Devann Murphy, past winner of the Boston, New York and Vermont city marathons in women’s handcycle, is on a mission to complete 100 5Ks in 100 days. She passed the halfway point of her challenge last weekend.
Murphy, who lives in Keeseville, N.Y., was inspired after watching the documentary Iron Cowboy, which follows James Lawrence as he completes 50 Ironman races — 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, 26.2-mile run — in 50 days.
She started her own challenge to prove she could finish. Murphy found sharing her progress online has given her a new platform to raise awareness around accessibility, adaptive sports and the importance of exercise.
She completes many of her 5K distances on a handcycle, but she’s checked off some days with a 5K kayak trip or a hike. Day 1 of her challenge was a Spartan race.
“It’s just morphed from ‘I’m doing it because I can’ to ‘I’m doing it because I want other people to realize they can,’ ” she said.
Murphy, 42, had pediatric bone cancer and a femur transplant about 30 years ago. Through her course of treatment, she lost function in her right leg.
On Monday, day 52 of Murphy’s challenge, she was joined by Kelly Brush and members of the Kelly Brush foundation for a 5K along Lake Champlain in Burlington.
Brush is a Middlebury College alumna who had a severe spinal cord injury while skiing in 2006. It left her paralyzed, but she relearned how to ski with adaptive equipment. Her foundation now provides grants to others with spinal cord injuries so they can purchase their own adaptive sports equipment.
“We have alignments in our missions,” Edie Perkins, executive director of the Kelly Brush Foundation, said of Murphy. “We believe and we know that people with disabilities are capable of so much.”
Perkins said there are high costs related to disability and spinal cord injury that health insurance does not cover. Organizations like the Kelly Brush Foundation and IM ABLE, where Murphy is an ambassador, fund equipment such as handcycles because insurance won’t.
“It’s deemed a luxury,” Murphy said. “But if you’re not active, it’s very hard to stay healthy.”
Brush said basic handcycles can cost around $2,500, but race-ready equipment can cost upward of $6,000 to $8,000. Murphy’s handcycle cost around $17,000.
Murphy said the pandemic has actually made some aspects of daily life more accessible: Social distancing requirements made some spaces easier to navigate in a wheelchair, particularly in places like restaurants that are often packed too tightly to get through.
“People with disabilities are basically trying to survive an able-bodied world,” Murphy said. “What if we made it so they could just thrive in just the world?”