After life-altering amputations, trio forge bond running together at Cowtown Marathon
Loss brought them together.
And they celebrate their bond by running.
Jennifer Clark, Roy Martin and Stuart Martin met at Baker Orthotics & Prosthetics in Fort Worth.
Each had lost part of a leg. Clark, who is from Godley, lost her left leg above the knee because of an inoperable tumor 10 years ago. Roy Martin, of Forest Hill, lost his right leg below the knee after a machinery accident seven years ago. Stuart Martin, of Desdemona, near Stephenville, lost his left foot in a motorcycle accident in 2017. (Roy and Stuart are not related.)
Each had run before their amputations. Clark, 41, ran to stay fit. Roy Martin, 30, was a sprinter in high school but never was into distance running. Stuart Martin, 29, who is in the Air Force reserves and in graduate school at Tarleton State to be an athletic trainer, had just begun distance training a month before his accident.
They ran the Cowtown 10K on Saturday together, finishing in just under an hour. Clark, who Roy Martin calls the ringleader of their running group, set the pace early. She was determined to beat her personal best time of 61 minutes. She finished in 59 minutes, seconds after Roy and Stuart.
“She really helped pull us all to be a bit quicker,” Stuart Martin said. “If I was on my own I definitely wouldn’t have been that quick. It felt great.”
Each of them run with a special prosthetic, commonly known as blade runners.
“I’m used to it, so now it’s normal but as amputees we burn about 50 percent more energy than if we had two legs,” said Clark, who finished in an hour, 15 minutes in the 2012 Cowtown 10K.
For Roy Martin, the father of two kids, running helped get him past the shock and a bout of depression after his accident. He ran his first 5K three months after receiving his prosthetic.
“You can have support, your family, friends and everybody there for you but if you’re not willing to do it for yourself it’s going to be really hard for you,” Roy Martin said. “I had to go through the emotions, don’t get me wrong. I went through a little depression a little bit, feeling a little sorry for myself, but I never stayed there. I felt it, cried a little bit, and then alright. Now get up and do something. That was always my motivation.”
Despite different backgrounds, they keep each other motivated and share a bond from a similar life experience. None are sure who exactly had the idea to start running together. But it was probably Clark, Roy Martin said. It brought them closer together, Stuart Martin said, and grew from there.
“We just started doing events together and became friends. We like to run and love Fort Worth so we’d figure we’d do Cowtown,” Clark said. “It brings together the best of both worlds.”
This story was originally published March 2, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
