Jackson woman crosses finish line with help from 'angels'

"I just felt like I was called to this. God has blessed me with the ability to get out and race and enjoy it, and I just want to share that with others -- enable people like Becki to know what it's like to have the wind in their face."

-- Tiffiney Smith of Jackson

Good teachers often push their students to succeed, but Tiffiney Smith of Jackson is taking that responsibility literally with one of her former kindergartners.

Smith has known Becki Nation, 21, since Nation was a student in her kindergarten class at South Elementary School.

A few weeks ago, Smith and two other runners pushed Nation -- who has cerebral palsy -- across the finish line of her first 5-kilometer race in a specially designed wheelchair.

"It was so neat to be able to reconnect with her after all these years," Smith said.

Nation and Smith are members of Southeast Missouri's newly formed chapter of MyTeam Triumph, an organization that gives people with disabilities an opportunity to participate in endurance races by matching them with athletes who take turns pushing their wheelchairs that look similar to the jogging strollers parents use with small children.

The local chapter is new, but the national organization has been around since 2006, said Debbie Leoni, chapter president.

Teams consist of a captain, who rides in the chair, and three "angels" who take turns pushing.

"They trade off, so it's not like you have to be able to push the person the whole three miles or six miles or whatever," Leoni said.

The Southeast Missouri chapter has just two captains at the moment, but organizers hope to raise enough money to acquire several more of the chairs -- which can cost $1,200 to $1,800 apiece -- so more people can participate, Leoni said.

"Our goal is to raise money to have a fleet. ... We know that once we get more chairs, we can fill them," she said.

The focus is on the captains, not the angels, Smith said.

"It's the captain's race, not ours," she said. "We're just there to push them across the finish line."

Leoni said runners do not need to be fast.

"Most of the time, what I hear from people is they think they're too slow. ... It's not about speed," she said. "If you're out there and you're worried about speed, it's not time to be an angel."

That said, Nation -- whose wheelchair has a license plate on the back that says, "2FAST4U" -- was gleeful as she described her team's finish time compared to a team led by fellow captain Brandon McArthur of Jackson.

"We creamed 'em," she said, beaming.

She and Smith exchanged a high-five.

"That was what was so cool about our little team," Smith said. "We were all a little competitive."

For safety reasons, the organization tries to find teammates who run at roughly the same pace, Leoni said.

"If you have to alter your gait a lot, you can get injured, and most of these people do race pretty consistently," she said.

While the angels focus on their captain rather than the clock, their experiences with MyTeam Triumph can lead to better finish times when they're running alone, in part because it helps train their upper bodies -- an area many runners neglect, Leoni said.

"That's like training on hills and then running on a flat [course]," she said.

Volunteers do not have to be runners, Leoni said. MyTeam Triumph also needs help with photography, fundraising, website updates and other behind-the-scenes projects, she said.

Nation's parents said participating in MyTeam Triumph is good for her.

"The social [aspect] is really great for her, just to get out, because there isn't a lot she can do," her mother, Margie, said.

"She's a people person," her father, Steve, added.

Smith, who has been running for 15 years and started participating in triathlons about 10 years ago, said her ultimate goal is to complete a triathlon with Nation.

"I just felt like I was called to this," Smith said. "God has blessed me with the ability to get out and race and enjoy it, and I just want to share that with others -- enable people like Becki to know what it's like to have the wind in their face."

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