Running for two lives

Destry Roper is running for two lives. Her mother’s and her own.

Destry’s mom was Sandi Nelson, a fixture at Wahkiakum sporting events. Destry can still hear her mom yelling, “Go Mules!” even though Sandi has been gone for nearly three years.

Sandi and her husband, John, lived on the Island raising beef cows and their two girls, Destry and Sheena. Sandi managed the fair for years, was involved in 4H and FFA. She loved to sew.

And she liked to smoke. She quit almost two years to the day before she died, but it caught up with her anyway.

“Her lungs were bad,” Destry said. Sandi had developed COPD. She’d been diagnosed enough times with pneumonia and sent to the hospital that it had become routine, so the last visit in December of 2010 came as a real shock when Nelson’s organs began to shut down one by one.

“It was really hard,” said Roper, “it happened so suddenly.”

Born and raised in Cathlamet, Destry graduated from Wahkiakum High School in 1999. She was an active student, playing on the basketball team, and running for the cross country and track teams. She continued her studies and her training at Clark College in Vancouver, where she competed for a couple championship teams in track and field. She won a scholarship to Warner Pacific but because of stress fractures in both her legs due to the intense workouts in track, she was forced to slow down.

She took a break from school and got a job at a pizza parlor. It was there she met the man who would become her husband and running partner. They had a baby girl, Zoe, now seven and a little boy, Grayson, now a little over three. These days Destry has a photography business and is a caregiver in her own home.

Ultimately, it took four years for the three stress fractures in one leg and the two in the other to completely heal. Having borne two babies, and out of shape, Roper started to run again. She competed in duathlons and triathlons. Her mom was at her first triathlon.

“I swear I could hear her cheering while I was underwater,” said Roper. “She was so supportive of us.”

Now she runs for her mom.

“If she can’t run,” said Roper, “I’ll run for her.”

When she completed the local Great White Tail Run last year, she made a commitment to run the next 365 days without taking a single day off, in honor of her mom.

She ran the race again this year, winning the women’s 10K division with a time of 50:34. She’s still running, having extended her goal to 500 days.

“People take notice when you do something extraordinary,” she said.

Destry has a lot of support from her husband and she runs with the Rebound Physical Therapy Team, a supportive group of people who are good about keeping her healthy. Matt Walsh, a physical therapist who works with Olympians, the US Ski Team and other runners is part of the crew.

Destry takes frequent ice and aspirin baths and has dealt with a number of issues including hip pain, problems with her IT band, needing cortisone shots in the knee, and a heart that falls out of rhythm. One day she was sick with salmonella poisoning. She had a fever of 103, she was peeing blood and still she ran.

“You can do anything, she said, if you set your mind to it."

She does strength training and Crossfit bootcamp training.

“You can’t just run, you have to keep yourself strong," she said.

She believes that the strength training is what has gotten her through the really hard runs, when she’s hurting.

Destry doesn’t advocate running every day, and she wants people to know that she came into this with a coach and a plan. She runs three miles in the morning and does speed training in the afternoon. She figures she gets in 25-41 miles each week.

She loves to coach. She’s trying to encourage more people to sign up for the Great White Tail Run. She has talked 15 friends into participating next year.

Thoughts of her mom shift to the hope that she might motivate people to be active, to move away from sedentary, unhealthy lives.

“You don’t have to be a superstar runner. Just keep running. Give what you have for that day,” she said.

She just ran a half marathon and is training for another, the ultimate goal being Vancouver USA Marathon next Father’s Day.

This is day 403. Roper is running and she’s thinking about her mom.

“When I get tired,” said Destry, “she gives me angel’s wings.”