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After mother’s mortal stroke, a Mill Park woman trains for first marathon to raise money to help fight strokes
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| Mary Steele training for her first marathon at Glendoveer jogging trail in Mid-County. |
| MEMO PHOTO: TIM CURRAN |
Steele has lived in the Mid-County area for 23 years, first in Cherry Park and then in the Mill Park neighborhood. Both of her children attended Mill Park Elementary, Floyd Light Middle School and David Douglas High School. Son Matt graduated in 1999 and daughter Shannon, is currently a sophomore.
Steele is a self-employed licensed tax consultant and bookkeeper/accountant working out of her home office.
Much of her walking-training is done in the neighborhood. She tries to work in errands to the post office and the bank with daily walks. Longer walks involve the I-205 bike path and laps around the track at Floyd Light and the Glendoveer jogging trail.
Steele and dozens of other walkers and runners are all part of Train To End Stroke, the American Stroke Associa-tion, or ASA’s team marathon training program, which started in Portland last June. Under Train To End Stroke, participants work with an experienced coach for several months, raise critically needed funds for research and education, and travel to a destination marathon. Steele is bound for the P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon in Phoenix. “None of our current team members have ever done a marathon before,” said Linda Lopeman, director for Train To End Stroke. “It is inspiring to see them make a life-changing decision to join the program and participate on behalf of someone who has had a stroke. Some of them are stroke survivors themselves.” Training for a marathon requires dedication. Steele’s training schedule means walking six days a week - rain or shine - for five months. “I am making good progress. My mileage is increasing, my legs are feeling stronger and I am starting to pick up my pace a bit.”
On top of her fitness goal, Steele is also working on raising $3500 for the ASA. In addition to her mother, Steele’s maternal grandparents both had strokes and she has seen a friend in his 30’s survive two strokes. “This is a cause I strongly believe in supporting,” she adds. More than 2,000 Oregonians die from a stroke each year, making it the third leading cause of death in Oregon and a leading cause of severe, long-term disability. On average, someone in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 53 seconds, and every 3.1 minutes someone dies of a stroke.
Train To End Stroke is a semiyearly program. The next training season begins in January 2004. For more information, call 503-233-0100 or visit StrokeAssociation.org/TTES.
To make an online donation to Steele visit http://local.strokeassociation.org, enter a Portland-area zip code, then pick “Support your Train To End Stroke team”.
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