Okay, welcome to the AdaptX podcast where we have conversations with individuals who are building accessible businesses, advocating for inclusion or excelling in adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities, but share insights to make a more accessible world.
Today, we are joined by Amanda Sandoval and Bernie Treda from the team that organizes the Houston Marathon.
This past month, they celebrated their 10th anniversary of the program, showcasing five categories, wheelchair hand cycle, visually impaired, mobility impaired, and duos.
The field started with 10 athletes in 2014 and grew to over 200 this year.
And we'll discuss how they've had growth year over year in this division and the logistics that they consider when organizing the inclusive race.
Amanda and Bernie, thank you for joining me.
Thank you for having us.
Maybe going back to 2014, when were you both involved at that time?
Yeah.
So what were the initial reservations, maybe the landscape in terms of inclusion and disability was definitely different 10 years ago.
But what were the initial reservations of including athletes with disabilities in a race like the Houston Marathon?
Well, so when I started, I started in 2010 was my first race.
We already had some wheelchairs in the race participating.
And as far as I knew, we didn't have any concerns with the number of people that were interested in participating.
So it wasn't really a question of whether we should or shouldn't.
It was just that was that was the demand at the time.
But we tried to make sure that the streets were good for them to participate in race.
The start line, we have them start.
I believe it started where they were 15 minutes before the elites, and then we eventually became more and more efficient.
And it's 10 minutes before the elites.
So those would be kind of the main ones.
And then we created a path for them at the finish line for them to be able to exit out safely and be able to get back into their day chairs and then be able to follow through the rest of the finish line shoot.
But I don't know if you have anything else to add for any for many years ago. Yeah.
Yeah, I think I think our concerns were just not really knowing how to handle increasing the field safely.
What did you anticipate to be the biggest, biggest safety considerations in terms of that process?
At the start, everybody's packed in so closely and the streets are narrow. And so everybody's starting at the same time is always a concern for the wheelchairs. Of course, for the runners, it's the other runners.
But for the wheelchairs, that's a concern. And then on the course itself turns elites water stops.
The media vehicles trying to pass the slower, which aren't really slow at all, the slower of the wheelchairs that the elites have caught up to.
And then, of course, the finish line, people come screaming into the finish line. And if volunteers or anybody is in the way, that could be an issue. So making sure you're coordinating something in each position.
Do you do any education prior to the event with volunteers and media trucks? So they have an idea of what to expect.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, there's so much conversation with the course committee.
Yeah, so Bernie has several conversations prior to the event and then race weekend. She also holds a very large meeting with the athletes and guides to help educate them on what side of the road to stay on, what to pay attention to.
And then on our end for the organization, as far as our course people, there's a lot of conversations that happen a lot of meetings to just to know they want to know how many are going to be on the course, what their pace times are and stuff like that.
And of course, the pace vehicles are always a concern considering how close they can get to the athletes.
The other thing that we have, which is slightly unique to Houston is bike guides for every wheelchair hand cycle.
And I'm not meaning the wheelchairs like the duos or the people that are in the slower kind of sports chairs. I'm meaning the racing wheelchairs and the fast hand cycles.
They're given a bicycle guide and the bicycle guides go through a training as well with somebody that kind of straddles the course team and the volunteer team.
And they get an extensive training on how to stay out of people's way and how to keep your your person safe.
So they've been given a guide that is kind of a proxy for us yelling at them and keeping them in the right spot.
Yeah, that's a great thing that I think really any local race could implement.
Just having some volunteer bikers to go alongside athletes who either might need some assistance with directionals or who just safety considerations, I guess.
So that that's, I guess, one pretty easy recommendation, I guess, that maybe races could implement.
Yeah, and it's actually really easy to implement as our race has grown. We've always had the concern. Could we get more bike guides?
And they just fall out of the woodwork because for a cyclist to be able to be on a closed course, no traffic, just screaming as fast as they can to some degree with, you know, and crowds cheering because they're because, you know, everybody's out and they feel like they're, you know, doing something special and rewarding and being seen for it.
It's really, really easy to get bicycle guides and they just need a little bit of training.
And then what ends up happening is they form these great friendships and partnerships.
