Local runner to join relay for Down syndrome
Two-day road race from D.C. to NYC
Gina Mannion has run dozens of road races since she took up the sport in 2014, including two full marathons and four half-marathons.
With four children between the ages of 12 years and 18 months, she says running upward of 40 miles a week has been a great way to burn calories and build strength, and it’s also pretty good at reducing the many stresses of motherhood.
“It’s my quiet time,” said Ms. Mannion, 45, of Stanton Heights.
On Tuesday, however, she plans to make some noise.
That’s when she’ll lace up for a 250-mile, two-day relay that will take her and 20 others all the way from Washington, D.C., to New York City to raise money and awareness for the nonprofit National Down Syndrome Society.
Dubbed the Run for 3.21, the event begins at 6 a.m. on Tuesday at the steps of the U.S. Capitol. It will end some 48 hours later, on World Down Syndrome Day on March 21, when the team reaches United
Nations headquarters in the borough of Manhattan. The race is drawing self-advocates, athletes and allies in the NDSS community, including Ms. Mannion, whose oldest daughter, Maeve, was born with the condition in 2006.
About 400,000 people in the U.S. have Down syndrome, a chromosomal disorder caused when an error in cell division results in an extra 21st chromosome. Along with mild-to-moderate developmental disabilities, the disorder causes a higher risk of some health problems.
Ms. Mannion and her husband, Brian, know the challenges all too well. Maeve had gastrointestinal surgery the day after she was born, followed by open-heart surgery three months later to repair a hole in her heart. Many more operations happened over the years; when she gets her sinuses repaired next month, it will be surgery No. 18.
“We’ve had our ups and downs,” Ms. Mannion said.
But one of the biggest challenges, she said, has been the many false perceptions people hold about kids with Down syndrome, and the negative stereotyping and derogatory comments they have had to battle. Even some medical professionals, she said, want to categorize them all in the same box, “but they’re individuals,” she said, with different medical issues and abilities.
Maeve, for instance, has blossomed at Environmental Charter School in Frick Park, where she learns alongside her non-disabled peers in sixth grade and recently attended her first middle school dance.
She may be slower or do things a bit differently, “but she can do anything she puts her mind to,” Ms. Mannion said. “She’s very funny and creative girl.”
This is the second year for the relay, which was started by NDSS staffer Michelle Ray as an outgrowth of NDSS’s virtual Racing for 3.21 event.
That “race” held on World Down Syndrome Day on March 21 allows its participants to raise awareness for the community by pledging to run, walk, bike, hike or just move at any pace for 3.21 miles — a reference to the three copies of the 21st chromosome that cause the condition. Last year, more than 1,200 people from across the U.S. took part., raising $100,000.
Ms. Mannion and her fellow competitors, conversely, had to compete for spots on this year’s relay team.
NDSS drew more than three dozen applicants when they put out the call in October, said Ms. Ray, senior adviser for NDSS’s National Inclusive Health and Sports Program — despite the fact participants had to pledge to run between 20 to 35 miles, sleep in a van and raise at least $3,000 for the charity.
Ms. Mannion had a leg up on the competition because she has been on NDSS’s athlete ambassador team over the past three years, representing the Down syndrome community at local races and other events. She also is a longtime friend of Ms. Ray, whose 13-year-old son, Matthew, has Down syndrome. (They met through an online support group with their kids were babies.)
The race is set up like the Ragnar Relay Series, with the distance split into seven separate legs. The entire team (four men and 17 women) will run the first mile together, then they will break off, with two members running a predetermined distance while the others rest their legs or catch some sleep in one of two vans headed to the next exchange point.
All 21 members will finish the last 3.21 miles of the run together.
Part of the challenge of the Run for 3.21 is pushing hard on very little sleep. The course, which includes country roads, highways and towpaths through national parks, also is unfamiliar, and some sections are run in the dark.
It’s a commitment, Ms. Ray said, but a good one because through this and other advocacy efforts, people learn that those with Down syndrome “have the same dreams, hopes and aspirations as you and I.”
Ms. Mannion, who is slated to run 38 miles with her partner, said she initially worried that she would have trouble fundraising. But her running club, Pro Bike and Run, has been super-supportive. It also helped that her training coincided with that for the Pittsburgh Marathon on May 5, and the fact that Maeve and the rest of her family will cheer on her finish in New York City.
Last year’s relay raised more than $100,000 for NDSS progams, including its #DSWORKS Employment Program that aims to educate that public about how individuals with Down syndrome are employable and should be included in all aspects of the work force. This year as in last, dollars also will go its Inclusive Health and Sports initiative that includes NDSS’s National Buddy Walk Program.
The public can follow the runners in real time through live updates and posts on NDSS’s Facebook page. They also can sign up to participate in a free, virtual race of their choosing on March 21.