Jarryd Wallace came home from church on a springtime Sunday in 2008 to an afternoon any runner would find inviting, especially a middle-distance high school state champion like him who was passionate about his sport.
Wallace laced up his shoes and took off into the sunlight, only to feel the pain that had long nestled in his right leg gripping tighter than ever, forcing him to stop.
Back in his bedroom, he threw a pillow at a poster on the wall that declared, "Life is good."
He then went to a nearby track, determined to run 100 meters. He quickly stumbled. Rising to his feet, he hobbled a bit and fell again. When his arbitrary finish line finally arrived, he collapsed in agony, weeping and yelling at the sky.
Two years later, on June 22, 2010, the flesh and blood that comprised Wallace's deteriorating lower right leg, in which an ailment known as compartment syndrome had caused most of the muscle to die, was replaced by carbon fiber.
Soon after Wallace lost his leg, he slowly covered 50 meters up and back, twice, while being watched by a few attentive observers. Then he took off, loping away on his own. After five minutes, he paused and laughed at the sheer joy of running without pain for the first time since, seemingly, forever.
"This is too cool," he told himself.
Amputation cruelly ended the promising career of the able-bodied distance racer that Wallace was while simultaneously creating the prosthesis-wearing sprinter that he has become.
Just a year and a half removed from his first, tentative moments of testing his prosthesis, Wallace is now challenging notions of how long those who lose a limb need before competing at a high level. In his third meet — at the Parapan American Games, a Paralympics version of the Pan American Games — he won a gold medal in the 100-meter dash for single, below-the-knee amputees. The result established him as a contender to make the 2012 Paralympics in London in August.
There will be plenty of competition to make the national team, but Wallace's potential to improve is vast, said Cathy Sellers, director of high performance for United States Paralympics Track and Field. The trials begin June 29, and the top three finishers in the 100 will qualify for the Paralympics.
"I don't think he's even close" to reaching his full potential, said Sellers, who has been impressed by Wallace's natural running gait.
Francois Van Der Watt, the director of the prosthetics manufacturer Ossur, which fits athletes, said that Wallace "can be as good as he wants to be."
Early in 2010, the latest in a phalanx of physicians to treat Wallace gave him some sobering news: "You've got an 80-year-old leg on a 20-year-old body." Its removal was a matter of when, not if, he was informed.
The leg had been ravaged by compartment syndrome, in which swelling occurs within groupings of muscles, nerves and blood vessels in a leg or arm, impeding blood flow. (The former middle-distance world champion Mary Decker Slaney was affected by the ailment.)
Wallace decided on amputation. He had futilely sought every other conceivable solution, including nearly a dozen operations and various contraptions, some with pins and screws in the affected area.
That same day, Wallace showed his parents a Web site that listed Paralympic medalists and record-holders. "I want my name to be next to theirs," he said.
Soon after, Wallace sent an unsolicited e-mail to Sellers, saying he was destined to compete for the 2012 Paralympics team.
Sellers responded politely, wishing him well and warning that the road was long and the adjustment process difficult. Implicit was the message that even if he was talented enough to someday make the team, maybe 2016 was a more realistic goal.
"Nobody had the nerve to say that to my face," Wallace said of the possibility that he may have been overestimating his ability. "I guarantee you they were thinking it."
Through Facebook, Wallace contacted elite disabled athletes like David Prince, who had lost a leg in a motorcycle accident. At their first meeting, when Wallace told him all of the things he had been through in an attempt to fix his leg, Prince joked, "You should just lop it off."
Wallace responded, "That's what I plan to do."
Informing friends and family of his intentions invariably triggered tears — from them. Wallace was too focused on running again to be emotional.
His parents — Jeff, the longtime women's tennis coach at the University of Georgia, and Sabina, a former track standout at Georgia who still races competitively despite her own, milder complications from compartment syndrome — had taken to praying over him. Before he was wheeled into the operating room, Wallace turned comforter by praying over them.
Doctors told him that the soonest an amputee could expect to walk after having a limb removed was six weeks. Wallace approached that timeline as if it was his first race. He lost, by one day.
He was advised that it would require four to six months before he would be able to run, partly because he would need to find an ideal prosthesis. Wallace quickly found a match, and he went on his exultant jog within three months of his final surgery.
"He is way, way above the average recovery" period, said his coach, Ross Ridgewell, who as a track standout at Georgia helped recruit Wallace to the university. (Georgia honored its scholarship offer to him.)
"Everybody is amazed he would come from amputation to be able to run competitively so quickly," Ridgewell said.
Less than a year had passed when Wallace entered his first meet. Disappointed — annoyed, even — that there were no races longer than 400 meters for the disabled, he opted for the 100 and 200, figuring that the learning curve for a onetime cross-country runner would be shorter in the sprints.
Having never used a starting block, Wallace equated the strange sensation of settling into one at the race's start to being naked. Terrence Trammell, a two-time Olympic silver medalist hurdler, tutored him in the art of exploding out of it.
Wallace learned quickly. At the Parapans, his third event, he found himself in the lead by two strides after 15 meters. He hit the line first in 11.31 seconds, almost six-tenths of a second faster than his previous best.
More remarkably, Wallace had scaled back his training because of discomfort in the left leg, a lingering symptom of his compartment syndrome.
Wallace has given no thought to quitting. With guidance from the training and sports medicine staff at Georgia, along with dry-needle treatment that is similar to acupuncture, he said he believed his left leg could remain healthy enough for him to enjoy an extended career.
Dr. William Reisman, who researches compartment syndrome and is affiliated with the Emory University School of Medicine's department of orthopedics, expressed concern about the stress that the running could be placing on Wallace's left leg.
Asked if Wallace was putting himself at risk by continuing to compete, Reisman, who has not treated him, said, "I would be very careful about that."
Wallace said he would accept whatever lies ahead, even if it meant the loss of his other leg. He is living in the moment — carrying the gold medal around in his backpack, trying (and failing) to secure a date with the young woman who awarded it to him, making plans to campaign for longer-distance races for the disabled.
"Running," he said, "is in my blood."
How efficiently the blood in his surviving leg flows will help determine how long he remains at it.
A runner makes a surprisingly quick return.
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