And so year after year, we see the same guides come back and guide the same athletes.
And then they end up training with them throughout the year and attending other races with them.
And so, yeah, I think it's a very easy thing a race can do.
Yeah, did you elicit feedback or insight from the athletes with disabilities in terms of what can make their experience better? What can make their experience safer?
Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. So we send out a participant survey to all participants following the race. And then I know that Bernie also surveys all of our organizations that were involved with and reach out reaches out to the athletes as well.
So, there are quite a few places or ways for them to get back to us on their feedback each year.
1 thing that we're working through in this kind of focus group that I'm a part of is, is the registration platform and the questions that get asked during registration and how that can help the timing companies and the race director better understand.
Their population and so 1 of the things that we've been trying to figure out is, for example, as we try to add more categories, like, if we want to add a neurodivergent category, not all participants who are diagnosed with a neurodivergence want to be recognized in that category.
Some of them just want to be in the regular age group. Some of them would want to win that category.
So it's been like, it's been a tricky balance between expanding categories, but then also having enough participants to fill each category. So you're not winning like a 1 out of 1 category. So I guess my question is, you guys have 5 now. What did you start with? And do you envision more being a part of it?
So, originally we started with wheelchairs that was most prominent and eventually we saw more and more participants that were interested in different divisions.
So, eventually we moved it to include hand cycles, visually impaired, mobility impaired, and then finally the duo groups.
And so we have found that that this is quite a few participants and every year it keeps growing organically and word of mouth keeps having more and more participants come towards the Houston marathon.
We're definitely open to always being inclusive of all those that are interested and doing our best to make sure that we can safely have them all on the course.
We have had some neurodivergent, I would say athletes that have reached out that do join the group.
So that they can have that support at the start and finish line. Yeah, we've definitely had some and none of them have requested to register specifically in a neurodivergent or any other type of intellectual disability type group.
But they have one of the support. So what we've done is we've let them kind of join our, we have a separate corral for the AWD group. And so they've joined us there.
And then we have our own group of volunteers and so we have the volunteers that make sure that they kind of find them after the race and they can even run with a guide if they choose to.
But yeah, and the very first one started because there was a younger person, she's a late teen and her mother approached us and said, she had never done a marathon, never didn't really know anything about it.
Her daughter had signed up and had been training and then they show up and they were like, oh my God, we thought this was going to be like a thousand people and it's like 25,000 people.
And she was completely overwhelmed and so we were like, don't worry, we got her. So yeah, that's kind of actually how it started. But yeah, we're open to it. We just haven't had much desire to expand beyond the five at this point.
Yeah, and it's also like, during the registration process, do you ask participants what accommodations do you need?
So you can anticipate those things beforehand. So you don't have a situation like that where if a team doesn't have as much support as a race like Houston does, and they're trying to run around and do all the race day activities.
And then someone comes and says, wait, I need to be in a smaller group. Like, would you ask for for accommodations or accessibility requirements during the registration process?
So, right now, the registration, it does ask if they want to participate in the athletes with disabilities program gives them the option of different disabilities.
We do have in there once they register, they have to add their guide if they're going to have 1, or if they'd like to request for us to help match them with a guide.
Of course, their estimated finish time, which is always important.
And then emergency contacts, those types of things. And then if at the end, when they finish registering, it does pop up with our, what our email address so that if they have any additional questions, they can email us.
And typically, if someone doesn't fall exactly into 1 of those 5 categories, they will email us with questions.
And then Bernie typically will will jump in and answer those.
Find the help that they might need early assistance.
What does mobility impaired consist of? Do you know, are there like, specific diagnoses that can fit in that? Or is it kind of loose?
We're pretty liberal with our categories. We aren't going to at this point. We don't require somebody to have doctors proof or something like that. But mobility impaired about 95% of them are amputees lower limb amputees.
We have a woman with dwarfism that participates every year and a couple people that have had spinal cord injuries, but that's the very, very large majority is amputees.
Yeah, perfect. Awesome. Can you tell us about maybe the efforts that you've had to take course wise of the physical environment of the course to make it more accessible for wheelchairs? Or do you just already have kind of a fortunate setup?
