![]() ![]() She is a single mother of two teenagers, 15 and 13, intensely driven, remarkably persevering. Her lower left leg was amputated below the knee in 1997 after a motorcycle accident. This was the first attempt at the Marathon des Sables for Palmiero-Winters or any female amputee in the 34 years of the race, organizers said. Each had his or her own motivation: to reconsider a bad marriage to kick a habit of sloth and cigarettes to plot a new career after the military to find a new challenge after rowing across the Arctic Ocean. She was free to continue her attempt to become the first female amputee to complete the Marathon des Sables, a stage race roughly equivalent to running 23.5 miles a day for six days in relentless heat over sand dunes, rocks, dry valleys, stony plateaus and salt flats in southern Morocco.Įach runner carried in a backpack everything needed for a week in the desert: food, sleeping bag, compass, headlamp, venom pump to minimize any bites from snakes and scorpions. Finally, the runner behind her reached and pulled the leg backward, and Palmiero-Winters swung her foot over the impediment. Each time she tried to lift the carbon fiber leg, her shoe bounced against the rock, unable to clear it. ![]() ![]() The runners, by now walking, began a steep climb up a 25 percent grade, which required many of them to use fixed ropes to reach the summit.Īs Amy Palmiero-Winters, 46, of Hicksville, N.Y., began the sharp ascent, her prosthetic left leg became stuck beneath a rocky outcropping. THE SAHARA - It was the last difficult stage of one of the world’s most punishing races. An Amputee’s Toughest Challenge Yet: Her 140-Mile Run in the Desertīy JERÉ LONGMAN Photographs by Ryan Christopher Jones ![]()
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