Tinley Park couple run the race of their lives
 

By Shonda Talerico

There are couples who pray together and couples who play together and even couples who train together.

But what makes Lynn and Jamie Parks unique is that Jamie is a competitive runner and Lynn is not only his coach, she's his running partner - he
pushes her in her wheelchair.

They are the only wheelchair couple in all the races they've competed in, Jamie says. Today they will run their longest one, the LaSalle Banks Chicago Marathon.

This is the first - and last marathon the Tinley Park couple will take part in. (Jamie's note: At the time, we didn't think we'd ever do another one. But we did the 1997 Chicago Marathon, too.)

"This is the longest for the rest of our lives," Jamie, 34, says. He explains that the intense marathon training - a 12 week training program that builds runners up to a peak of 22 miles - takes a lot out of him, but adds they will compete in local races.

'It's a test for me and him both," Lynn, 34, says. "It's the ultimate of all the races we've done so far. We just want to see if we can do it."

Since 1991 they've competed in 23 races throughout the South and Southwest Suburbs and Chicagoland area. (Jamie's note: This was as of 10/96)

They placed seventh in the Kick Asphalt 5K Run in Chicago Heights in 1995; seventh last year and third this year in the Orland Township-Orland Park 4K Run and 59th of 696 in the Distance Classic in Chicago.

"It's great because we like to be together a lot. We don't really see much of each other and it's our time together," Lynn says.

Jamie laughs. "I asked her to be my partner three years before we married and we still got married. She likes to be a coach, sometimes when I don't want her to. She'll say, 'Come on! Move it! Let's go!' when I don't want to. On some of the shorter runs she holds a stopwatch. It's a great way for us to spend more time together."

They train daily, traveling the different forest preserve trails in the area. Members of Eagle Rock Community Church in Orland Park, their motto comes from Matthew 19:26: 'With God, all things are possible.'

The couple have overcome a lot of hurdles to get to this point. Lynn, who grew up in Flossmoor, and Jamie, who grew up in Orland Park and Tinley Park, met at a party in 1985.

"It was a whirlwind romance. Like a novel. I was Fabio, I think,' Jamie jokes.

Two months later Jamie asked Lynn to marry him. "I said something really hokey like 'Make me the happiest man in the world.' She knew I was going to ask her so she laughed and said no." (Jamie's note: Then she said yes immediately afterward)

Lynn wanted to wait to get married until she graduated from college, so they set the date for Oct. 10, 1987.

Five months before the wedding the car Lynn was a passenger in was struck in the passenger side door at 183rd Street and Harlem Avenue in Tinley Park.

Lynn broke most of the bones in her upper body, had a collapsed lung and lacerated liver and suffered a severe head injury that put her into a coma for more than two weeks. Seven months later she started talking and had to slowly relearn how to perform a lot of everyday activities.

"Did it bring us closer? I don't know how much closer we could have been," Jamie says.

We had to spend a lot of time together at the Rehabilitation Institute in Chicago, and I pretty much blew off my family for a while. My life was seeing Lynn.

"We were really close before the accident and there was certainly nothing that would have pushed me away. I never had any thoughts of leaving, no doubts. I know if the roles were reversed she would have done it for me," Jamie says.

Lynn was transferred to Columbia Olympia Fields Osteopathic Hospital and Medical Center, which was sponsoring a 10K race. A nurse told Jamie, who had been a runner since 1984, about the race and he ran it by himself.

Meanwhile, the wedding was postponed because Lynn wanted to walk down the aisle on her own. She was going through occupational, physical, speech and massage therapy to try and walk again.

"For her to walk down the aisle was for her well-being and self-esteem. She works really hard at her therapy. She was in a coma and semi-comatose and for a long time she couldn't do anything," Jamie says.

A couple of years later, Jamie remembers hearing about a Boston marathon runner who pushed his son in a specially-made wheelchair, and decided to ask Lynn to be his running partner.

"It was just a 'Hey, let's try this and see how it goes,'" Jamie recalls. It was a one mile course, or 16 laps, and "we survived." (Jamie's note: The writer got her facts mixed up a bit here. We train on a one-mile loop course through our neighborhood, but our first race was the Heart & Sole 10K at Olympia Fields Hospital)

Three years and five races later, Jamie and Lynn married.

"We planned the wedding a couple of other times but put it off because she wanted to get a little bit better. She did walk with her dad on one side and her brother on the other," Jamie says.

And they ran. And ran. And ran. This year the Parkses completed 10 races, with the marathon being the 11th.

"We've set our own personal record and we took third place overall in the race in May (Orland Township-Orland Park 4K Run)," Jamie says.

This year also brought a "little accident," Jamie says. In their first Chicago race they encountered a drawbridge.

"On bridges there's usually a gap of about six to eight inches and while we're running we'd pop a wheelie so the back wheels would go over the gap and the front wheels won't get stuck. But for this one I saw it at the last minute," Jamie says.

"Luckily I was strapped in," Lynn says. "Now I make sure he straps me in for all the races."

During the races Lynn and Jamie have never seen anyone else with a wheelchair, "but I did see strollers and I've seen dogs, but being a mailman I try to stay away from dogs." Jamie is a letter carrier at the Lansing Post Office.

"I always call ahead to make sure we can do it (enter a wheelchair in the race) and for the marathon we'll start with the wheelchair athletes, who get a 5-minute head start. We've never done that, so it should be interesting.

"I really enjoy running and I'm excited. But I am a little nervous, there's a little pressure," Jamie says.

"Yes, I'm looking forward to it," Lynn says. "I hope he runs real well for the race."