Yeah, so I'd say this year is probably the best start we've we've had and every year, Bernie and I work with our start line and finish line team to try to make improvements to make it more accessible to make it easier for them.
And what we did this year is we moved the corral from where we normally would have it.
Because we always had the challenges of the sidewalks and the turns for the larger racing wheelchairs and for the hand cycles could be very difficult to make a U turn very quickly, especially sharp turns.
And so this year, we were able to move to a different space, which allowed for a lot more open space and a larger turn for them to be able to get to the start.
Which I felt worked out really well. And kudos to our start line captain as he was able to help he worked through that with us for quite a while trying to figure out, you know, it's hard to figure out where to put different corrals when you have 27,000 people plus.
And and so that start made it a lot easier this year. And then, of course, there's always the quality of the streets in any city that you're running in.
You know, we try to make sure that as many of the potholes and barriers or anything that are along the course, we work with the city directly and try to make sure that's all ready for our participants.
But you're always going to have something that, you know, there's construction on the roads. There are narrow streets and the way that we filter out our start line is kind of like a funnel so that they're able to kind of start out and then they can they can span out pretty quickly to get into the street and take off.
So, I think that that we've come a long way and that the challenges are still there and they're always going to be there for the streets and there's always construction. It's Houston.
And so I do believe that this year was probably the best year we've had as far as a start in the course.
Do you have anything else?
I agree. And it was the smoothest year we've had. But then additionally, one of the things that we do is the day before the race, we have a mandatory athlete meeting. And in that meeting, all athletes with disabilities and their guides attend.
And the bike guides have one right before it. And we go over any potential hazards that are on the course, whether they are all part of the course, like a U-turn or whether it's some sort of construction or something that has popped up, like they added bike lanes in certain parts of the city.
And there are these bumps in the bike lane. They call them armadillos, which is so Texas, but they are a major hazard for a wheelchair.
So we point out things like there's going to be at this point, there's going to be a very sharp U-turn and we will have a sign.
So you're aware of it and your bike guide is aware of it, but you need to be aware of it too. And then there's a very sharp right hand turn at one point and we have a sign. We have a person that stands out there with a sign.
So there are things that we also notify them of for safety and we remind them don't run over people, really obvious things.
Have you had any success partnering with organizations that serve people with disabilities to kind of get their members involved in the event?
Oh, absolutely. That's how we got started. But yes, absolutely.
I, at the point in time that we started this program, I was the director of the Houston chapter of Achilles International, which is a nonprofit that helps people with disabilities stay active.
And that's how we approached the Houston Marathon because quite a few of them wanted to participate, but there wasn't really categories and divisions for them that they felt like they'd be seen.
So that's how we started the program. And so then at that point, it was really the only nonprofit kind of operating in that space.
And since then, there are more nonprofits that have formed and as they form, we snatch them up and say, hey, you know, you want to participate. Wouldn't it be fine? Can't you volunteer?
So, yeah, we get them very involved, whether you like it or not.
Yeah, we had Achilles at our race this past year and we will this spring as well. And we'll have the Boston chapters president on the podcast in a couple of weeks as well, Joe Lamar.
But how do you ensure that the facilities, are there bathrooms that are accessible? Like, what I guess, what are the other, just if someone's organizing a race, what are kind of those smaller details that they should be aware of just in making the whole experience accessible?
Well, definitely the port of cans, we make sure we have ADA port of cans at all the medical stations along the course.
We do have to keep reminding our vendors to drop them in the proper place so that they are accessible for them off of curbs.
And then we have them in the start line car in their corral before they go out.
And also in the Georgia Brown Convention Center where we have our pre and post race.
And then another thing that we do is educate the open field runners also.
We want to make sure that they're aware of these athletes that are on the course and what they should or shouldn't be doing as they're passing each other along the course and make sure that it's well known and that it is communicated.
In our social channels and our athlete guide, our website, those types of places so that people are aware that they need to be on the lookout and be safe.
Our guides have bibs on their back that say, you know, who they're guiding.
A lot of the guides for the blind athletes are tethered, or one of the guides is tethered to the athlete.
So just just kind of some knowledge, I believe is also key to having starting a race with.
Inclusive and trying to make sure everyone's educated.
Yeah, additionally, just some.
