ATHLETE PROFILE: Laura Snider

Home: Saratoga Springs, NY Age: 40 Family: Two sons, ages 13 & 15, and a daughter, age 11 Occupation: Clinical pharmacist Primary Sports: Swimming, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing

A fighting spirit is a winning spirit

by Laura Clark

It is one thing to embark on a fitness program to stay in shape; it is quite another matter when that regime literally ends up saving your life. That is exactly what happened to Laura Snider. Like many women, she was attracted to running as a no-frills method of weight maintenance. She discovered, however, that she really enjoyed the sport. Enough, in fact, for her to become the only female member of the Albany College of Pharmacy's cross-country team. This occurred in the 1980s when sports programs for women were just beginning to come into their own. Laura's tenacity and enthusiasm was catching on and by her sophomore year she had recruited enough friends to form a female team.

Later, after the usual interruptions for child rearing duties Laura resumed serious training, this time concentrating on triathlons. She found her niche in the longer events and began marathon training with the eventual goal of completing an Ironman. She completed 12 marathons over a four-year period.

On the morning of Dec. 1, 1996, a day that would forever change the direction of her life, she ran 20 miles with three of her closest running friends. She had planned to spend the rest of the day making preparations to set up housekeeping apart from her husband. Her husband, unfortunately, had other plans. In an act of domestic violence, he drove their car head-on into a large tree, deliberately aiming the vehicle so that Laura, in the passenger seat, would receive the main force of the impact. There was no passenger airbag. She later learned that a crash into an unyielding object, at the car's speed of 50 miles per hour, was nearly 100 percent fatal.

After the last rites were bestowed upon her, Laura was rushed by helicopter to a trauma center, where she received over the course of several days 32 pints of blood and 44 hours of surgery. Prior to her medevac to Syracuse, her brother informed the doctors "Of course, she'll be OK – she's a marathon runner." This simple statement literally saved Laura's life; the doctors realized that she was not normally a heavy person and that her larger appearance was due to bloating from serious internal injuries.

Laura and Pat at the Vermont City Marathon. Her first post-crash marathon.

Laura had more than 100 broken bones and fractures; only her right arm and both shoulders remained undamaged. While doctors predicted at first that she would not live, and later that she would never walk again, Laura, who describes herself as "hard-headed and stubborn," took encouragement from the simple fact that she had "survived" against such impossible odds. And, as the luck of the draw would have it, she was assigned a sports orthopedist who decided against immediate amputation of her right leg and left arm. He was also instrumental in steering the healing to make athletic pursuits possible.

Even now, Laura believes that she would not be alive today if she were not a marathoner. She says, "I survived because of the resilience and strength that marathon training provided. That solid base (plus a few miracles, I believe) not only gave me my life back but also gave it back to me whole." Running marathons gave her an indescribable amount of mental strength. Fellow runners know that deep-down push, that mile-20 attitude. She adds, "These same thought processes were the driving force behind my sanity."

Laura was able to take the determination, stamina and mental tenacity she had learned from her sport and apply it to the task at hand. She needed to remain strong and confident for the sake of her three young children, and at the same time heal herself both physically and mentally. An injured athlete is generally a grumpy person, suffering withdrawal symptoms and not quite able to find the same fulfillment in a substitute activity — Laura was no exception.

While maintaining a confident attitude in front of her children, she recalls, "I would cry each Sunday when runners would speed past my window in pursuit of their weekly long run." Still, she kept the faith and two years later, after numerous surgeries and bone grafting procedures, she was given the go-ahead to begin running, albeit with bones in her legs that are "basically all metal."

That day, with new shoes and a quarter mile under her belt, she was at a worse level than an out-of-shape beginner, having not used her right foot or ankle in over 20 months. She was both relieved and ecstatic, yet in excruciating pain, longing for the day when she could run a mile in relative comfort: "My short-term goals were no longer set in terms of logging miles but in terms of surviving bouts of pain or frustration." Although Laura is no longer self-conscious about wearing athletic clothing that reveals her scars, she experiences more than the usual runner's aches and pains. But now she perceives this additional discomfort as normal for her.

Laura's children and significant other, Patterson, are proud of her accomplishments, and share their encouragement either by accompanying her or being there at the finish line. In December 2001, many others were to learn of her accomplishments. Unbeknown to Laura, Pat and her sister had nominated her to be a torchbearer in the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Torch Relay, as an example to athletes around the world. She was selected, and carried the torch in Saratoga Springs. Describing the experience as one of the highlights of her life, Laura said she "felt like a celebrity … very proud and very honored." As well she should have. Taking the torch from Queensbury's Molly McMaster [Athlete Profile, November 2000], she represented all of us who have fought to overcome whatever obstacles life dishes out.

In spite of her celebrity status, Laura sounds just like any other athlete when discussing her training goals. Concentrating at first on building her endurance, Laura decided to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She refused to use her physical problems as an excuse to request a time qualification waiver, and qualified at the 2001 Chicago Marathon with a time of 3 hours, 53 minutes (only 23 minutes slower than her best time before the accident). Pat ran alongside her at the 2002 Boston Marathon, which she described as her "most meaningful, yet worst race ever." Still plagued by a weakened immune system as a post-crash complication, Laura faced race day not only with the usual case of pre-race jitters, but also with bronchitis complicated by exercise-induced asthma. Yet how could she give up the dream that had sustained her through many long training miles? Laughing after the fact, Laura recalls that "everything that could go wrong, did go wrong." By mile eight, she knew she was in trouble, adding blisters and a rebelling stomach to her aliments. Still, she persevered, trying to hide her discomfort from Pat, finishing Boston in her worst marathon "time" ever, 4 hours, 17 minutes, which, for many, is a personal best.

Today, Laura is busy being a mother of three, a full-time pharmacist and training for the Twin Cities Marathon in Minnesota. She is a strong believer in what she terms a "crescendo effect" philosophy, gradually taking small steps to achieve one goal and then using that achievement to reach toward a still larger goal. She is considering tackling an ultramarathon – the next step beyond the marathon.

Laura is encouraged that her experience has helped other athletes put their own lives in perspective. She says, "Though there is a chance that bone infections could return, I have a lot to be thankful for. Running strengthened and shaped me as a person, and a mother, into a happy, healthy survivor with a thirst for life."

Laura Clark (sar_clark@sals.edu), an avid trail runner, snowshoer and cross-country skier, is a children and young adult's librarian at the Saratoga Springs Public Library.