Team Humbly Courageous has exciting news. We are taking on the Sydney, Australia Marathon in August! This will be the fifth world major marathon for my husband and me, who run marathons together as a duo team.
With Sydney being the furthest away, it will be our most challenging adventure yet. The travel alone will be a big mountain to conquer. Traveling with a disability adds all kinds of “fun” obstacles into the mix.
We are incredibly excited and honored to have been chosen for such a moment as this.
Perhaps even more exciting than running the Sydney marathon is that I will meet (fingers crossed) and spend time with my Aussie friend Rhi, who also lives with Bethlem Myopathy. If this meeting indeed happens, it will be the first time either of us has ever met someone living with our same disease in person.
I have thought about a meet up like this for most of my life. The chance to spend time with someone “just like me.” I have wondered what it will feel like to walk alongside of someone who walks like me, and who I know totally understands. I imagine it will be an emotional meeting for us and those with us.
With each marathon we have both learned so much, and we are excited for this big adventure ahead.
Chicago was our first marathon together. My husband had done several before we ran together as a duo team. In Chicago, everything was so new to me and a bit overwhelming. The crowds were phenomenal, but I got a little sick from the trapped adrenaline. I had never experienced adrenaline with that intensity before. In the end, it was a favorite marathon, especially because we had family and friends there to see us cross our first finish line together.
New York was meaningful because we got to run that marathon with our oldest son, and our youngest son was at the finish line. It was such an emotional and beautiful day in our lives. Truly priceless.
Boston was my biggest physical test. By the end of that incredible marathon, I had exhausted myself to the point of needing medical attention. Riding in the duo bike is much harder than it seems and is taxing on the body in its own unique way. As miserable as I was, I will never forget those medical angels that surrounded me and the gentle care they provided to me.
Anytime you get the privilege of experiencing human kindness in its purest form is a gift.
Berlin was our first overseas marathon and was not without many difficulties. In many ways, it was our most challenging marathon to date. There were so many little hurdles everywhere to overcome, but we figured it out and learned some valuable life lessons together.
Many would not understand why we even do this. Some have called us crazy; some think it is amazing. Once people take time to listen to our “why,” we have changed some opinions along the way of those who called us crazy.
My husband puts it best when he talks about a young lady who was a spectator at the Chicago marathon. She was in a wheelchair, and he says the look on her face when she saw us run by was like, yeah, I could do that, too.
Impossibilities are just an opportunity to reevaluate and investigate different and unique ways to achieve things.
I always wanted to be an athlete, but my body had other plans. I still have that drive within me to be active and have an “athletic” determination and mindset, which has served me well throughout my life.
Running marathons together is just one example of transforming the impossible to possible.
Until next time …
Amy Shinneman is a former National Ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, disability blogger, freelance writer, wife, and mom of two boys. She is the recipient of the Reporter’s Winter 2025 Ink-Stained Wretch award. You can find her blog at humblycourageous.com and reach her on Instagram @ashinneman.