Little touches and things that we do, we offer wheelchair and hand cycle drop off for anybody that has wheels. They can drop their wheels off the day before. So we have that mandatory meeting. So they pick up their packets and they go to this meeting.
And they have parking available for that and then they can drop off their wheelchair hand cycle. So the next morning, they don't have to deal with getting it there and figuring that out in the morning. So it's already sitting there waiting for them. And when they come into the convention center.
So we have a pen, a locked pen where we store everything and then we get there.
Me and my 2nd in command Andrew get there at like, 430 in the morning and open this pen and put everything out. So everybody has their their stuff ready for them when they get their 1st thing in the morning. So we call it wheelchair valet.
But we have the opportunity for them to do that and parking with it. We have a dedicated batch of volunteers. So those people can and.
And about 50% of our volunteers are family members. Sometimes those family members aren't even participating anymore and they are still continuing to volunteer.
But we have the these volunteers and so they help everybody do everything that they need at the beginning of the race, getting to the start line, transferring, getting their stuff because we have a dedicated backdrop as well.
Since we actually start before the backdrop opens, or we leave the convention center before the backdrop for the open runners even opens. We have wagons and all kinds of stuff so that they can have the things that they need at the starting line transfer, you know, maybe into their wheelchair hand cycle.
And then we bring their day chair or their regular day leg or whatever it is back to the convention center for their backdrop. So we have all these volunteers doing this and then after the race, they have a volunteer waiting for them so that they can guide them through, get them their ice cream sandwiches and their metals and all their things after the race too.
So having like, uh, adaptive athlete liaison sort of thing is probably another volunteer role that really any race could volunteers. But yeah, yeah, but like having like, you said, someone designated to that population could be an easy thing that a race could have just as they try to accommodate more people with disabilities.
Absolutely.
And another thing in terms of safety, and I don't know how other races work in their medical department, but generally if a person has a medical need and goes to the medical tent, whether it's on course or they're back at their finish line or whatever, usually family friends are not allowed in that medic tent with them.
Because it's just too many people.
There's somebody that tends to be freaking out and we say that if they're an athlete with disability, their guide or family member needs to be there with them because you often have somebody you can have somebody that's nonverbal, somebody that's deaf, somebody that's blind, whatever it is.
And they aren't easy, easily able to communicate. So you need that guide to act as a bit of a translator for them. And so we do say that if they are an athlete with a disability, they are not allowed to be there.
If they have a disability, you need to have their guide or family member in there with them. They should not be in there alone.
Absolutely. Any memorable moments or success stories over the last five to ten years that really stand out to you that kind of encompasses the inclusivity of the race?
Yeah.
I don't know if I have one in particular it stands out, but my favorite part of race day is always athletes with disabilities start.
That's where I start in the morning.
I don't miss it. I love to watch. I love to watch them take off. They're the first athletes to take off our wheelchairs and hand cyclists.
And I don't know. It's a very emotional morning. I mean, you've worked all year to make sure that all of these athletes feel just as special as anyone else on the course and that they're able to participate.
And it's just a really big deal once they're all gone. So once they take off, then the elites and then between the A and B and B and C corrals is when the rest of the athletes take off in between the corrals for safety reasons.
We want to make sure they have plenty of space and time to catch up and take off.
And once they're gone, it's okay. Now it's Bernie's turn to jump out on the course.
I don't know if you know, but Bernie runs the marathon every year.
And so it's just like a really good time for us to just kind of soak in that moment.
Like, okay, we did this. All these athletes are out there. They're on the course.
And it's just a very happy, excited feeling that you've done something to help them get out there.
And for me, every year, that's just my favorite part of the race. And we get Bernie ready. She's getting ready to jump on the course to give her hugs and she takes off.
So, and then the rest is just, you know, and then I jump into the rest of my day. But that's for me, it's the highlight for sure.
You have a particular moment this year was pretty exciting with the 10 year anniversary.
Yeah, one of my memories that sticks is so the national anthem used to be sung in between the start and the elite start.
So, the wheelchairs would start, they'd sing the national anthem and the elites would start that way.
It has something to do with broadcasts, like the broadcast timing or something like that.
