14_Run Patti Run

At a young and tender age, Patti Wilson was told by her doctor that she was an epileptic. Her father, Jim Wilson, is a morning jogger. One day she smiled through her braces¹ and said, "Daddy what I'd really love to do is run with you every day, but I'm afraid I'll have a seizure²."
Her father told her, "If you do, I know how to handle it, so let's start running!"

That's just what they did every day. It was a wonderful experience for them to share and there were no seizures³ at all while she was running. After a few weeks, she told her father, "Daddy, what I'd really love to do is break the world's long-distance running record for women."

Her father checked the Guiness Book of World Records and found that the farthest any woman had run was 80 miles. As a freshman⁴ in high school, Patti announced, "I'm going to run from Orange County up to San Francisco." (A distance of 400 miles.) "As a sophomore⁵," she went on, "I'm going to run to Portland, Oregon." (Over 1500 miles.) "As a junior I'll run to St. Louis." (About 2000 miles) "As a senior I'll run to the White House." (More than 3000 miles away.)

In view of her handicap, Patti was as ambitious as she was enthusiastic, but she said she looked at the handicap of being an epileptic as simply "an inconvenience." She focused not on what she had lost, but on what she had left.

That year, she completed her run to San Francisco wearing a T-shirt that read, "I Love Epileptics." Her dad ran every mile at her side, and her mom, a nurse, followed in a motor home behind them in case anything went wrong.

In her sophomore year, Patti's classmates got behind her. They built a giant poster that read, "Run, Patti, Run!" (This has since become her motto and the title of a book she has written.) On her second marathon, en route to Portland, she fractured a bone in her foot. A doctor told her she had to stop her run. He said, "I've got to put a cast on your ankle so that you don't sustain permanent damage."

"Doc, you don't understand," she said. "This isn't just a whim⁶ of mine, it's a magnificent obsession⁷! I'm not just doing it for me, I'm doing it to break the chains on the brains that limit so many others. Isn't there a way I can keep running?" He gave her one option. He could wrap it in adhesive⁸ instead of putting it in a cast. He warned her that it would be incredibly painful, and he told her, "It will blister⁹." She told the doctor to wrap it up.

She finished the run to Portland, completing her last mile with the governor of Oregon. You may have seen the headlines: "Super Runner, Patti Wilson Ends Marathon For Epilepsy On Her 17th Birthday."

After four months of almost continuous running from West Coast to the East Coast, Patti arrived in Washington and shook the hand of the President of United States. She told him, "I wanted people to know that epileptics are normal human beings with normal lives."

I told this story at one of my seminars not long ago, and afterward¹⁰ a big teary-eyed man came up to me, stuck out his big meaty hand and said, "Mark, my name is Jim Wilson. You were talking about my daughter, Patti." Because of her noble efforts, he told me, enough money had been raised to open up 19 multi-million-dollar epileptic centers around the country.

If Patti Wilson can do so much with so little, what can you do to outperform yourself in a state of total wellness?

1 braces   

n.吊带，背带；托架( brace的名词复数 )；箍子；括弧；（儿童）牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来

参考例句：

• The table is shaky because the braces are loose. 这张桌子摇摇晃晃，因为支架全松了。
• You don't need braces if you're wearing a belt! 要系腰带，就用不着吊带了。

2 seizure   

n.没收；占有；抵押

参考例句：

• The seizure of contraband is made by customs.那些走私品是被海关没收的。
• The courts ordered the seizure of all her property.法院下令查封她所有的财产。

3 seizures   

n.起获( seizure的名词复数 )；没收；充公；起获的赃物

参考例句：

• Seizures of illicit drugs have increased by 30% this year. 今年违禁药品的扣押增长了30%。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Other causes of unconsciousness predisposing to aspiration lung abscess are convulsive seizures. 造成吸入性肺脓肿昏迷的其他原因，有惊厥发作。 来自辞典例句

4 freshman   

n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女)

参考例句：

• Jack decided to live in during his freshman year at college.杰克决定大一时住校。
• He is a freshman in the show business.他在演艺界是一名新手。

5 sophomore   

n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的

参考例句：

• He is in his sophomore year.他在读二年级。
• I'm a college sophomore majoring in English.我是一名英语专业的大二学生。

6 whim   

n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想

参考例句：

• I bought the encyclopedia on a whim.我凭一时的兴致买了这本百科全书。
• He had a sudden whim to go sailing today.今天他突然想要去航海。

7 obsession   

n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感)

参考例句：

• I was suffering from obsession that my career would be ended.那时的我陷入了我的事业有可能就此终止的困扰当中。
• She would try to forget her obsession with Christopher.她会努力忘记对克里斯托弗的迷恋。

8 adhesive   

n.粘合剂；adj.可粘着的，粘性的

参考例句：

• You'll need a strong adhesive to mend that chair. 你需要一种粘性很强的东西来修理那把椅子。
• Would you give me an adhesive stamp?请给我一枚带胶邮票好吗？

9 blister   

n.水疱；(油漆等的)气泡；v.(使)起泡

参考例句：

• I got a huge blister on my foot and I couldn't run any farther.我脚上长了一个大水泡，没办法继续跑。
• I have a blister on my heel because my shoe is too tight.鞋子太紧了，我脚后跟起了个泡。

10 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。