eager to jump out of bed early and make the 50-mile drive to train each Saturday morning.
“I’ve got a partner to run with me!” Tiffany Wunsch exclaimed while listing her favorite parts about the program.
Jody Wunsch said over the course of the eight-week program she has watched both of her daughters come out of their shells and express their truest selves with their new running partners.
“I sometimes get choked up,” she said. “I think that they feel self-worth, and not less than.”
Jody Wunsch said she believes meaningful inclusion means never looking down upon others and judging them because of the different challenges they may face in life. When meaningful inclusion is achieved, that is when she said each individual can be celebrated for who they truly are.
Fleet Feet’s unified running program has achieved that, she said.
“They’re just being them. And people can experience them for being them,” she said. “You’re not going to get that out of a one-time event.”
Looking forward to the 5K on IMT Marathon Sunday
Sunday’s race will be Becca and Tiffany Wunsch’s third time running the Principal 5K Road Race, but it is the first one for which they have trained. The marathon has been partnering with Special Olympics since 2015, but hasn't offered a unified training program before. According to Becca and Tiffany Wunsch, training with their partners makes a real difference.
“I get tired at the very end when I’m done,” Becca Wunsch said about each training session, “but when someone is like ‘you can do it, keep going, you’ve got this,’ then I won’t stop.”
Having partners by their sides who truly know and understand them will also help the sisters on race day, Jody Wunsch said. In previous years, Special Olympics arranged for Becca and Tiffany Wunsch to have running partners, but they did not have a chance to meet until they picked up their race bibs.
“In years past ... they were nervous about it,” Jody Wunsch said. With this year’s training program, she said her daughters no longer feel the same awkwardness they previously did. “They were nervous the very first day I think,” she said, “but now they really look forward to it.”
Chris Burch, the director of the IMT Marathon, said he recognizes running can be intimidating, and sometimes alienating for those who do not feel like they see themselves represented in the sport.
“For a lot of people, running is not comfortable. Both physically and mentally, your body gives you messages to stop doing that,” he said. “(Training) teaches you both mentally and physically to work through that messaging and work through that discomfort, and that’s how you begin to build endurance.”
That is exactly what the unified partners training program has worked to accomplish. Over the course of eight weeks, the runners averaged two miles per run, varying in pace and time, to build endurance, keep the runners free of injury and help them reach their race goals. By the end of the program, Becca and Tiffany Wunsch will each have put in more than 15 miles with their partners.
Becca Wunsch said she's learned to start off at a slower pace so that she can slowly build up her speed throughout the run. She also swears she will never start a run again without properly stretching first. If they can find partners to continue training with them, they hope to run even longer races, their mother said.
Looking ahead to Sunday's race, Becca Wunsch said she believes the weekly training sessions will help her reach her goals.
“I want to get in shape and see if I can run it the whole way like I did last year,” she said. Even though Tiffany Wunsch broke her toe and could not run for a few weeks, she said she still hopes she can run the race “at a good pace.”
No matter the outcome, the sisters said the program has helped them build meaningful relationships; it offered a lesson in setting goals and working hard to achieve them and has been an opportunity to feel a part of something bigger than themselves.
“Just all the things from relationships to physical health to mental health, that will all benefit them for the rest of their lives,” Jody Wunsch said.
Francesca Block is a breaking news reporter at the Des Moines Register. Reach her at FBlock@registermedia.com or on Twitter at @francescablock3.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Special Olympics, IMT Marathon, Fleet Feet plan inclusive running group
