5 Question & Answers - Pittburgh Half Marathon
Butler County is filled with a variety of people doing interesting things. This weekly feature offers snapshots of some of them by asking five questions. The latest installment appears below.
Bethany Black of Meridian is on a mission, actually two missions.
She’s in training so that she can finish the 13.1-mile Pittsburgh Half Marathon Sunday.
And she’s working to get the word of her running out, hoping her participation in the race can can raise money for, and awareness of, autism.
The 2009 Butler High School graduate has an autistic 8-year-old cousin, Zachary, and decided to use the event to raise money for the Organization for Autism Research.
Black set up a website, www.Firstgiving.com\fundraiser\forZachary\pgh, to collect donations, and then she used social media and old-fashioned word-of-mouth to get her message out.
“I’m doing it any way I can,” Black said. “Through Facebook, I’m posting the link there. My uncle sent out an e-mail to a few friends, and his friends sent it to more people and it just exploded from there. I don’t even know who’s donated. My parents are telling their friends. It’s pretty much computer and word of mouth.”
“I’ve raised $2,025 so far,” said the LaRoche College junior sociology major.
“I put my goal at $5,000, which is a lot. I wanted to make it that big to encourage people to donate.”
To reach both goals, Black has put a lot of time pounding the streets of Meridian.
QUESTION: Have you always been a runner?ANSWER: It’s been a hobby. I’ve been running for about a year. My family’s always been into running. I was the couch potato. But I decided I wanted to eat more.I run three to four times a week, and each time it’s been four to five miles. I’ve been upping it a little in preparation for the marathon, but that’s the average. There’s one day where I do a lot of hills. And one day, about two weeks before the race, I will do 13 miles where I usually run.
QUESTION: Do you feel confident you can finish?ANSWER: Yes, definitely. It’s definitely a matter of will power. I can do it. Pittsburgh’s a hilly city, but the half-marathon is surprisingly flat. I don’t know how they manage that. They must not go through Oakland.
QUESTION: Is it hard training to run distances?ANSWER: Honestly, once you get in your zone it’s pretty easy. There are certain days when you are exceptionally fatigued, and that makes it hard to go out there the next day and run. But you just have to ignore it and go out the next day and run as far as you can. It’s all in your head, completely.
QUESTION: What’s the hardest part about having an autistic relative?ANSWER: The hardest part is probably just seeing how the disease limits him socially and keeps him from functioning in the world around him, all the things we take for granted.He doesn’t have a lot of friends because he thinks so differently than a lot of kids around him.He thinks so differently from you or I. You know how autistics obsess? Zachary’s thing is letters, and I think that is the cutest thing ever, but to other 8-year-olds... it’s hard for them to understand.
QUESTION: What do you want people to know about autistic people?ANSWER: My aunt and uncle are very proactive. When they found out Zachary was autistic, they did everything in their power to see that despite his autism he could lead the most normal life possible.They’ve taken him to different classes; therapists have come to the house. Now he goes to public school.It’s not true for all autistic kids, but it’s worked for Zachary. They put him on a special diet: no gluten.So, between the therapy and the diet, the results have been remarkable. When he was diagnosed, he didn’t speak much; he was very antisocial.Now Zachary will run up and kiss you. Now he’s more affectionate than an average child.
