Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Autistic Runner Excels At Boston Marathon


from MAJORITYMAG
April 21, 2009 – 8:34 am

andy-bryant.jpg

Andy Bryant, 27, crossed the finish line at yesterday’s Boston Marathon in a time of 3 hrs 5 minutes and 19 seconds good enough to place him in the top 6% of the 20,000 runners in the race. That’s a great accomplishment in itself, but when you take into consideration that fact that Andy is severely autistic its actually pretty amazing. Lacking the understanding of how to pace himself, Andy usually just takes off as quick as he can and relies on sheer will and determination to maintain it for as long as possible; which in this case happened to be 26 miles!

Bryant plans to continue running marathons for many years to come and with continued training hopes to eventually break 3 hour mark. Judging from his determination, anything is possible.

-JH

photo via Seattle Times


Andy Bryant runs best time at Boston Marathon

Autistic runner qualifies for return trip to Boston with time of 3 hours, 5 minutes, 19 seconds.

Seattle Times staff columnist

Andy Bryant, the autistic runner profiled in The Seattle Times on Sunday, ran a personal-best time of 3 hours, 5 minutes, 19 seconds in the Boston Marathon on Monday.

Bryant, 27, had hoped to finish in less than three hours, but he became tired late in the race and fell off his pace over the final three miles. Still, after spending most of 2008 recovering from a broken foot, Bryant was happy to run so well.

Because he ran a time better than 3:10, Bryant qualified for the 2010 Boston Marathon.

"For some reason, Andy does his best times at Boston, even though it's so tough," said his mother, Colleen Engle. "At the end, he said he just didn't have any more gas in his car. But he's going in the right direction. He'll break three hours someday."

3776 Bryant, Andrew V. 27 M Seattle WA USA

Track
Checkpoints 5k 10k 15k 20k Half 25k 30k 35k 40k
0:20:36 0:40:50 1:00:31 1:20:32 1:24:51 1:41:34 2:04:50 2:29:04 2:52:49
Finish Start Time Offset Pace Projected Time Official Time Overall Gender Division
00:00:48 0:07:04
3:05:19 1958 1857 1321

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