But so many of the athletes with disabilities are veterans and they didn't get to see the national anthem being sung.
And the woman that sings the national anthem can't sing it twice because her voice is saved for that.
So, we would sing it ourselves. And I am a terrible, terrible singer.
But we would stand there and the whole group would be singing and sometimes the elites would stop and sometimes they would sing.
And so there was a really cool year where we were singing and all the elites stopped and they were like, where's the flag?
Even when we had a little wavy flag that somebody had on their wheelchair.
And it was just a neat moment where everybody, we just really felt like a cohesive group, badly singing the national anthem.
Yeah, Houston attracts a lot of elites because of the chorus, correct?
Yes, fast and glad.
And now the national anthem is sung right before.
Before the wheelchair takeoff.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Yeah, hopefully. I would love to get out there someday to run with Jacob there.
Seems like it would be a good course for a wheelchair duo.
What are some things that race directors could do outside of maybe some of the things that we've already talked about just to make their events more inclusive or accessible?
If someone doesn't have any athletes with disabilities currently participating in their races or maybe they do, but they're not aware of it.
What are maybe one or two easy steps that they can take in kind of the process of being more inclusive?
Well, you know, Bernie and I kind of talked about this and number one is definitely listen to the athletes.
You know, if we reach out, you know, if anyone reaches out to us and we listen to what their needs are, what suggestions they have, and we want to do everything we can that we can, that we are capable of doing on the city streets.
We definitely want to do that for them. You know, I think.
I think it might be a misconception that they want special treatment or that they require certain things that that maybe other athletes don't. I think they just want to be able to have the accessibility to get where they need to get it.
Have the support that they might need from from us as a team.
Like Bernie said, we can't do this without our volunteers. There's so many great volunteers that help with the race itself. And it's a really special group of volunteers that come in and help these athletes with disabilities that.
And they're so patient with them and so kind and I just think that that's to me, you know, listen to the athletes and having really great volunteers are definitely key.
To having a field, but it is possible and it and just with a little extra work and time into it, it doesn't take too much to be able to get that started. Especially if you're starting out with a smaller field.
But as we've said, we've we started out small and keep getting larger and larger. So it's just we need more and more volunteers.
Do you think there's a limit in terms of how many you could accommodate?
Yeah, I think I think eventually we are going to we're going to hit that. Um, you know, we had.
147 athletes this year, which is a lot. Um, and.
You know, Bernie is Bernie and Andrew are 2 people that have a lot of work ahead of them to to help accommodate and coordinate and match them with with guides.
I do, you know, I know matching them with guides, which Bernie is definitely the expert in that can be difficult, especially if they're really fast.
And we do have a cap on our duo's and our wheelchair and hand cycle divisions.
To make sure that we can safely have them take off at the start and then also along the course as they're so they can be so close to the elite athletes to.
Um, and just make sure they have enough space.
And an area for them to get through the mobility impaired sometimes with their.
Uh, amputations, they tend to oscillate, um, you know, just making sure that there's enough room, but blind athletes with their.
Guides that are tethered to them, you want to have space for people to go around them.
So, um, I think for us, it's just a safety issue and to make sure that they, they are safe and that everyone else in the course is safe as well.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, we, we do everything we can. We have a separate corral and we have.
Ultimately, 3 starts for all of the athletes, but at some point we're.
Literally going to run out of physical space, you know, because 147 athletes, 45 of them were were wheelchairs, but then everybody else that 147 is multiplied by 2 more because you've got guides for each of them either 1 or 2 guides for people.
So that's a lot of human bodies in 1 space all starting at the same time.
And so, um, yeah, at some point, we're going to, we're going to run up against the wall of it. It's just not safe to start that many people at once. And we don't want them starting with the masses, but they become the masses at some point.
So, um, yeah, we, I don't want to think that we'll ever have a cap, but, um.
Yeah, yeah, I wonder if it could be just the addition of a corral and I can't even pretend to understand the logistics of organizing a race with nearly 30000 people. But I wonder if it could just go like, hand cycles and push room and then 5 minute later, do and mobility impairments and then elites, etc.
As it gets bigger, but, um, obviously I have a vested interest in trying to get more duos involved in these races, but it's always easier for people to run around us than it is for us to run around people.
