A compelling video of a champion runner from North Carolina went viral this week. Kayla Montgomery is no ordinary runner-she's suffering from multiple sclerosis, which affects her legs.
At first glance Kayla looks and sounds like a regular trained athlete: strong, powerful, and competitive. However, after every run, her Mount Tabor School track coach Patrick Cromwell, needs to be there to catch her. By the time she reaches the finish line, her body's temperature is so hot that she experiences the temporary effect of her disease, including not feeling any sensation from her legs.
In a documentary, her parents, Keith and Alysia, described her as shy and artsy. In fact, it's because she seemed withdrawn that they encouraged her to play sport, and she later fell in love with soccer.
In 2009, while playing the game, she fell. Later that night, she felt some tingling on her toes and eventually lost sensation on her legs. It was only when she underwent a battery of tests that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition that affects the central nervous system. She was only 14.
She spent the next 8 months depressed and mad for what had happened while receiving medications to regain her leg sensation. She eventually had to give up soccer, but after realizing she couldn't spend the rest of her days feeling sad, she approached her track coach, telling him she wanted to run fast and to train her like any other athlete.
She started on the average but later went on to become the fastest long-distance runner in the school. During one of her most recent competitions, the North Carolina State Championships, she fell during the first few minutes of the run but got up, beating the other girls into the finish line.
Kayla has beaten her school's previous record of 17:36 for a 5K run by setting her own at 17:42, one of the top 15 fastest runs in the history of North Carolina in the female category.
She is set to run for as long as she can.
You can watch her documentary Catching Kayla here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpA-FsKLA6A.
