Competing in marathons can be a difficult way to pass your time but recently this task no longer seems quite so monumental. Last winter, my mother saw an advertisement in a local newspaper that was asking for runners and walkers to join the first ever Providence Ronald McDonald House (PRMH) Running Club. I wasn’t sure how I would fit in this group, but I attended the initial meeting and was hooked. The PRMH Running Club is designed to...

Impossible Is Nothing Motivational Speaking Motivational Speaking My left foot serves as my two hands. It has allowed me to earn a college degree, work as a journalist, complete over 40 marathons, and now begin motivational speaking. I truly believe that I have a story that can be used to motivate the able-bodied and the disabled, young and old, and just about anyone who will listen. When I started motivational speaking I began for one...

This past Sunday I headed off to the Big Apple to compete in the 2007 ING New York City Marathon. Because I had just completed a marathon 15 days earlier I had no idea how my body was going to react to doing another 26.2 miles again so soon, but I went out there with a positive attitude and gave it my all. Running marathons in New York and Boston are so different than running marathons in other places. Here in Rhode Island you are lucky if...

Last Saturday morning, I ventured out to Newport, to compete in the 2007 America Insurance Breakers Marathon. I felt well prepared for this 26.2 mile race and I was rearing to go. At the request of the race director I started the marathon two hours earlier than the others at 6 a.m. Starting so early the roads were still slick with the soaking rains of the night before. This made the first few miles really slippery and took away from my...

Students who work weekends hold a variety of jobs: running the cash register at a convenience store or the concession stand in a movie theater, stocking shelves in a department store or a supermarket, working in the kitchen in a fast food restaurant or the daycare at the local fitness club. Nate Tompkins ’06 of Bristol, Rhode Island. Champlain’s Nate Tompkins ’06 helps Jason Pisano train for wheelchair marathons. “I’m the way he...