Um, so that's why I like to like to start before or start at the at least start in the front.
It's easy, um, for me to assume that some of this stuff is common knowledge and probably same for you guys as well. It seems like it's so obvious to articulate some of these things, but unless you've been in the space, they might be things that you haven't considered yet. So, uh, just, I guess, maybe encouraging race directors to.
Think through their process, like, if I can't see, could someone navigate everything that I offer if I can't hear, can they navigate like, if they're using a wheelchair, can they get through the whole process?
Um, just as like a thought experiment to see if you have any physical or, uh, cognitive barriers or the way that information is presented. So, um, yeah, I think something too that that's really great about our industry is that.
We share things with each other, you know, we have a lot of conferences where we have the ability to go learn from other races and vice versa. And I think those open communications with other race directors.
With other organizations with the different divisions have the ability to go and learn and.
And see how others are doing it, you know, what's working, what's not, you know, what could be better?
Um, and there's always a thirst of learning more and gaining that knowledge and Bernie and I have both done that, um.
I did visually with different races and had conversations and.
You know, talk to all the different races, including Boston and New York, and, you know, a lot of the majors and, um, and then also, you know.
Races that are closer to our size, so, you know, it is really helpful to have that, um, connection and communication with other races.
And the other thing I would add is there's plenty of races that don't have 20,000 people whose race directors aren't attending big conferences.
But, um, if they have groups like Achilles or angels or any group that is in their area that is wanting to participate, reach out to them.
Many of those people have participated in numerous races and can help the race director say, at least they could articulate what they need if the race director can't understand it.
And that's definitely something that, um, I've done in Houston again with Achilles, like, reaching out to various races.
Like, we, you know, obviously heavily partnered with the Houston Marathon, but there were plenty of other races that people wanted to participate in.
And we would just approach them and say, can we do this? This is this is how, or this is what we need. And they'd be like, I guess. Sure.
So some of it is that they don't even know there's a need and if they know there's a need, they're not quite sure how to get there. So maybe those race directors just need to ask the question of those nonprofits or of those people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like Amanda mentioned that it's essential to listen to the feedback of of the athletes, but there's also the step to getting the athletes.
And sometimes I think they do have to be like directly recruited to a degree because they might assume that the race isn't for them unless they're invited to it just because they've probably been conditioned to assume that there's a lot of environments that aren't suited to them unless they're invited to it.
So maybe it is a concerted effort by a race director to invite an organization like Achilles to participate in their race.
And once you invite them, you better make sure you understand what they need after you do.
So, no, one of my friends participated in Houston last month and he's done a bunch of majors and he said it was the best race he's ever been at.
So you guys are obviously doing something great. So it was good to share the story and just kind of share what you guys have learned over the last 10 years of running, probably one of the most inclusive marathons in the world, maybe.
What are other good examples of inclusive marathons?
Or do you identify other ones that have large adaptive fields?
Well, I guess it all depends because there's variations of it.
So, you know, Boston has and London have huge wheelchair contingencies well beyond what we have.
And there are other races that have much larger blind divisions like CIM used to have a huge like they used to be the blind national championships.
But yeah, as far as all disabilities, I think it's total head count. Again, the majors probably have more than us.
But for a race our size, I think maybe Marine Corps. Yeah.
Might be the only one that's bigger. Yeah, that's when they came to mind.
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's good that they're getting more presence, they're getting more representation and screen time. Obviously, even at the Paralympic level, they're starting to get more televised coverage as well.
So the more that we can demonstrate that they're welcome and successful in races, I hope the more will participate.
So, well, Amanda and Bernie, thanks for taking the time to talk through the process that you guys went through. Hopefully it benefits race directors and people that are passionate about endurance sports to maybe either become a guide or learn to love how supporting someone and their participation can be equally rewarding to PRing individually.
I think for me, it's been incredibly rewarding running with the Hoyts.
Thank you. Thank you for having us. And thank you for all that you're doing to help this field and division and help it grow. We really appreciate it. And I'm sure the athletes do too.
We're always here. People have questions.
We'll include emails and links to the Houston races in the show notes that they can reach out to.
Yeah, come run or roll Houston with us.
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