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He is a roll model and inspiration

(This is Part 2 of a column that began last Saturday)

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“Can I do this?” Alvin Matthews thought to himself, worry pumping through his veins, at the starting line of the 2016 Los Angeles Marathon.

A veteran of 20 previous marathons, including frigid treks at Antarctica and the North Pole, these were not normal pre-race jitters for the 44-year-old Ventura native.

The reason for Alvin’s apprehension was because this was his first post-accident marathon. Two years ago, he fell three stories and suffered a “catastrophic” spinal cord injury that left him in a wheelchair with limited use of his arms and hands.

Reaching the L.A. Marathon starting line on Feb. 14 required a Herculean effort by Alvin. It also required a village of doctors and rehabilitation therapists, family members and friends, and Team NutriBullet members who bought him an $8,000 state-of-the-art three-wheeled recumbent handcycle.

Two more vital benefactors were Mike Pedersen, a 3:30 marathoner and member of the Ventura Running Tribe club, and Orange County tri-athlete Brain Dao. They volunteered to escort Alvin – and provide energy drinks and gels; apply moleskin on hand blisters; and much more – along the marathon course.

On the way to the staging area, Alvin rolled through a human “Tunnel of Love” comprised of nearly 100 well-wishers. “The outpouring of emotions was overwhelming,” Mike recalls. It proved a mere sprinkle compared to the emotional deluge in the 26.2 miles ahead.

At 6:32 a.m., the starting horn blared for the wheelchair and handcycle racers.

At Mile 4, on a steep uphill leading to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the chain slipped off Alvin’s handcycle. As Mike and Brian fixed it, the able-bodied runners who had started 15 minutes behind now caught up.

For the remainder of the marathon, Alvin would be in heavy traffic – and wonderfully so. Instead of a hindrance, it was a blessing. Instead of glares for having to weave around Alvin, the runners offered cheers.

“Nobody ever got upset,” shares Mike. “People would all say, ‘You got this!’ ‘Good job, brother!’ ‘Way to go, man!’ I’m not talking tens of times, even hundreds of times, but easily a thousand voices of encouragement throughout the morning.”

Indeed, the sometimes-mean city streets became a “Tunnel of Love” comprised of runners and spectators, police officers and firemen, race officials and volunteers.

So appreciative was Alvin that he kept giving high-fives as thanks, even though this cost him momentum and required difficult effort to get his hands slipped back into the chest-high “pedals” each time.

“The support from everyone was amazing,” Alvin says, adding twice more for emphasis: “Amazing, amazing!

“Before race I was worried, ‘Can I do this?’ and didn’t want to let myself down. But as the race went on, I knew I couldn’t let down all these people who were supporting me.”

While the cheers warmed his heart, Alvin’s body temperature was at constant risk of overheating because paralysis has robbed his ability to sweat. Out of necessity, Mike and Brian doused him with water every mile until Mile 23 when a steady downhill to the finish line allowed the competitor in bib No. 307 to pull away from his two-man entourage.

Magically, wonderfully, unexpectedly, Alvin soon gained two new escorts when Chris Pryor and Roge Mueller sneaked onto the course pedaling beach cruisers. Together, the three boyhood friends rolled the final two miles and through the finish chute as the race clock read 5 hours, 34 minutes.

In a photo with the finisher’s medal proudly draped around his neck, a neck once shattered and the reason he is laying supine in a racing handcycle, Alvin’s smile is beatific. It is the joyous smile of a boy in a Matterhorn sled at Disneyland for the first time. A smile of triumph, not tragedy.

“My accident has brought me closer to my mom and my brother,” Alvin shares. “It has given me new friends. There is so much bad stuff in the world, but I’ve found there is also so much good. So many people have come out of the woodwork to help me, even strangers and anonymous angels.

“They have all helped me realize I still have a great life.”

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Check out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”

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