Victoria Matysik and Madeline Garber’s Recent Successes
The 2024 AACR (American Association of Cancer Research) Philadelphia marathon (26.2 miles) had noteworthy occurrences. The first woman finisher, Katie Florio who clocked 2 hours 32 minutes 42 seconds (2:32:42) won more than just the first-place cash prize of $10,000. She went home with an additional thousand dollars for being the first Philadelphia woman to finish. Her winnings that day totaled $11,000. Asked how she intended to spend the money, Florio answered:
“Toward a huge family vacation.”
Another noteworthy occurrence was that Bill Rodgers who won the Philadelphia Marathon 50 years ago, back in 1974 with a 2:21:57 finish was there this year as a male ambassador.
“I had fun when I won this race 50 years ago,” said Rodgers. “This is a great race and I enjoy coming back every year.”
Rodgers renowned running reputation resulted from him winning four Boston Marathons 1975, 1978, 1979, and 1980 and four straight New York City Marathons in a row: 1976-1979. While Rodgers was dominating the world of marathon running, he was aware of the capabilities of individuals with disabilities. This stemmed from him teaching behavior modification to adults with disabilities in Boston while earning his Master’s Degree in special education at Boston College. He also met Dick Traum, Achilles International’s founder. Rodgers was well aware of Achilles International’s mission of making it possible for people with disabilities to run.
People at the 2024 Philadelphia Marathon knew about Florio’s victory and Rodger’s presence, but they might not have known about certain members of the Philadelphia Achilles chapter and some of their entrants’ noteworthy efforts. For these Achilles athletes, the victory was not crossing the finish line, but making it to the starting line.
Here is a brief look at two of Philadelphia Achilles athletes:
Victoria Matysik
Sun. November 24, the City of Philadelphia put on the AACR Philadelphia Marathon, and the day before the city put on two additional races: The Rothman Orthopedics 8K (4.97 miles) and the Dietz & Watson Philadelphia Half Marathon (13.1 miles). Victoria Matysik competed in the 8K.
She was a member of the Philly Achilles chapter for about 10 years, and this was her very first race – EVER! She is totally blind and has some hearing loss. However, she had enough hearing to know that the crowd cheered for her the entire race.
“They encouraged me,” said Matysi. “They thought I could do it.” And they were right.
Asked if she had additional comments about the race, Matysi said:
“I’m running this race next year.”
Matysi added:
“I wish I had known about Achilles sooner. I love Achilles. It’s my second family.”
Madeline Garber
Madeline Garber who is totally blind, competed in the half marathon. Her usual fully sighted partner, her father, was unable to train with her this year due to injuries. Fortunately, Achilles guide runners and runners from the club Narberth Beer Runners were able to guide her for her training runs.
Her support system were in place. Throughout her life, Garber ‘s support systems were affectively operative going back to her middle school days when she lost her last vestiges of vision due to Leber Congenital Amaurosis (LCA).
LCA affects both rods, cones, and the the light-sensitive cells in the retina, causing severe vision impairment by disrupting their proper function and electrical activity, leading to significant vision loss. It impacts both peripheral vision (rods) and central vision (cones) due to malfunctioning photoreceptors in the retina.
Garber can see light, but cannot recognize objects such as a hand. If you were to hold a hand up to her face, she would not see the hand, but she would see that something was blocking her view of the light.
Garber said that losing her sight while in middle school was not devastating because she was never able to see perfectly.
“It was frustrating,” said Garber. “It was like, ‘oh no I can’t see these pictures anymore. I will have to use Braille.’”
Support for her was already in place. To some degree, she was prepared for her inevitable loss of sight. She was learning assistive technology, Braille, and orientation and mobility. Knowing these things helps people adjust to vision loss.
“When I lost my vision, I already had these tools in place,” said Garber.
Other people helped her adjust to the uncomfortable feeling of being the only blind person in a fully sighted group. A key example was when she ran cross country for Lower Merion High School. There, her cross country coach, Dermot Anderson, did a special exercise at one practice, which caused her teammates to develop empathy for her.
While she was in her freshman year in 2011, this writer was writing a different article about Garber for the Main Line Times. At the time, Anderson said that in one of his first practices, he had half the team wear blindfolds for part of the practice, while the other half of the team guided them. Then for the second half, he reversed their roles.
Not only did they have to run blindfolded, but they also had to wear them while riding the bus to and from where they were going to run that day. In addition, they had to wear them while standing and talking with their guides.
“On the bus, the kids with blindfolds had a hard time handling conversations because they didn’t know if someone was talking to them or not,” said Anderson. “They didn’t know if people were listening to them.”
While his runners in blindfolds were standing next to the kids who were going to guide them, Anderson secretly pulled the guides away.
“Sometimes when Maddy is standing there with a teammate, the teammate might walk away to go somewhere, and forget that Maddy doesn’t know that,” said Anderson.
“One of the best parts of that practice was that Maddy got to lead everyone,” said Anderson.
Although her high school cross country team supported her, not everyone else at Lower Merion did. At times, she felt out of place because of her blindness. Not everyone was nice to her. There were certain experiences she would like to forget.
Gerber learned about Achilles while in high school. At times, she attended their workouts.
After she graduated from Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. in 2019, she now had time to do more of the Achilles workouts Saturday mornings.
“I like Achilles because every week you’re guaranteed a run,” Garber said.
Regardless of the runner’s condition, whether good or bad, Achilles, she said will provide you with a guide runner.
To learn more about Achilles, log onto achillesinternational.org